How To Stop Overthinking? Root Cause, Practical Solutions and Books to Help you (Ep 1)

Welcome to the Mindset Show, I am your host Taksjindal and each week I will bring you an inspiring person or a message to help you develop a strong mindset and good habits. Thanks for spending some time with me today and I hope you enjoy this episode. Let's talk about overthinking. In this episode, we will discuss the main three causes behind overthinking, we will discuss the solutions and also I will recommend you some books that will help you implement those solutions and at the end of the episode, I will also give you an easy to follow daily routine that you can implement in your life from day one to get rid of overthinking. So what is overthinking? According to me, overthinking is our lack of awareness on how to use this brilliant tool which we call mind. For example, someone gives you a spaceship tomorrow. You don't know how to drive a spaceship, you don't know how a spaceship works. So what is the best thing you can do with that spaceship? Take a picture with it and put it on social media. How hilarious is that? You have a spaceship with you which can take you to any part of the solar system but all you can do is take a picture with it. Same thing goes with our mind. We have been given this mind but our education system never taught us how to use this mind or how our mind works. And this is what we will try to cover in this episode through those three main causes that we will discuss in detail. So let's start with the first cause behind overthinking. That is lack of flow state in our life. So what exactly is flow state? When we are busy doing something and we lose sense of time, that is when we are in flow state. For example, if there is a family function in your house, you are busy the whole day making sure the decorations are right, making sure the guests are comfortable. When you are busy doing things, that is when your mind is clear because you are just doing things and that is all that matters to you at that point of time. Similarly, when you were kids, do you remember any point in life as a kid when you were sitting and overthinking? No. Because you were always out there doing something or learning something new. So basically you were always in a flow state when you were a kid and that was one of the main reasons that kids are energetic from morning to night because they don't drain themselves by overthinking. Overthinking drains our energy, it puts us into a negative loop. But as kids, we don't have those negative loops in our lives. So we are just doing things, playing around and learning new things every day. And this is what means by the code that keep your inner child alive. Keep that flow state in you alive. Don't let yourself get drained down by over judging scenarios, over judging situations, over judging people. And how do we keep that flow state in us alive? This is one of the secrets behind all the great world leaders. Winston Churchill, he used to love painting, he used to love writing, and he never gave up on those two things even when he was leading England through the world war. Mahatma Gandhi, he loved walking in nature and he made sure that he walked every day no matter how busy his routine was. Similarly, Bill Gates, he has regular getaways to spend time with himself, to recharge himself by getting into flow state, by thinking and reading books in a cabin in a world. In the same way, we need to try to get into flow states multiple times in a day as well. I know this sounds like we need to keep ourselves busy the whole day. Not exactly. We'll go deep into this in our next two causes. But for now, let's stick with the flow state. So there are two types of flow states, negative flow state and positive flow state. Negative flow state is when you are doing something which won't add value to your life 5 to 10 years down the line. All the pleasurable activities like watching Netflix, gossiping, scrolling Instagram, these are all flow state as well. Because you are losing a track of time, but they are just taking your energy without giving you anything in return. And positive flow state is when you are consuming or creating something which will help you in your life. Example, you are painting every day. That painting might not help you, but your creativity that goes behind that painting will definitely help you to see the world in a different way. When you do activities like these, you are pushing your mind to learn and to experiment. This increases your creativity, self-confidence and clears your mind of all the negativity out there. So the best way to get into positive flow state in your life is by bringing back your childhood hobbies. If you love dancing, then take out 30 minutes to dance every day. If you loved singing, then take out 30 minutes to sing every day. Because you did those things not to get any external rewards, but for internal rewards. Because you felt good while doing them. This 30 minutes will help you bring the positive flow state in your life. The more positive flow states you have during your day, the less you will overthink. I started reading just 30 minutes every day, and now I read at least 2 hours every day. I run for at least 30 minutes every day. These activities recharge me and puts me into positive flow state, making my future and my present better. So remember, the less you are in flow state, the more you will overthink. And the more you are in flow state, the less you will overthink. This brings us to our second cause. So does that mean that we should never think in our life, and we should just keep doing things as they come? No. Cause number two, result oriented thinking rather than solution oriented thinking. result oriented thinking makes you fantasize about your good future, or your bad future, or your bad past, or your pains come back to life. Both are stealing your present from you. Overthinking about your bright future makes you fantasize about your ambitious results that one day you will become rich, you will have a big car, you will have a big house. But you don't know how to get those, leaving you frustrated, leaving you wanting more, leaving you greedy. Overthinking about your scary future makes you fantasize the worst case scenario, what will happen if you fail in that exam, or if your business fails, or if you suddenly lose your job, leaving you scared as you don't know how to avoid that scenario. Similarly overthinking about the past makes us imagine all our past pains and failures, killing all our optimism about our future. So how to silence this mind? Unfortunately, mind can only be silenced through flow state. So does that mean we need to be in the flow state all the time, we need to be working or doing something all the time? No. Once you accept the fact that mind can only be silenced in the flow state, you will realise that we only have two options. We either let the mind take control by making us its slave, by showing us all the tempting future and past results, or we choose to take control of it ourselves, by making our mind do solution-oriented thinking rather than result-oriented thinking. So how do we do this solution-oriented thinking? By giving our mind a problem to solve. Example, I came up with the idea of my Instagram page on a walk, when I gave my mind the problem to help me start my own education system online, my mind helped me come up with the solution to target the audience, write content and find a niche. Similarly, I came up with the idea of my mentorship program on a train journey, when I gave my mind a problem to help me generate revenue from social media without doing advertisements. My mind helped me come up with the solution of setting affordable costs, making my own website and planning teaching material. So the key to get into solution-oriented thinking is by giving our mind a problem to solve whenever we have idle time. This way our focus shifts from the results to the solutions, from our scary future to what we should be doing now to solve our current problems. Example if you are a student, you can ask your mind how to improve your results, your mind will start pointing you to your weak subjects, to your lack of time management, then you can dig deeper by asking your mind how to improve your weak subject, your mind will start pointing you to online courses, YouTube videos, or personal tuitions. Once you have the solutions from your mind, start implementing them, start getting into the flow state. This is the key to stop overthinking. Similarly, if you are a businessman, you could ask your mind what is stopping you from growing your business. Your mind will start pointing you to your weaknesses like lack of capital, lack of knowledge, or lack of labour. Then ask your mind how can you get that knowledge? Your mind will point you to those books, to those people, and online resources to get that knowledge. Start learning and start implementing that knowledge, start getting into flow state. Your brain is a very powerful problem solving machine and very less people use it that way. They let the brain take control and then they try to silence it instead of using it. But now let's get back to our spaceship example. You have the spaceship and now you know how to use your mind. Now if you give your mind a problem and ask your mind to solve the problem on how to fly a spaceship, will your mind solve it for you when you don't know anything about the spaceship? No, and that brings us to our third cause. Cause number three, feeding our mind junk food. The thoughts that our mind generates are just a reflection of the type of information that we feed into our mind. If you are watching too much negative news, your mind will generate thought of the world coming to an end, making you feel like what's the point of working hard and studying. If you are feeding your mind with romantic songs and movies, your mind will generate thoughts around finding that perfect partner. Then suddenly you will realise that you don't have a perfect partner, leading you to the feeling of loneliness. For example I was on a road trip one day, enjoying the views, nature and the wind, and suddenly a craving came to my mind. I felt like messaging this old friend of mine. I was little shocked that why did I think that way in the middle of such a beautiful trip. Then I noticed that my friend was playing a song saying I'm missing you in the car. And my mind was absorbing that song subconsciously and producing those thoughts. I was shocked. Then I realised why ancient wisdom tells you to protect your mind with your life. Because what your mind listens and sees becomes your thoughts and your actions. So now if you know how to think and use your mind as a problem solving machine, and you ask your mind how to increase my business, or how to get good results in my exams, your mind will respond according to the inputs you give to your mind regularly. If you study business books regularly, your mind will give you ideas from those books to help you grow. But if you watch action movies regularly, your mind won't have any solution for you. Because you never gave your mind that business oriented input. This leads to overthinking when you know where you want to go, but you don't know how to get there. This makes you start comparing yourself, questioning yourself, putting you into a loop of negative thoughts and self-doubt. This happens to most of the people, even to my family and friends, who see me growing on social media and compare themselves with me, and then start questioning themselves and their life. The difference is very simple, I don't consume movies and TV series aligned to my pleasure, instead I consume books and podcasts aligned to my goals. This simple difference keeps my mind in a solution oriented mode always, as it has enough information aligned to my goals to give me ideas. That is why it was able to suggest me the idea of my own Instagram page and mentorship program because it had the right information. Right information aligned to your goals is like salad for your mind, and entertaining movies and TV series aligned to your pleasures is like junk food to your mind. Salad makes you solve problems in your life, and junk food just keeps you in the loop of comparison and overthinking. So start cutting down on junk media consumption and start increasing your salad consumption by reading the right books and listening to the right podcasts aligned with your life goals every day. I listen to business and self help oriented podcasts for at least one hour every day, and as I said before, reading is my core everyday habit. So now if we come back to our spaceship example, you have the spaceship, you have taught your mind everything about how a spaceship works by feeding your mind the salad. Now if you ask your mind how to ride a spaceship, your mind will start giving you ideas. After some practice, by implementing those ideas, you would be off exploring the wonders of the universe. So let's summarize all three causes. Cause one was lack of flow state. Try to be in a flow state multiple times a day by doing your childhood hobbies at least 30 minutes every day. This clears your mind, builds self confidence, and helps you think creatively. Cause number two was result oriented thinking rather than solution oriented thinking. Give your mind problems to solve whenever you have free time. Use your mind to find your weak spots, build up on your ideas. Your mind will become your best friend to have meaningful discussions with. Cause number three was feeding mind junk food. Stop feeding junk media to your mind as that junk media doesn't help you towards your life goals and only lead you to the path of impractical desire, comparison and overthinking. Start feeding your mind salad. That is books and podcasts related to your life goals. This will help your mind generate ideas to help you solve your problems. Here are three books that you should definitely read to help you learn more about how to use your mind efficiently and clear your mind by getting into flow state. Book number one is stillness is the key by Ryan Holiday. The book goes deep into the daily routines of some great world leaders and teaches us how to clear our mind and find those moments of calmness in our lives. Book number two is flow by Mihail. This book teaches you how to use flow state to achieve the best results in your professional and personal life. Book number three is inner engineering by Sadguru that teaches you how to use your mind from a spiritual perspective, a very calming book. So if you want to implement what we discussed in this podcast in your daily life then follow the simple routine. Everyday do a physical activity that you enjoy for 30 minutes. It could be gym, running, painting, dancing, anything that involves physical movement. Everyday 30 minutes read a book or listen to a podcast aligned to your life goals. The more information you gather aligned to your life goals, the more your brain will help you generate ideas to achieve them. Everyday do journaling for 15 minutes in which you write down three things that you learned from the day. By doing this you will start teaching yourself how to control your mind and get information from it rather than your mind controlling you. Doing these three activities hardly change one hour 15 minutes of your day but they will give you significant results in the long term in terms of clarity in thinking and learning how to use your mind properly. If you enjoyed this episode and got value out of it then don't forget to subscribe and please leave a review as that review will help me a lot in my podcast journey. I will see you in my next episode till then take care and take action.