overthinking

There is no such thing as overthinking, there is only thinking badly. (via)

When we find ourselves thinking in loops, we want to start narrowing down the information to figure out what is true, what is relevant, and what problem am I trying to solve here.
This is going to help us narrow our attention to focus on what is most relevant, or it's going to lead us to broaden our perspective if we find out that actually we're missing information that is incredibly important to what we're trying to figure out — so what we actually need to do is kind of drop this problem and go gather more information. (via)

When I find myself overthinking something, the first thing I stop and ask myself: do I know, very specifically, what the problem I'm dealing with is? And do I know what the solution to the problem would look like?
A lot of the time when I ask myself these questions, I get very hazy responses from myself. It'll be something like "well I feel bad and I want to feel good" or "I feel like I can't focus and I want to focus", but often those aren't very clear goals — they're very vague and indirect goals. So what helps is to get way clearer on both of those things and to determine operational definitions of what those things mean for me in the context that I'm currently in. (via)

Do you definitely know which information is relevant to the solution that you're trying to arrive at, or are you actually following a lot of false leads? (via)

We might not even be clear on what problem we're trying to solve within our own thinking, so we might not know what information we can naturally stop focusing on. (via)

If you find yourself overthinking and don't know how to stop, question if are you clear on exactly what question you are trying to use your thinking to answer? And is the surface question the same as the deeper subconscious question that you were trying to answer? (via)

When we find ourselves thinking in loops, we want to start narrowing down the information to figure out what is true, what is relevant, and what problem am I trying to solve here.
This is going to help us narrow our attention to focus on what is most relevant, or it's going to lead us to broaden our perspective if we find out that actually we're missing information that is incredibly important to what we're trying to figure out — so what we actually need to do is kind of drop this problem and go gather more information. (via)

Trying to think your way out of a feeling problem — so, trying to find a logical solution for something that can actually really only be solved through being present with your emotional experience and listening to the data and the wisdom that your body is giving you.
Trying to feel your way out of a problem that logic could solve — so, if you find that you're continuously ending up in the same distressing situations over and over and over again, is there a way that you could zoom out and look at what mistakes you're making that is causing that pain to repeat itself rather than continuously focusing on how to manage your feelings around it? (via)

To someone who's learned to suppress their emotions for much of their life, there's often that bias that attending to emotions is irrational or illogical. (via)

One thing that I think happens very frequently to people who are overthinkers is that when you evaluate your thinking for quality you learn that you are actually trying to solve a problem that it's impossible to solve. (via)

When we stay fixated on what it's impossible to ever know for sure, we will end up endlessly in an overthinking loop because there is no end to thinking about that which has no concrete answer. (via)

Grice's Maxims for effective communication
Quantity states that we ought to present the right amount of information, so don't say too much relative to what's expected of you and don't say too little.
Quality states that we ought to be truthful in conversation so don't say that which you know to be false and also don't state as fact that which you have insufficient evidence for.
Relevance is of course say what is relevant to the conversation and don't say what is irrelevant without creating some sort of bridge in the conversation
Manner implies that we ought to be clear and direct about what we're saying, so don't use unnecessarily complicated language that the other person isn't going to be able to follow and also try to keep the points you're making clear direct and connected to each other. (via)

if our thinking is muddled in one of the areas Grice's Maxims (quantity, quality, relevance, manner), it's going to be really hard to communicate that which we cannot work out internally (via)

When overthinking occurs, our brain is giving us way too much information — and, often, the problem is not the quantity itself it's that we're not clear on the other three of Grice's Maxims (quality, relevance, manner). (via)

When we find ourselves in a state of overthinking, what we can do is turn our attention towards these other three maxims (quality, relevance, manner) to try to figure out how to improve the quality and structure of our thinking so that we get better results, quicker (via)

Do I already know the answer to this question I just don't want it to be true? And so am I going in circles over and over again in my mind, trying to make something that is false seem true because I don't like the actual truth?
When we ask ourselves that question in earnest, often we arrive at the real answer that's hard harder to accept and digest but that does stop that pattern of endless rumination. (via)

is it a problem or a situation? Problems, by definition, have solutions. (via)

Overthinking = busy thoughts that precede or prevent action (via)