Brilliantly Stuck: Tips To Overcome Overthinking

Photo by Aubrey Odom on Unsplash

Those who enter my coaching space often share a common thread.

They're brilliantly smart, passionate, considered, and detail-oriented.

And they're stuck — frozen by their own inner dialogue whispering that they're making a mistake, that they need to try harder, and that, heartbreakingly, what they're doing simply isn't enough.

Overthinking sucks.

So they don't start. Or they keep going, one more time around. But the result stays the same. The voice gets louder. The deadline creeps closer. The anxiety tightens. And still, they tell themselves: just one more adjustment.

Overthinking: The Cocktail Nobody Ordered

Overthinking is, I'll admit, one of my own personal specialities.

At its core, it's rarely just one thing. There's imposter syndrome. There's perfectionism. There's people-pleasing.

Mix them together and you've got yourself a thoroughly baked cake — swirled through with anxiety and procrastination, and served, repeatedly, at exactly the wrong moment.

What Actually Helps

Over time — through coaching others and navigating my own loops — I've found a handful of approaches that genuinely interrupt the cycle of overthinking and self-doubt.

Journalling

Get it all down and out of your head. There's something powerful about externalising the noise. Seeing it on a page makes it smaller, and suddenly what felt like chaos starts to take a shape you can actually work with.

Talk to Someone

Vocalising your feelings helps you to process them. But a word of caution: not everyone can hold this space. Well-meaning responses like "everything's fine" or "you're awesome" come from a good place, but they don't help untangle the knot. What you need in these moments is someone who can lay out the threads with you — someone to help you sort through the options and priorities, not paper over them.

Accountability

Sometimes the hardest part is simply starting. Find someone to team up with — body doubling works beautifully here: meet in person or online so you're both working on your respective tasks in companionable silence. Or simply declare to someone that you're going to begin. Saying it out loud makes it real and ask them to check in with you within a predetermined time.

Sharp Shocks

When the spiral is really gathering speed, a sharp sensory reset can interrupt the pattern. A bite of lemon, a sour sweet — small, surprising sensations that jolt your nervous system out of the loop and bring you back into the present moment.

Take a Walk

Step away from the thing you've been staring at. Your unconscious mind will keep quietly working on it while you're gone — and you'll return with fresher eyes than you'd expect.

Just Start

Perhaps the most powerful shift of all: adopt a design thinking mindset. What you're producing right now is a draft. A prototype. Iterations aren't a sign of failure — they're how progress is made.

Done is better than perfect, and started is always better than not.

You Are Not Alone in This

Overthinking doesn't mean you're indecisive, or not cut out for what you're doing.

More often than not, it's a sign that you care, deeply — about doing things well, about how you show up, about the impact of your work.

That's not a flaw. It just needs a reframe.

The loop can be broken. Not permanently — it'll come back — but each time you recognise it, you get a little faster at stepping out of it. And that, quietly, is progress.

I'd love to hear what works for you.

What's your go-to when you notice your brain starting to spiral?

Drop it in the comments below — your tip might be exactly what someone else needs to read today.

Need someone to hold the space now? Book in for a one-off laser coaching session here.