The Mindset Mentor - 4 Strategies to Stop Overthinking

Episode Date: April 27, 2022

Do you ever find yourself overthinking? In this episode, I am going to give you 4 strategies that will help you next time your find yourself overthinking! Follow me on IG for more inspiration here: https://www.instagram.com/robdialjr/ If you live in the US/Canada and you want to receive motivational texts from me, text me now at 1-512-580-9305 or click here https://my.community.com/robdial Want to learn more about Mindset Mentor+? For nearly nine years, the Mindset Mentor Podcast has guided you through life's ups and downs. Now, you can dive even deeper with Mindset Mentor Plus. Turn every podcast lesson into real-world results with detailed worksheets, journaling prompts, and a supportive community of like-minded people. Enjoy monthly live Q&A sessions with me, and all this for less than a dollar a day. If you’re committed to real, lasting change, this is for you.Join here 👉 www.mindsetmentor.com My first book that I’ve ever written is now available. It’s called LEVEL UP and It’s a step-by-step guide to go from where you are now, to where you want to be as fast as possible.📚If you want to order yours today, you can just head over to robdial.com/bookHere are some useful links for you… If you want access to a multitude of life advice, self development tips, and exclusive content daily that will help you improve your life, then you can follow me around the web at these links here:Instagram TikTokFacebookYoutube

Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor podcast. I'm your host, Rob Dial. If you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so that you never miss another podcast episode. And if you're out there and you live in the United States or Canada and you want to receive motivational text messages from me directly to your cell phone. Text me right now, 512-580-9305. Once again, 512-580-9305. Today, I'm going to be giving you four strategies to stop overthinking. And I think this is very important because let's be real. Be honest with me. When was the last time that you got done with a really long overthinking session and you're just like, you know what? I'm so glad I did that. I'm so glad that I spent the last 45

minutes thinking about all of the overthinking that I did. Thinking about, you know, going into depths of my fears and my worries and the things that I'm afraid of. I'm so glad there's such a great use of my time. Has it ever happened to you? Probably not, right? And I want to ask you this question. I want you to think about this because usually what happens is people say, well, I just want to be able to stop thinking so much. Like, I just want to be able to just stop all of the thoughts. And I always ask people like this, you know, as we think about this, I say, hey, if that's the case, would you ever want your heart to stop beating? Everyone's like, no, absolutely not. I say, okay, well, would you ever want your lungs

to stop breathing? No, of course not. Why is that? Why do you not want your heart to stop beating? Why do you not want your lungs to stop breathing for you? Is because that's what they're supposed to do. Your heart is meant to beat. Your heart is meant to beat. Your lungs are meant to breathe. That is what they're meant to do. Your brain thinks. That's

what it's here to do. And so if you're trying to conquer your brain, you're not going to beat it. You're not going to get there because there is no conquering the brain. It is just learning to start working with your brain to get your brain to your side. Because I guarantee this, I guarantee if you were quote unquote overthinking all of the best things in your life, you wouldn't want to stop overthinking. If you were just thinking about how beautiful and amazing and how amazing life is, and you were to have just so much gratitude in your heart for how amazing life is, and you had just so much gratitude in your heart for how amazing life is, do you think that you'd be like, I want to stop overthinking how amazing it is? No, because what are you doing? You're actually overthinking all of the things that could go wrong. You're constantly thinking about your fears. You're constantly thinking about your

worries. You're constantly thinking about what could possibly go wrong. And psychologists did a study and found out that 85% of what we worry about never even actually happens in the first place. So think about this for a second. Most people spend a lot of their day overthinking about things that will never happen. And 85% of the time they won't happen, which means that we're wasting precious energy that could be used towards building your business, that could be used towards writing your book, that could be used towards being a more present parent, that could be towards getting your next promotion.

But we're too worried and thinking and overthinking things that we're worried about versus using that energy for good. Imagine if you could just flip a switch and instead of overthinking all that we're worried about versus using that energy for good. Imagine if you could just flip a switch and instead of overthinking all the bad things, you could then just take all of that thought energy and use it towards things that were amazing. I don't know about you,

but I think that would be really good energy used, right? That would be the best use of your energy because the brain is the most energy-consuming organ in your body. The most energy-consuming organ in your body. The most energy-consuming organ in your body. It only weighs about 2% of your body weight, but the interesting thing about it, it uses about 20% of your energy throughout the day.

It's the most energy-consuming organ in your body. And so the more that you have to think, and you think and think, and you think about thinking, and you think about thinking and thinking, and then you worry about worries, and you worry about the worries that you're worrying, and then you just keep going down the line, you're using energy for absolutely no reason.

And so what I'm going to teach you is four strategies to help you get, you know, to help you work with your brain a little bit better that I have found work really well for me. These are strategies that I use. I mean, I have a business with 20 employees, so there's many cases where I could overthink lots of things in my life. But these are some of the strategies that I use and I hope you guys use them as well. So if you have pen and paper, grab them out. Let's dive into it. The first one, this is so simple, it doesn't seem like it would work, but I promise you that this does work. Whenever you find yourself overthinking something that you don't want to be thinking about, you simply talk to your brain and you say, not right now, brain, not right now.

And so one of the things that happens with me is I'll wake up to go to the bathroom. It's like two, three o'clock in the morning. And I'll have one thought about work, one thing on my to-do list that I have to do tomorrow. And that first thought will then send me down a bunch of thoughts and it's hard to fall back asleep. What I found is a strategy that works really well for me

when I need to fall back asleep in this case, so I don't overthink things in the middle of the night. But then also when I find myself overthinking, you know, something that I'm putting out of fire in my business or whatever it might be, is just to take a step back and say, not right now, brain, not right now. This is not the time to deal with it.

I'll come to this later. We'll work on this later. It doesn't seem like it would work, but for some reason it actually does. And what you might notice is if you've never really trained yourself and trained your mind, it might come back a few minutes later.

And then you'll get a few minutes of time and then it might come back a few minutes later again. If it comes back, just repeat it. Not right now, brain. Not right now. And you have to realize that you can control your thoughts. It might not feel like you can, just repeat it. Not right now, brain. Not right now. And you have to realize that you can control your thoughts. It might not feel like you can, but you can. It takes time and it takes practice. It is a mental muscle to be able to do this. But as you start to work on this, the stronger

the mental muscle becomes. So if you've never worked on trying to overcome your and start working with your overthinking, well, then it might be kind of hard in the beginning. You might feel like it's really heavy weight, but as you keep going, not right now, not right now, hey, not right now, it becomes easier and easier and easier, and your mental must become stronger. And the way I like to think about it is this,

is you being able to work with your brain and control it, is this, if you're watching me on video right now, if you're listening to the podcast, you can't see me, but if my hand were flying all over the place like this, like it's just moving. If you guys can't see me, it's just moving all over the place. If you're watching on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, you can see my hands moving all over the place, right? If somebody was doing that and their hands going all crazy and you're like, hey, what's, what's happening with your hand? They're like, oh, I don't know. I just can't control it. My hand just does this. You'd be like, that's kind of weird that they can't

control their hand because their hand is on their body. They should be able to control it, right? Well, why do you think, why don't you think that it's weird that you can't control your mind, that your mind is just in control of you? Your mind, just like your hand, is in your body. Your brain is in your body and you can control it. It just takes a little bit more work. And if you've never actually put practice into it, it might take you a little bit of time to get this mental muscle under control.

So the first thing, hey, brain, not right now, brain. Not right now, okay? That's number one. Number two, I say this all the time. And if you don't do this, I promise you, this is one of the biggest things that will help you with your overthinking. When you find yourself to a point of overthinking, your brain's going over and over and over and over again, take out a pen and paper and write every single thing down

that's in your brain. Because here's the interesting thing about it. What I'm trying to do in doing this is allowing my brain to release whatever it's spending too much time thinking of. Because one of the things, one of the reasons why we overthink so much is because we're trying to come up with a solution for something. You're trying to come up with a solution for something. And the reason why you're overthinking, overthinking, overthinking, overthinking, you can't stop is because the solution has not been found. Once the solution is found, you can kind of let it go. And so if I were to give you a complex math problem and say, hey, do it in your head, you most likely wouldn't

be able to do it in your head. But if I gave you pen and paper, you have a much better chance of being able to do that. Well, what is the difference between a complex math problem and a complex problem in your life? Because math is very straightforward. If you know how to work through math, you can do all of the math problems. But life is a hundred times more complex than math problems are. And so why would you ever think that you can figure things out in your head if you can't even figure a math problem out unless you have pen and paper? So you take everything that's going on in your head, you put it down on pen and paper, and you start to see if you can work through it and release it. Allow your brain to release it.

Here's another thing. Even if you can't work through it, just the act of taking it from your head and putting it on paper will allow it to be so much easier to release. You can release it and you can work on it now, you can work on it later, but most of the time we're overthinking something because we can't seem to come up with a solution. The answer to that problem is to literally put it down on pen and paper, putting everything down that's bothering you and working through it.

Because if it's a complex math problem or if it's a complex problem in your life, it's easier to work through with pen and paper. So get really used to and good at putting down pen and paper what's going on in your life. So that's number two, is to write down everything that's going on in your head so that your brain can release it and then you can work on it. Hey, today's program is brought to you by Athletic Greens, the health and wellness company that makes comprehensive daily nutrition really, really simple. AG1 by

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And that's one of the things that I love, the ease of canceling subscriptions just through Truebill. Truebill has over 2 million users and helps save them over $100 million. Like Matthew B. who says, in a matter of seconds, I saved $660 for the year on my direct TV bill, saved $120 for the year on my Sirius XM bill, and $840 a year on my car insurance. So start canceling your unused subscriptions at Truebill.com slash dial. Go right now, Truebill.com slash dial. It could save you thousands a year. Once again, Truebill.com. Number three is breathing. When your state changes, the very first thing to change is your breath. If you get very excited, your breath is the first thing to change. If you get very sad, your breath is the very first thing to change. Your breath is always in control of a state change.

And so the one thing that's super simple is just to become very conscious of when you're starting to overthink and remind yourself to do six deep intentional breaths. It's very simple. You breathe in through your nose and then you breathe out through your mouth. And when you breathe out through your mouth, you breathe out like you're breathing out through a straw, so it's a long exhale. So it's going to sound something like this. You breathe in and breathe out. If you do six of those, there was a study that was done over in Japan that actually found that six deep breaths is the biggest way, fastest way to actually change your state from a heightened state to a calm state. And the reason why that's important is because if you're overthinking something, you're trying to work through something. Whenever your emotions are high towards something, remember this, when

your emotions are high, your logic is low. When your emotions are really high, your brain will actually start to shut off what's called the prefrontal cortex of your brain, which is the thinking and analyzing part of your brain. And so you don't even make the best decisions when you're very emotionally involved in something. This is why you can get into a fight with somebody and you could say something. And then two hours later, like, oh shit, I shouldn't have said that, right? Because your emotion was high, your logic was low. You weren't even actually thinking very well. And so when you are noticing yourself in a heightened state, the very first thing that you should do is get in control of your breath. If you notice you're overthinking and you're anxious and you're overthinking, you're anxious, you're overthinking, you're anxious,

take control of your breath. When you take control of your breath, your body and your mind will follow. And so the first thing I want you to do when you notice yourself in these states is to make sure that you go into six deep conscious breaths. It takes about a minute and a half, but you will notice a massive difference. Anytime that I start a Zoom call with any of my mastermind or with people that I'm teaching how to grow coaching businesses, the very first thing that we do every single time is six deep intentional breaths because I want people to be able to come in calm, not overthinking and be able to actually soak in everything that we're teaching.

So that's number three is make sure that you take control of your breathing. And number four is kind of an everyday, all day act that you can get better at. And it's become mindful of everything, right? Training your mind is like training a dog. If you go on a walk with a dog, you're not supposed to let the dog just be at the end of the leash and walk you. You're supposed to walk the dog. You're supposed

to be the alpha. You're supposed to be the one that's in control. And so instead of letting the dog run off, what you need to do is you need to keep a short leash and you'd have the dog next to you, right? Do you want to train the dog to be by your side so that it's right there. You're the ones in control. Well, the exact same thing as training your dog. Instead of letting your dog wander off and just go wherever it wants to go, you want to have it right next to you. You want to be in control of where your dog goes so that you can make sure it doesn't get hit by a car or doesn't run off or anything like that. You want to do the exact same thing for your mind. Train your mind to bring your full presence to every single boring thing that you do, especially the boring things. So anytime you're doing something that your mind can

mindlessly wander and it can go wherever it wants to, try to bring the full presence of your mind, all of your senses to your whatever you're doing. I'll give you an example. Let's say that you're washing your hands. Instead of when you're washing your hands, because that's just a mindless thing. You just wash your hands, no big deal. All right, you're done. Instead of washing your hands and just allowing your brain to think about what you have to do later on, what you want to do is try to focus on as much as you possibly can. Try to be as present as you possibly can. So notice how the warm water feels on your hands. Notice how that feels. Notice the sound of the water hitting your hands, going down

the drain, everything. Notice the sound of the water. Notice the smell of the soap. Try to bring your full brain and presence to that moment and to your senses. Because if you could train your brain to be present when you're doing the boring things,. Because if you could train your brain to be present when you're doing the boring things, it's much easier to have your brain be present and to not wander off and overthink whenever there's something that's even, you know, more of a heightened state.

And so you want to train your brain on the boring things to be present as possible. When you get done washing your hands, feel the way that the towel feels. When you walk to the living room, notice that when you open the door, the way the door feels in your hand. When you're walking from the bathroom to the living room, notice the way that the carpet feels on the floor. The carpet feels on the floor under your feet. Notice the smell of the room when you go from the hallway to the living room. You're passing the kitchen. What does the kitchen smell like?

You know, what do you see? Do you have windows outside? What does the outside look like? You know, what does the temperature of the room feel like on your skin? And what you're trying to do is you're trying to bring as much full presence to yourself in what you're going through so that therefore you're training this mental muscle at all times to do what you want it to do. Instead of running off like a dog that's free from a leash, you bring the dogs right next to you, you can do the exact same thing because you can't stop your brain from thinking. There's no way to control your brain from thinking, but you can get a better control of what you're thinking about, when you are thinking about it, what you're focusing on. And this is the important thing. If you're going to build a life that you love,

you're going to need to get your brain under control at some point in time. Your brain should not be flying all over the place and doing whatever it is that it wants to do. Your brain is on your body. The same way that when you want to walk, you move one foot, you move the other foot, you move the other foot, you move the other foot. You're in control of that. You should be in control of your brain the same way that you're in control of when you walk. And so those are the four tips that I have for you for helping you when you're overthinking. Number one is just tell your brain, hey, not right now, man. We'll talk about that later. We'll think about that later. Number two is put everything from your brain on dependent paper. Number three, use your breathing to calm yourself down and to be more present. And then number four,

be mindful of everything that you do and train yourself the same way that you would train an animal. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please share it on your Instagram stories and tag me in it, Rob Dial Jr., R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R. The only way this podcast grows is from you guys sharing it. We don't have any massive corporation or anyone that's backing us. So we don't have any advertising dollars

that go into growing this podcast. The only way it grows is from you guys sharing it and the way that we got to top 75 in the entire world is from you guys sharing it. So I greatly appreciate it every single time that you do share it. And with that, I'm gonna leave it the same way I leave you every single episode,

make it your mission to make someone else's day better. I appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing day.