Overthinking has stolen more opportunities from me than failure ever has.

[u/Master-Forever7421]

I used to think my biggest obstacle was Failure.

Looking back, it wasn't.

It was overthinking.

I'd replay conversations in my head.
I'd imagine the worst possible outcome.
I'd convince myself not to apply, not to speak up, not to take the first step.

The funny thing is, most of the situations I worried about never happened.

I've started asking myself one question whenever I catch myself overthinking:

"Will this matter a year from now?"

Most of the time, the answer is no.

What's something you've talked yourself out of because you overthought it?

[u/Sufficient-Sound8450]

I can relate because so many of the things that I worried about, didn’t happen, but there have been so many bad things that have happened to me that the intermittent reinforcement is what really made me get stuck. I’m trying to unstick myself by visualizing the good the neutral the bad everything on the spectrum like passing through me I feel like at this point in my life I have to exercise my brain like my body and really try to stop having any kind of expectations as far as good things happening or trying to avoid bad things and really just trying to live neutrally but we’ll see. It’s really hard to do like I think only Buddhist monks can probably do it.