3 Techniques to Switch from Overthinking to Thinking Effectively & 4 Ways to Turn That Into Action

Today, I’m going to talk about the difference between overthinking and thinking effectively, what leads us to overthink things instead of thinking through them to get clear answers, and why we tend to overthink and lose focus. I share three ways we can differentiate the two and the characteristics we should look out for so we don’t end up wasting our time overthinking. Additionally, I list down four ways we can pivot from being an overthinker to becoming an action-doer, a rational thinker who wouldn’t shy away from making mistakes and failing, and has the initiative to take risks and seize opportunities. If you want to pre-order the book, 8 Rules of Love, go to https://8rulesoflove.com/ Key Takeaways: 00:00 Intro 02:03 The difference between thinking and overthinking 07:32 Difference #1: Time 12:04 Difference #2: Action 14:53 Difference #3: Structure 16:34 You’ll never feel ready 18:48 Expect failures and mistakes 20:01 Break down what you want to achieve to the smallest things 22:33 Surround yourself with people who take action Like this show? Please leave us a review here - even one sentence helps! Post a screenshot of you listening on Instagram & tag us so we can thank you personally! Do you want to meditate daily with me? Go to go.calm.com/onpurpose to get 40% off a Calm Premium Membership. Experience the Daily Jay. Only on Calm Want to be a Jay Shetty Certified Life Coach? Get the Digital Guide and Workbook from Jay Shetty https://jayshettypurpose.com/fb-getting-started-as-a-life-coach-podcast/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Jay Shetty?

  This episode is brought to you by AG1. Are you feeling September reset too? Shorter days, longer to-do lists, earlier alarms, all those routines you promised yourself you'd pick back up. It can feel like your whole life is recalibrating. And when everything around you is changing, it helps to have a few things you can rely on. AG1 Next Gen is one of those easy habits to keep. It's the clinically-backed, comprehensive daily health drink that supports your gut health, energy production, and foundational nutrition all in one scoop. AG1's ingredients are sourced from quality partners for absorption, potency, and nutrient density to deliver the foundational nutrition your body needs. And alongside a proper diet,

• 0:44Jay Shetty?

  AG1 Next Gen meets 94% of nutrient requirements and it's clinically shown to enrich the gut microbiome. For a limited time, save 20% on your first subscription order of AG1 Next Gen or AG1 Pro at drinkag1.com/onpurpose. That's drinkag1.com/onpurpose. This episode is brought to you by AG1. Are you feeling September reset too? Shorter days, longer to-do lists, earlier alarms, all those routines you promised yourself you'd pick back up. It can feel like your whole life is recalibrating. And when everything around you is changing, it helps to have a few things you can rely on.

• 1:29Jay Shetty?

  AG1 Next Gen is one of those easy habits to keep. It's the clinically-backed, comprehensive daily health drink that supports your gut health, energy production, and foundational nutrition all in one scoop. AG1's ingredients are sourced from quality partners for absorption, potency, and nutrient density to deliver the foundational nutrition your body needs. And alongside a proper diet, AG1 Next Gen meets 94% of nutrient requirements and it's clinically shown to enrich the gut microbiome. For a limited time, save 20% on your first subscription order of AG1 Next Gen or AG1 Pro at drinkag1.com/onpurpose. That's drinkag1.com/onpurpose.

• 2:17Jay Shetty?

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• 2:57Jay Shetty?

  Download the Vinted app for free to start selling with no seller fees, so you keep every dollar you earn. You want to expect failure and to make mistakes and not try and avoid them. If you're failing and making mistakes and learning for them, you're on the part. If you're failing and making mistakes and not learning from them, then that's obviously not useful. But I want you to expect failure. I want you to expect to make mistakes, so now you're not surprised. Now you don't judge yourself. Now you don't make yourself feel insecure or inferior because of it.

• 3:36Jay Shetty?

  Hey, everyone. Welcome back to On Purpose, the number one health podcast in the world. Thanks to each and every one of you that come back every week to listen, learn, and grow. Now, I know that if you're here, you're here because you want to be happy, healthy, and healing. That's what I want for myself. That's what I want for all of you. It's what I want for everyone in the world. Imagine if the world was happier, healthier, and more healed. What a beautiful world we'd live in. We'd be better people. We'd be better parents. We'd be better professionals. It would be a truly phenomenal place to live. And on purpose is dedicated to that mission.

• 4:15Jay Shetty?

  Introducing you to incredible thinkers and minds, ideas, topics, takeaways, insights that can help you transform your life. So if you're here, take a moment to just acknowledge and express gratitude to yourself for showing up for yourself. Now, today's episode is something that was sparked by a conversation with one of my dear friends, Humble the Poet. If you haven't read his work or don't follow him, he's an incredible, incredible thinker. And I've really enjoyed my conversations with him since we became friends around four years ago. And what we'll often do is we'll just find questions that we find fascinating and we'll

• 4:58Jay Shetty?

  think, we'll reflect, we'll try and come up with actionable items. And so this episode was inspired by that conversation because the question he asked me and some of the insights he shared with me, which I'll be sharing today, was what is the difference between thinking and overthinking? And we probably thought about this ironically for like a couple of hours, but the conversation was so brilliant that I had to share it with you. And some of the things he shared with me were so fascinating. He's going to be on the podcast soon too, because he has a new book coming out. So we'll look forward to that. Now, when it comes to thinking and overthinking, I think the reason why we have to address

• 5:39Jay Shetty?

  this question is because I think we all experience overthinking. We experience overanalyzing. I'm sure many of you experience brain fog or feeling cloudy because there's just so much to process. Maybe you feel like you're just constantly bombarded by information, you're bombarded by data, you're bombarded by messages and notifications. And I find that, me included, I have to be really careful about what I let in to my mind and my space. Just as we're careful about who we let into our home, we have to be careful about what we let into our mind. And as I was re-

• 6:21Jay Shetty?

  Researching for this episode, I saw some incredible statistics that blew my mind that I want to share with you. And this study showed that the average person today processes as much as seventy four gigabytes of information per day. That's as much as watching sixteen movies. Can you imagine that seventy four gigabytes? Right? If you think about your phone, your phone might have like two hundred and fifty six gigabytes memory. You're processing seventy four gigabytes per day, which is a huge amount of information.

• 7:01Jay Shetty?

  And when we think about our search for information, we know that Google has about over forty thousand searches every second. How many of those are you responsible for? Right? Like, just think about how often we're searching for information. And I'm not even getting into just how many YouTube views per second or minute, how many tweets per second or minute. I mean, the rate of information creation and consumption is going through the roof. And as we see this escalation in exposure to all of this information

• 7:40Jay Shetty?

  that our mind and our brain has to make sense of, it has to structure it, it has to organize it. It has to bring emotion in, take emotion out. I mean, when you think about the number of processes we're having to do now. It is not abnormal to recognize that so many of us are struggling, right? That's not abnormal at all. So if you're one of those people who's going, oh, I don't feel smart enough, I don't feel fast enough. I feel like I'm too weak. I feel like I should be better at this. I just want you to cut yourself some slack. I want you to forgive yourself. I want you to give yourself a break and recognize

• 8:22Jay Shetty?

  that it's so natural that we're feeling overwhelmed because of the rate of overconsumption. Now, when you think about how much you're consuming and how you're feeling, I'm sure that overthinking is something that happens a lot. We're now exposed to poorer quality of information.

• 8:43Jay Shetty?

  So not only are you experienced to more, you're experienced to more with less quality, with less research, with less evidence, with less thought sometimes as well, to be honest. And so what ends up happening is that we're now having to make sense of stuff that may not even make sense in the first place or may not be valid enough to make sense of. And that creates a lot of stress, a lot of pressure, a lot of tension. I remember when I was living in New York, I lived there for two years. I would often feel tired in the evening after a busy day, but I would feel more tired in New York than anywhere before. And when I started looking into it,

• 9:26Jay Shetty?

  I came across this idea of cognitive load. The idea that when you're walking around New York City, there's so many sirens, there's so much roadwork going on, there's so much noise from the trash and whatever else there may be, that our brains are trying to make sense of insignificant, unuseful sound. And that takes up energy. So the reason why Humble and I started having this conversation was because we were realizing that we think this is a challenge for a lot of people that we know, friends, family, people that we work with, people that we hear from, where overthinking, overanalyzing has become the norm. But it's not easy to just say to someone,

• 10:10Jay Shetty?

  well, stop overthinking it, like stop overanalyzing it. And that's not useful advice, it's not helpful. If anyone's ever said that to you before or you've ever said that to anyone before, you know how unimpactful it truly is. So let's talk about the differences between thinking and overthinking. And Humble brought up the first one. He said that his therapist told him it was the amount of time. The first difference between thinking and overthinking, according to his therapist, was time. Now, let's talk about time. I think time is one of the differences between thinking and overthinking. Because there's a difference whether you're thinking about something for a month, or two months, or two years.

• 10:55Jay Shetty?

  And I would say that this time applies to the extent of the task. So it depends on the scale of the task. For example, if I'm about to write a book, and for those of you who know, I've just finished writing my second book, Eight Rules of Love. And if I'm going to write a book, I may think about that book for a couple of years before I start to write it. I don't consider that to be overthinking, because it's a book. It's words on a page, it's set in stone. It's there as a thoughtful, curated, researched piece of work that I can't wait to share with you, right?

• 11:37Jay Shetty?

  So the amount of thinking that it requires to create a 300-page book is very different. And so some people may say, "Well, that sounds like overthinking. You spent two years on it." But it's only overthinking if it's based on the task. Now, if I spent two years thinking about one 13-minute solo episode, that can be considered overthinking. I may have thought about this idea before. I may have reflected on it before. But if I'm consistently thinking every day for two to three years about a 13-minute podcast episode, that would be considered overthinking. So when you're making a plan, one of the things I'd recommend is that you first look at the scale of the task.

• 12:21Jay Shetty?

  And based on the scale of the task, you figure out the scope of the time. The larger the task, the more difficult the task, the more challenging the task, the more you give yourself a certain time. And this is also the difference between thinking and overthinking. When it comes to time, scheduled time makes it thinking. Unscheduled time can make it overthinking. So if I say to myself, "Hey, I want to write a book about this subject. I'm going to spend a couple of years thinking about it before I really, you know, while I gather my thoughts, gather my research, gather my insights. And then, those two years will give me these things that I need." Now you're using your time wisely. Now you are actually thinking and not overthinking because your time is accounted

• 13:06Jay Shetty?

  for. And so if you're someone who wants to do something big, something that's coming up, something significant, then I want you to think about how much time is that going to take for you to think about it, for you to reflect on it. The mistake we often make is we just try and dive in. And when you dive in, you could get discouraged. And this is why it really comes to self-awareness. There are a lot of people who don't need to function this way. They would just dive in, they'd make mistakes, they'd figure it out, and everything would work out for them. And there are some people who need more thought, need more process, need more structure. So I want you to really think about your self-awareness to figure that out. Have you ever had one bad moment spoil your entire day, or felt overwhelmed for no

• 13:51Jay Shetty?

  reason? What about stressed or anxious over that big moment or difficult conversation? You should try meditation. And I know what you're thinking. Jay, you used to be a monk. I don't have time to sit in the woods for hours doing nothing. But really, all the time you need to start your own mindfulness practice is seven minutes a day with the Daily J, my daily guided meditations on the Calm app. You don't need to close your eyes or find a special seat. You can try it while you brush your teeth, do the dishes, or walk your dog. My goal in seven minutes a day is to help you find calm and feel grounded in your busy world. Plant beautiful intentions for an abundant life, and simple steps for positive actions to get you closer to the life of your dreams. Here's what one of the

• 14:34Jay Shetty?

  listeners of the Daily J had to say about their meditation. Wow, I just had a super hard day at work and couldn't get my boss's comments out of my head. Then I did the Daily J, which related to my work issues, opened my eyes at the end of the session and felt renewed again. Previously, today would have destroyed my whole weekend. Meditate with me by going to calm.com/j to get forty percent off a Calm Premium membership. That's only forty-two dollars for the whole year for daily guided meditations. Experience the Daily J only on Calm.

• 15:10Jay Shetty?

  This episode is brought to you by Indeed. I know how important every hire is for a business. If you need to make the right hire, this is a job for sponsored jobs. Indeed sponsored jobs helps find quality candidates when you need them most. You can reach who you need based on whatever criteria you're looking for, like skills, certifications, or location. In fact, people are finding quality hires on Indeed right now. In the minute I've been talking to you, companies like yours made 27 hires on Indeed, according to Indeed data worldwide. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com/podcast. That's indeed.com/podcast.

• 15:55Jay Shetty?

  Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. This episode is brought to you by Orange Theory Fitness. One of the best investments you can make is in your own strength. The choices you make today can help shape how you feel for years to come. Orange Theory Fitness provides a one-hour workout to build strength, burn fat, and build muscle, with an expert coach guiding you every step of the way. Head to orangetheory.com/onpurpose to learn more and get your first class free. Orange Theory Fitness, helping people live longer, more vibrant lives. Terms and conditions apply. See webpage in studio for details. This episode is brought to you by Amtrak. You know that feeling when you're already tired and you haven't even gotten there yet?

• 16:40Jay Shetty?

  That's where Amtrak comes in. Leave the driving behind and settle into a comfortable seat with plenty of room to stretch out. Catch up on work with wifi, grab a snack at the cafe car, or just sit back and enjoy your favorite podcast. Choose a seller or Northeast Regional and get there without the stress of getting there. Visit amtrak.com to plan your next trip. Now, the second difference between thinking and overthinking, this was Humble's answer, is that he said it's about action. So he was saying that if you are thinking...

• 17:15Jay Shetty?

  Then it will lead to action. And if you're overthinking, it will lead to inaction. I thought this was a brilliant, brilliant answer from him because I couldn't agree with him more. When we're thinking strategically and effectively, it leads to action. It leads to change, it leads to transformation. But when we just overthink, and this is why things like gossip, why things like negativity, why things like comparison, complaining and criticism are often not healthy thinking and are overthinking because they don't lead to positive action. So I think the question you have to ask yourself is, hey, well, if I thought about this for a long time, but it led to action, then maybe I'm not an over thinker.

• 17:59Jay Shetty?

  I remember before launching my YouTube channel, I spent two years thinking, researching, looking. It took me two years before I even launched my first video. Now, some could say that was overthinking, some could say that was stalling, some would even call that a failure. But for me, I just saw that as part of the process. And guess what? It led to action and that action has led to all these incredible things in my life. I'll give you another example. Before I launched On Purpose, this podcast, I thought about launching a podcast for another two years. I found that some of the biggest projects, biggest ideas that I've created in my life,

• 18:39Jay Shetty?

  whether it's my books, my podcast, the content I'm creating, I'll often spend a couple of years learning, growing, researching, experimenting to truly understand, right? To really think about what I want to do and why I want to do it. And I find that to be extremely helpful because by the time I get going, I'm already really clear on what I'm trying to achieve and why I'm trying to achieve it. Diving in sometimes I find actually takes me three steps back because I don't give myself the time to really know why it's important to me, why it's relevant to me and how I want it to flow.

• 19:21Jay Shetty?

  So try this, ask yourself the next time you're thinking about something, how quickly can I get to action? What is the right action to follow this thought? All of a sudden, you won't be overthinking. Overthinking means you keep repeating the same thought, you keep repeating the same emotion, the same feeling, and you never ask yourself, "What do I change? What can I do about this? How can I shift from this position?" And that simple question can make all the difference. Now, the third difference between thinking and overthinking, which came from my insight, was how structured your process is. So when I'm thinking about something, I'll have a structure.

• 20:06Jay Shetty?

  I'll break it down, I'll have steps, I'll have points that I'm following, I'll have principles or values that I use as a guide. But when you're overthinking, you just keep repeating the same thought, you keep going round and round in circles. There's no structure, there's no process, there's no system. So I want you to focus on having a system for how you think. Every time you have a thought, try and create an "if this, then that" system with that idea. "If I feel this, then I do this." As soon as you start implementing that and practicing that, that will now become the thought pattern you carve for your mind. What we have to realize is that every thought you're having

• 20:49Jay Shetty?

  is simply a thought, a pathway in your mind that has been carved because you've walked on it so many times. It's like if you take the same route to work or to school every day, that becomes your norm. And now, anything that's different to that feels random. It feels awkward, it may feel uncomfortable. All you have to do is start taking another route. And as you take that route every day, "if this, then that," "if it rains, then I take this route," now you start to have a different approach. So the three differences between thinking and overthinking are time, action, and structure. Now, now that we know that, how do we shift into taking action?

• 21:34Jay Shetty?

  The first thing you have to remember is that you will never, ever feel ready. I don't know anyone who started something who ever felt ready. If you asked me when I launched my YouTube channel, did I feel ready? I would have said no. If you asked me before we launched on purpose, if I felt ready, I would have said no. If you asked me that about a book, you asked me that about genius, you asked me that about anything we've ever done, we never felt ready. I never felt ready. If anything, it was always like, well, if we had six more months, we could do this. If we had 12 more months, we could do this. But I realized that the growth I'd make in six to 12 months of not doing something would never outweigh the growth that I would make if I did launch it.

• 22:15Jay Shetty?

  When you launch something, when you create something, when you think about something, you learn so much more than when you wait till you're ready. You wait till the perfect time, you wait till everything's calmed down, right? We always say like, I'm just gonna wait till things settle down a bit. By then, you could lose inspiration, lose motivation, you could get busier, you could get distracted, something else comes along. I find that I've learned that my ability accelerates and expands every year as I add more to my plate and create better practices to deal with it. So you'll never feel ready, start anyway, right? Please remember that if you're worrying about starting something right now, I want you

• 22:57Jay Shetty?

  to know that don't wait till you're ready, don't wait till you know everything, don't wait, because you'll never know everything, you'll never be ready, that's the point. There isn't a point where you go, okay, I'm completely healed now. Okay, I'm completely here now. This is a Western ideology of beginning and completion. Have you ever completed anything? Like, what do you, you know, have we completed our education? No, it was just an arbitrary mark of saying, you've now graduated. So recognizing that things are more cyclical, organic in nature, has a tree ever finished growing?

• 23:36Jay Shetty?

  No, right, it's not fully grown, even as humans, right? There are parts of us that may stop growing, but they don't stop changing. And so I just want you to recognize that. The second thing I'm gonna say can be counterintuitive, but you want to expect failure and to make mistakes and not try and avoid them. One of the reasons why we don't take action and why we sit in overthinking is because we're trying to plot and plan how to avoid every mistake and failure. I can honestly tell you that with every venture I've started, I have failed and made so many mistakes. Honestly, I've made so many mistakes, I failed at so many things, and I've realized that that's just the path.

• 24:21Jay Shetty?

  When I think about things like Steve Jobs getting kicked out of Apple, can you imagine getting kicked out of your own company? What kind of failure that is? What kind of challenge that is? When you think about any of the people you admire, they've all failed and made mistakes. That is the path. If you're failing and making mistakes and learning from them, you're on the path. If you're failing and making mistakes and not learning from them, then that's obviously not useful. But I want you to expect failure. I want you to expect to make mistakes. So now you're not surprised. Now you don't judge yourself. Now you don't make yourself feel insecure or inferior because of it.

• 25:01Jay Shetty?

  Step number three, I want you to break down what you want to achieve to the smallest thing. I'll give an example. One of my friends wanted to be a movie director. And he said to me, I really wanna be a movie director. I wanna make Hollywood movies, right? But like big budget feature films. So I was like, okay, that's, that's a big goal, right? And that could lead to a lot of overthinking because it's hard, it's far away, it takes time. Let's break it down. What do you need to do in order to do that? And he was like, well, I would need to be able to get that kind of a budget. I was like, okay, well, what do you need to do in order to get that budget? He said, well, I would have to make movies that were impressive with less of a budget. And I was like, well, what do you need to do that? And he said, well, I need to learn.

• 25:45Jay Shetty?

  Learn how to make movies. I need to learn directing and scripting. I was like, okay, how do you, how do you do that? He said, well, I need to get into film school or I need to make short movies. And I said, well, which one do you want to try? He said, well, maybe I'll start with short movies. So he started making short movies. And then he went to film school because he realized there were certain skills he didn't have. Now he's on the path, but notice how if his goal was to make feature films, he would overthink about that for maybe a few decades. But when his first step was start making short movies or apply for film school, that's something you could do today. And I think people forget this, that the goal is the same,

• 26:30Jay Shetty?

  but the current move looks different. It's like when you're climbing Mount Everest, that's the goal. The goal is to get to the top of Mount Everest, but every step doesn't take you to the top of Mount Everest. And so we have to recognize that the step and the goal are different. And we have to know the goal, but focus on the step. And your step may lead you in directions that you don't want. You might have to learn skills you don't care about. You might have to build qualities and character traits that you didn't even realize. I've had to develop so many more leadership qualities than I ever thought because of the team we lead. I've had to learn so much more about investments and finances than I ever thought I would need to.

• 27:13Jay Shetty?

  Because that's getting me to my ultimate goal, which is impacting one billion lives and making a difference in the world. So the path, the steps look very different from the goal. And we can't keep fixating, saying, no, but I just want to feel this way. I just want to feel like I'm having an impact. It's like, well, no, if you really want to have an impact, you have to be ready to learn this. And the fourth and final step to start taking action is you have to be surrounded by people who are taking action. You will not move forward if you're around people who are going backwards. You will not move forward if you're around people who are happy being behind. If you're surrounded by go-getters, people who are making a difference, making a shift, making an impact,

• 27:57Jay Shetty?

  that will make the difference. Your circle will define your impact. Your circle will define how fast, how effectively you move forward. And so make sure you find that tribe. I'm not telling you to change all your friends. I'm saying have a few people around you that are also on a mission. Because those are the people that will help you reach your vision that you so deeply care about. I hope that this episode accelerates you in your growth. I hope that it inspires you into motion. And I hope that it helps you remember how to switch from overthinking to thinking. Thank you for listening. Thank you for choosing happiness, health, and healing only on On Purpose.

• 28:48Speaker 01

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• 29:17Speaker 02

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• 29:26Speaker 01

  Tom Cruise is.

• 29:28Speaker 03

  Digger got us into this mess, and Digger's gonna dig us up.

• 29:32Speaker 01

  From the director of Birdman and The Revenant.

• 29:34Speaker 02

  What would happen if I stopped doing it? You're stalled, you freeze to death, that's what.

• 29:38Speaker 01

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 29:41Speaker 02

  I'm not the first nanny.

• 29:42Speaker 01

  Digger. See the trailer online. Only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17. Not a middle without parent.

• 29:47Speaker 04

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• 29:58Speaker 02

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