Overthinking is my superpower

And I am proud of it

Photo by Ryan Klaus on Unsplash (I typed ‘overthink’ into the image search and this came up, so I’m going with it)

Hello! Thank you for reading The Honesty Box.

How are you feeling? Lots of people I know are under the weather, and if that’s you, I hope you can look after yourself a little today. A bath, some nice fruit, or a treat from the ‘potato favourites’ section at Iceland, perhaps?

Today, I’m writing about what a brilliant overthinker I am, and why it can be a superpower.

Ads for a sweatshirt with ‘Hold on, let me overthink this’ printed on the front keep popping up on my Instagram feed. How does Instagram know that I love to think so deeply about things, I wonder?

Maybe it’s all the self-help quotes I’ve saved or how I pepper my posts with pop psychology phrases, or maybe it’s because Instagram thinks I’m a young millennial because I told it my year of birth is 1990 instead of 1977 (I’m messing with Meta’s all-powerful algorithms – Meta, formerly Facebook, being the owner of Instagram) and would therefore be the kind of person who’d want such a slogan t-shirt.

But it’s true: there are some things I do think in great detail about.

For example, it took me TWO YEARS to decide what colour to paint my bedroom (Dulux Rich Praline 5, since you ask), and NINE MONTHS to work out whether to join my local sports centre, or just make do with running, YouTube yoga and the odd trial class.

(The sports centre won last week and now my muscles are moaning about it.)

I guess these things are more about indecision, but indecision is overthinking’s close cousin – both involve questioning, ruminating and FOMO – if I do this, I’ll miss out on that - so I’ll do nothing.

My ruminating brain decides to switch on to full beam at about 10.30 at night, when I’ve settled into bed with a good (self-help) book.

Just flipping open the pages seems to be like rocket fuel for my mind, because as soon as I start to read, my thoughts are all over the place.

‘Why hasn’t that client paid that invoice? Will it rain in Brighton this weekend? Ooh if it does I can wear my new mac from Rains.

‘Can I see my nephews on Sunday? I better text my sister. If I add an ‘open to work’ badge to my LinkedIn picture does that make me look desperate for a job?’

I read the same paragraph in the book again, and then again, and sometimes my mind calms down. Some of these thoughts are more of a to-do list; others go deeper.

But while my overthinking can sometimes mean I’m a daydreamer, I’m actually proud of my mind’s capacity for thought. It might mean I instinctively feel I know the truth about certain situations, or can really see what’s going on for someone.

It allows me to do my job as a freelance journalist better. It means I try to see beyond the spin someone is presenting and allows me to work out what might be tricky topics, and how to probe someone about them.

Overthinking means I can try to understand what motivates people, which I needed to do when ghostwriting a memoir for a businesswoman a while ago. As a stranger to her, I had to earn her trust and then try to get inside her mind so I could represent her on the page.

Therapy for the overthinker

It also means I know myself better: I’ve dug into my mind through therapy and coaching and discovered that I’ve been ambivalent about having kids (even though I always thought I definitely wanted them), that I have a fear of abandonment that rears its ugly head if I get depressed, and that I lean on external affirmation to feel good about myself (don’t we all), but affirmation actually needs to come from within.

You can read more about my sometimes hilarious tales of therapy here.

Knowing me better means I am more confident and accepting of myself, and other people.

For example, getting curious about myself has helped me procrastinate less.

I have been one of the world’s best procrastinators. Hanging out the washing is my favourite putting-something-off activity, with searching online for a doormat for my building’s communal hallway a close second.

But instead of berating myself about this, I looked into it, and it turns out that putting off doing something isn’t always because I’m being lazy, it’s more about fear.

In my case, putting off writing this newsletter could be about the fact I have to sit alone and concentrate.

If I’m alone at my desk, then maybe, says my subconscious mind, I’ve really been abandoned, or left on my own as everyone else goes off and has a big party without me.

Also, my mind says, what I’m writing is public and while I want people to read this, it also means I might get criticised, or someone might not like me, or reject me (there’s that abandonment complex again!) which is another classic fear I think many people have but probably don’t realise.

Read about how I decided I’d been abandoned in the middle of the pandemic here.

The writer Nir Eyal talks about these distractions as a way to put off discomfort, and once you understand those discomforts (or fears) then you can work towards accepting them and getting over them.

Here are some other things I’ve been thinking about lately:

What my body is telling me

I’d like to listen to and better understand what my body tells me – for example, what a slightly raised heartrate means when I’m at a work meeting or in a group of friends.

I think this usually reflects my urge to say something or be listened to or seen. Sometimes this gives me the confidence to speak up, and other times I think it reflects a desire for attention, which I can mix up with other feelings.

Whether to promote The Honesty Box on LinkedIn

I’m a little nervous because LinkedIn is a business platform, and my personal writing can be quite, well, personal. This one boils down to ‘what will people think,’ another classic concern.

‘People’ will probably spend half a second deciding whether to read the post and another half a second ‘liking’ or scrolling past to the next thing. I think it’s just a case of phrasing the post correctly, and the people who are interested will stick around, and those who aren’t don’t matter.

On balance (and I’ve only been thinking about posting this newsletter on LinkedIn for about, ooh, 11 MONTHS), I think I will, this week. I’ll let you know what happens.

Comment on this post

Are you an overthinker? Do you think it’s a superpower? I’d love to know. If you don’t like the word overthinker, worry not. I’m rebranding it. Overthinking is now, officially, ‘deep curiosity’. And who wouldn’t want to be deeply curious?

Things I like

Potato favourites

I mentioned Iceland the supermarket, and that’s because I went there on Thursday night, after being glued to my desk all day, for some of their own-brand hash brown potato waffles.

They have this kind of solid crunch that is different to the soft bits you get with pure potato waffles, and they make an excellent and quick meal with scrambled eggs, avocado and spinach. (I accidentally bought a 6-pack of Greggs bake-from-frozen triple chocolate cookies too, which, I discovered, you can microwave in 30 seconds into a moreish goo.)

Don’t be yourself

Cindy Gallop is a British entrepreneur who lives in New York and this week I came across this article she wrote for the Harvard Business Review on pieces of career advice women should ignore, with ‘be yourself’ one of them. She talks about instead finding places that are psychologically safe - ie employers that encourage people to open up without fear of repercussions - and suggests asking interview questions like:

“Do you feel your organization is one where people feel really able to speak up and share their opinions freely?”

“Are different opinions and views represented throughout the organization, and on your team?”

Go forth!