Mantra against overthinking

DontBeAMangina · 2015-04-01T20:20:26+00:00

Ask yourself "What is the next action?"

Examples:

You see a girl sitting alone on the bench by the Starbucks

You decide to approach the girl. There's two things that can happen in this situation. Either you will begin over thinking and basically convincing yourself not to or you're going to ask yourself "What is the next action?" and commit to doing said action.

Your mind over thinking:

She's going to ignore me
She'll get weirded out/grossed out by my advances
People will think it's weird/uncomfortable

Proceed to convince yourself not to approach.

Asking yourself, "What's the next action?"

Tell her she's really pretty and that she should give your her number
Introduce yourself and ask her how her day is going
Use cheesy pick up line

Proceed to approach because you didn't list reasons not to.

You have been dumped by your GF

"Woe is me" is usually the first thing going through your mind when you get dumped. You either begin over thinking or you ask yourself, "What's the next action?"

Your mind over thinking:

She's probably fucking Chad right now
I miss her/I hate being alone
What did I do to deserve this?

Proceed to be depressed.

Asking yourself, "What's the next action?"

Fuck a new girl
Distract myself with self improvement

Proceed to the mall to find new chick to bang or work on yourself.

I challenge you to always ask yourself "What is the next action?" For everything in life; work, school and relationships. Only do actions that will help you improve, for example: "I'm so horny, I will jack it to an asian bukkake to rid myself of my horny-ness" is no good. Instead think of something like "I'm so horny, I'm going to hit up the mall and get some numbers."

EDIT: I just want to add in a bonus. Sometimes the next action is extremely simple. For example, If you're thinking "I'm fat as fuck, I need to lose weight," the next action is NOT "go to the gym." The next action would be put on gym clothes/shoes.

Or let's say you want to approach HB 8/10, the next action is not introducing yourself, the next action would be walk towards her.

Jotun90 · 2015-04-01T23:26:30+00:00

I like to just remind myself that "perfection is the enemy of progress". I know it's not 100% applicable to this situation but it fits well enough. Overthinking impedes action.

[deleted] · 2015-04-02T00:58:54+00:00

"Focus on the eyes, live through the eyes".

Johnny10toes · 2015-04-01T21:58:40+00:00

OODA Loop. Learn everything about it.

randarrow · 2015-04-02T05:47:00+00:00

Here you go

oldredder · 2015-04-02T08:34:03+00:00

SLEEP.

Get drunk. Get high. Get busy on a reflex-heavy task.

Make the quality of your thinking go up so the quantity of your thinking does down but the same benefits result. Find short-cuts. Leverage experience to learn the most from the least planning steps.

VermilionMan · 2015-04-01T23:18:55+00:00

You should try lifting more. Regular exercise helps to calm your mind and get you into a more powerful frame.

blackhornatnight · 2015-04-01T23:52:54+00:00

Practice mindfulness mediation. It is a way to live moment by moment without living in your head.

http://marc.ucla.edu/body.cfm?id=22

vandaalen · 2015-04-01T20:30:46+00:00

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serenity_Prayer

Title	Mantra against overthinking
Author	Senderious
Upvotes	22
Comments	14
Date	April 1, 2015 7:19 PM UTC (11 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/askTRP
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/asktrp/comments/313id2/mantra_against_overthinking/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/askTRP/mantra-against-overthinking.147541 https://theredarchive.com/post/147541

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