How Do I Stop Overthinking Everything? | Deep Questions With Cal Newport

00:00:00.000 | All right, let's see here.

00:00:01.760 | We've got a written question.

00:00:03.620 | This one's from Overthinker.

00:00:06.440 | Overthinker says, "What do you think about overthinking?

00:00:11.820 | "And how do you deal with or recommend dealing with it?

00:00:15.240 | "This is a general problem I face,

00:00:17.760 | "and I have always had, but never had a way of dealing with.

00:00:20.300 | "I have this as far as career job decisions are concerned,

00:00:22.900 | "certain life decisions as well,

00:00:24.180 | "and by overthinking and overanalyzing

00:00:25.820 | "the potential options, I end up in a scenario

00:00:28.260 | "where I'm more confused than before.

00:00:30.720 | "How do you recommend dealing with this?

00:00:33.480 | "Thank you."

00:00:34.320 | All right, well, Overthinker, typically the issue,

00:00:38.600 | and this is a common problem,

00:00:40.280 | but typically the issue at stake with this problem

00:00:42.320 | is that you're stuck in the mental schema

00:00:45.240 | of a right-wrong decision binary.

00:00:49.840 | So that the mental framework you're using

00:00:53.680 | when thinking about decisions is that there is

00:00:56.480 | a right decision and multiple wrong decisions.

00:00:58.880 | If you can find a right decision,

00:01:00.300 | there is great rewards to it.

00:01:01.540 | If you miss it and end up on a wrong decision,

00:01:03.500 | there is great punishment.

00:01:06.820 | Now, when you have the stakes of a binary,

00:01:09.080 | you are really gonna worry about that decision

00:01:11.060 | because I don't wanna miss the right decision here.

00:01:13.480 | It could lead to quite a bit of hardship if I get it wrong.

00:01:17.220 | That is fertile ground for growing overthinking.

00:01:20.940 | So the big shift in mental frame

00:01:25.160 | that's gonna help you here is move away from this idea

00:01:27.340 | that there's right and wrong decisions,

00:01:29.120 | and your goal is to not mess up

00:01:30.580 | and accidentally do the wrong instead of the right.

00:01:33.540 | In many different areas where there's big decisions to make,

00:01:37.160 | there are many different ways forward

00:01:39.480 | that are completely compatible with reward or goodness

00:01:43.220 | or whatever it is that you're looking to maximize.

00:01:45.500 | What matters much more than the decision

00:01:47.200 | is what you do once you make it.

00:01:48.900 | Now, where this is made really clear

00:01:52.120 | is in career decisions, which you mentioned there.

00:01:54.340 | We talked about in an earlier question,

00:01:55.840 | which I wrote a whole book about,

00:01:56.840 | "So Good They Can't Ignore You."

00:01:57.900 | So let's focus on that briefly.

00:02:00.060 | Zoom in on that briefly here for a second.

00:02:02.800 | One of the big ideas in that book,

00:02:04.140 | "So Good They Can't Ignore You,"

00:02:05.240 | is that people often fell

00:02:06.480 | into this right-wrong binary decision frame

00:02:08.760 | when it came to career choices.

00:02:10.360 | There's a right job for me

00:02:11.520 | that matches some sort of magical fairy tale

00:02:13.840 | inborn passion for that job.

00:02:16.480 | If I find that job, I'll be happy.

00:02:18.020 | If I miss it, I'll be miserable.

00:02:19.560 | So people obsess over what job am I going to do.

00:02:23.080 | And as I argued in "So Good They Can't Ignore You,"

00:02:25.380 | the decision of what job you do

00:02:26.900 | is actually in some sense of minor importance.

00:02:30.460 | You're not wired for one particular pursuit.

00:02:34.820 | You're not wired to be the social media brand manager

00:02:37.860 | for a digital media consultancy.

00:02:40.260 | There's no particular job that happens to be around

00:02:43.020 | in the 21st century knowledge economy

00:02:44.380 | that you have to do because of your DNA.

00:02:46.460 | And if you miss it, you'll be unhappy.

00:02:48.140 | The reality is there's probably many, many different jobs

00:02:51.700 | that could be the foundation

00:02:52.700 | of a passionate, fulfilling career.

00:02:54.480 | So just choose one that seems reasonable.

00:02:56.400 | Great.

00:02:57.520 | What matters is what you do next.

00:02:59.640 | And that's where we get into career capital theory.

00:03:01.320 | That's where we get into becoming so good

00:03:02.860 | you can't be ignored.

00:03:04.240 | Using that unambiguous skill as leverage

00:03:07.420 | to shape your job towards things,

00:03:08.760 | towards resonate and away from things that don't,

00:03:10.480 | eventually arriving at an ideal lifestyle.

00:03:12.360 | The choice of job, eh.

00:03:14.220 | What you do once you make the choice,

00:03:15.640 | oh yeah, that matters.

00:03:17.120 | So we can extend that to almost any major decision.

00:03:21.740 | Here's what I would ask.

00:03:23.040 | Do I have evidence that this particular decision

00:03:25.080 | opens up good options for me that will move me closer

00:03:27.520 | to the properties of my desired lifestyle?

00:03:31.000 | If the answer is yes, are there other options

00:03:32.900 | which are also tractable

00:03:35.020 | that would be demonstrably more successful

00:03:40.020 | at moving me towards properties

00:03:42.200 | compatible with my ideal lifestyle?

00:03:44.100 | If the answer to that is no, so yes, no,

00:03:46.240 | then great, go ahead.

00:03:48.980 | So this seems good, I'll simplify the language here.

00:03:51.720 | This seems good, it opens up cool opportunities,

00:03:53.760 | it leads me in a direction I could imagine

00:03:55.620 | constructing a good deep life around that.

00:03:58.040 | And there's not some obvious alternative that's way better.

00:04:00.600 | I don't care if there's a lot of alternatives

00:04:01.700 | that are similar.

00:04:02.540 | There's not one that is obviously way better.

00:04:04.600 | Good, go for it, commit.

00:04:07.080 | And there might be six different options that satisfy this.

00:04:10.000 | Flip a, roll a six sided die, I don't care.

00:04:12.200 | Choose something that seems good, opens up opportunities.

00:04:16.920 | There's not some obviously much better answer.

00:04:19.420 | The interesting thing is then what you do next,

00:04:22.180 | which is once you've made the choice,

00:04:23.820 | all right, now what do I wanna do?

00:04:25.820 | I've chosen this job, I've decided to get married,

00:04:28.460 | I've decided to have kids, I've decided to move

00:04:32.000 | to this completely different environment.

00:04:33.220 | Great, you've made the decision.

00:04:34.640 | How now do you build a life around that decision

00:04:37.660 | that leverages and maximizes what's good about it,

00:04:40.460 | sidesteps to potential traps,

00:04:42.540 | that allows you to extract from it

00:04:43.740 | all of the possibilities for a deeper life

00:04:46.260 | for that ideal lifestyle.

00:04:47.960 | So that's the frame shift.

00:04:48.920 | The decision is easy.

00:04:51.100 | Don't make an obviously bad choice,

00:04:53.020 | but if something seems reasonable, that's good enough.

00:04:55.420 | Put more energy into what you do next.

00:04:59.020 | (upbeat music)

00:05:01.600 | (upbeat music)

How Do I Stop Overthinking Everything? | Deep Questions With Cal Newport

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