Life, The Game of Probabilities. Why You Need to Stop Overthinking and Start Working.

Overthinking, a common phenomenon among the people today. Overthinking breeds from a person’s desire to feel safe, naturally humans want to feel safe in any and every situation they can be in. Whilst its good to analytically overthink things to predict and have certain expectations, overthinking can become a boon if it occupies most or all of your mind at all times.

It isn’t uncommon for people to feel anxious, depressed and stressed about situations which not only have not yet taken place but also most of the time do not play out as a person expected them to. While thinking and predicting outcomes of a certain situation you’re in can help you prepare for them in advance, they shouldn’t be anything more than an analytical move. To think and to find a solution instead of getting stuck on a specific imaginary situation and then constantly spoiling your current present own mental and physical health over events which have not even yet taken place.

As with most of the things, to overcome the nightmares of overthinking you need a change in your perspective and mindset.

So, what is the most practical mindset you can presently adopt to make you realize that it isn’t the healthiest of decisions to unnecessarily constantly stress on something which hasn’t even happened yet?

The Probability Mindset : Each and every event which plays out in your life could not be predicted purely because of the huge amount of uncertainty there is to life. Every event which takes place is an outcome of multiple factors with increased probabilities yielding to that event.

As always, let’s us understand this with an example:

Shahid is a fresher engineering student, he’s soon about to graduate and is greatly stressed about his career and future as a major deciding point in his life nears him. Shahid is a confident young person who is above average in his domain, not only is he a great student but also someone who takes his studies as well as his career in high regards, especially in the recession prone environment which he’s graduating in.

Shahid focuses on his projects and studies throughout the day but not a single day passes by without him daydreaming about a certain thought, a certain scenario which he predicts might play out in his future. Shahid thinks about all the constant negativity he’s surrounded with, thousands of layoffs in his domain, huge inflation rates, high debts and all the increase in poverty happening around the club. While all of this does motivate Shahid to work hard, it also haunts him, through the day and mostly through the night “What if i do not end up at my level after i graduate?”, “I have this one shot to start my career well, what if it fails and i am stuck where i am for a good portion of my youth?”. While all of these may sound too pessimistic to some people, these are very valid arguments for Shahid, an aspiring and motivated young person.

Shahid’s nights are haunted by these nightmares, he’s always dreamt of being independent and making the people around him happy and gifting things to them which they’ve always wanted or never even expected. Slowly, Shahid’s fears and nightmares worsen, affecting his progress, studies and mental health. Shahid who is an above average person in his domain is anxious and stressed about his future.

Shahid finally gathers the courage to talk to people about this issue which has been bothering him for a while but Shahid doesn’t just go and share his issue with the people who already have a pessimistic and negative mindset, in-fact Shahid consults one of his seniors whose a cheerful, happy and motivated man. Shahid has known him for a while and knows that his senior has had quite a painful past full of challenges but is still always smiling, motivated and content.

The senior doesn’t advice Shahid directly, he asks him questions which make Shahid ponder upon his answers. He asks Shahid some questions before asking him to leave, “How many times have the situations played out exactly as you predicted?”, “How many times did your anxiety and stress help if a situation did play out as you expected it to?” and “What could you have done instead of stressing about the situation to perhaps change it or better it?”.

Shahid leaves and stays up the night pondering, eventually he realises that life is full of uncertainties, most of the times he thought of something happening which stressed him didn’t even happen and in turn wasted his energy and mental space into worrying about. But Shahid also realized preparing for a situation well in advance did also give him peace of mind to an extent. Shahid finally realizes that he can almost never completely predict or describe an outcome of event, life is so full of uncertainty that you can never fully control a specific outcome, even by overstressing, overthinking and overplanning.

So, what can you do? Shahid also realizes that he can manipulate the factors leading to a specific outcome, this is how Shahid applies this phenomenon to his specific problem.

Shahid firstly accepts the problem, yes there is a recession and his market value is low since he’s a fresher. Secondly Shahid looks at all the factors which affect him landing a good milestone in his career : skills, confidence, passion and drive. Shahid starts working on these factors and improving himself, he puts his much needed mental space and energy into thinking about how he can improve to be a better candidate and a better professional in his domain than thinking about the outcome, because the outcome is determined by his current actions and will happen regardless.

Shahid now doesn’t think much about the pessimistic side of his future and instead focuses on what factors he can manipulate to avoid the future which he thinks could lead to his doom.

TLDR/Conclusion : It is important in life to embrace and accept certain situations rather than running away from them. Accepting and acknowledging the possibility of an event can lead to analytical and logical thinking in that domain which can not only lead you to finding solutions to that event/problem but also avoid it all together by affecting the factors and lowering the probabilities of factors which could yield to an unwanted event by working on them and increasing the probability of a likely event by working on the factors which can yield to them.

It is necessary to accept the fact that many things in life are not under your control, though it is good to take responsibility for most and all things around you, it is also necessary to understand that somethings simply cannot be undone. Accepting a certain situation can give much needed peace of mind to a person and may also lead him to practice logical and analytical thinking with a calm mind which in turn can lead to him acting the most suitable way possible for that given situation.