I used to lie awake at night overanalyzing every conversation I’d had that day.

Replaying my words. Second-guessing my choices. Obsessing over whether I’d made a mistake, usually about things no one else even remembered.

It didn’t make me smarter. It didn’t protect me. It just made me tired.

Overthinking tricks you into believing you’re solving problems.

But in reality, you’re just reliving the same ones over and over, never actually moving forward.

I remember pacing around my apartment in Melbourne, genuinely believing that if I could just think it through one more time, I’d find the perfect solution. But that solution never came. Just more exhaustion.

Here’s what helped me break the cycle and get back to actually living.

1. Ask yourself: “Is this useful?”

This one question saved me from countless spirals. I didn’t ask if a thought was true or important—I asked if it was helpful.

Most thoughts aren’t. They’re just loops that masquerade as insight.

Borrowing from cognitive behavioral therapy, I stopped treating every thought like it deserved my attention.

I started treating them like background noise. Some are worth tuning into. Most aren’t.

I even wrote this question—“Is this useful?”—on a sticky note and stuck it to my laptop. It became a kind of mental anchor whenever my brain started spinning stories again.

2. Make peace with uncertainty

A lot of overthinking is just fear in disguise—fear of choosing wrong, of failing, of not being enough.

But here’s the truth: you’ll never have all the information. You’ll never eliminate every risk. And you’ll never feel 100% ready.

Waiting for certainty keeps you stuck.

The people who seem the most confident? They just stopped needing all the answers before they act.

One of the hardest but most freeing realizations I had came after launching my first online business. There were no guarantees. I just had to leap. And I learned that peace doesn’t come from certainty—it comes from action in spite of it.

3. Take action before you feel ready

I used to believe that I needed clarity before I moved. But I’ve learned it’s the other way around—clarity comes through action.

Start messy. Start small. Start scared. But start.

Every time I took even the tiniest step forward, the fog lifted a little.

The longer you wait to feel “ready,” the longer you’ll wait to feel alive.

Starting Hack Spirit was chaotic and clumsy. I didn’t know what I was doing—but doing something was better than waiting for perfection. That imperfect start changed my life.

4. Notice your triggers

Overthinking isn’t random. It’s often tied to something—lack of sleep, too much caffeine, criticism, comparison.

For me, it’s fatigue and decision fatigue. When I’m mentally worn out, my brain turns into a glitchy browser with 30 tabs open and music playing from somewhere I can’t find.

If you can learn to spot the conditions that lead to spirals, you’ll be better equipped to avoid them.

These days, I can almost predict it: a late night, a tough decision, and suddenly I’m spiraling again. But now, instead of following the spiral, I pause. Stretch. Breathe. Reset.

5. Write it out

When I’m stuck in my head, dumping everything onto paper helps.

I don’t try to sound wise or organized. I just let the mess out.

Seeing it on a page—outside my mind—makes it feel less overwhelming.

You don’t need a journaling habit to do this.

You just need a pen, a quiet moment, and the willingness to stop bottling it all up.

Some of my clearest insights have come from scribbled, messy pages at 1 a.m.—not from more thinking, but from releasing the noise.

6. Stop polling everyone for advice

I used to ask five different people for input on every decision. And then I’d feel even more confused than when I started.

Seeking validation feels safe—but it disconnects you from your own inner compass.

When I started trusting myself, even when I wasn’t sure, I made faster, better choices.

Were they always perfect? No. But they were mine.

I remember asking three different friends if I should move to Vietnam—and getting three completely different answers. In the end, I followed my gut. It was the right move. The clarity only came after the decision.

7. Embrace the “good enough” decision

Not everything in life requires your full brainpower.

You don’t need to optimize where to eat lunch or which shirt to wear.

Some choices just need to be made. Quickly. Imperfectly. Then forgotten.

As author Greg McKeown wrote in Essentialism, “If you don’t prioritize your life, someone else will.”

Overthinking everything means spending your energy on things that don’t really matter—and missing the ones that do.

I used to waste half an hour picking a font for a blog post. Now? I pick, post, and move on. That decision freed up hours of my life.

8. Redefine what it means to live

Living fully doesn’t always mean doing more. Sometimes it’s about doing less—but being more “there” for it.

Like having coffee without your phone. Saying no without guilt. Walking just to walk, not to get somewhere.

This mindset shift has roots in mindfulness and Buddhism—both of which have deeply influenced my thinking.

I explore this more in my book, Hidden Secrets of Buddhism: How to Live with Maximum Impact and Minimum Ego, but here’s the gist: real presence doesn’t require perfection.

It just requires attention.

One of the biggest shifts for me was realizing I didn’t need to fix every part of my life—I just needed to be in it. Fully. Mindfully. That alone changed everything.

Final words

Overthinking keeps you in your head. Living pulls you back into your body.

The shift isn’t about eliminating thoughts, it’s about noticing when they’ve taken over, and choosing something else.

A walk. A breath. A phone call. A laugh.

You don’t need to have everything figured out to move forward.

You just need to decide you’re done letting your mind run the show.

And then take that next small step toward being here—really here—for your life.