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Disclaimer: My content is NOT a substitute for professional advice, diagnosis, or treatment. When in doubt, ask a therapist!
Have you ever worried about any of the following:
- Will I say the wrong thing? (wrong = stupid, offensive, boring etc.)
- Did I say the wrong thing?
- I said the wrong thing… What will they think of me!?
Overthinking during and even after conversations is normal: we all want to be liked and respected, and the right words can help. But here’s when it becomes a problem…
- It leads to unusually high levels of anxiety: Your anxiety-driven thoughts become circular, almost like a broken record. One way that this manifests is post-event rumination.
- It leads to excessive filtering of what you say in conversations: We all self-censor to a certain extent, but when you agonize over every single word you say, you end up becoming a shadow of yourself.
- It leads to avoidance: You become unwilling to talk with people and you shun social situations when possible…
Now, you can’t necessarily stop overthinking — that’s not how the mind works (sorry for the clickbait headline!) As APA quoted Dostoevsky as saying:
“Try to pose for yourself this task: not to think of a polar bear, and you will see that the cursed thing will come to mind every minute.”
Here’s what you can do: reduce your tendency to overthink social interactions. Here are a few ways:
Understand your underlying fear
To unpack the psychology of your overthinking, ask yourself the following questions:
- Fear: What am I scared of happening and why?
- Pain: What am I trying to protect myself from?
By understanding where your anxiety comes from, you become more aware of your overthinking, which can help reduce its intensity.
Ride your mind like a wild horse
If your overthinking gets too intense, it’s helpful to keep this mindfulness metaphor in mind (h/t: Vidyamala Burch)
Imagine that your mind is a horse that’s full of energy and that runs all over the place. Is it possible to stop it from running, let alone bridling it? Most probably not.
Here’s the pragmatic thing to do then: go with the flow of your mind’s energy. Acknowledge and accept the chaos of your mind — rather than trying to tame it — which helps reduce your anxiety.
In a study, participants who did an acceptance exercise had the least negative, intrusive thoughts:
(If this didn’t resonate with you, no worries! Here are other mindfulness tips that you can try.)
Set aside some “worry time”
Now, there will be times when your mind is too wild of a horse to tame — when your worries become too compelling to ignore.
Rather than getting lost in your worries and dropping out of the conversation, here’s what you could do: delay the worry.
Scheduling your “worry time” — say 5 to 15 minutes — is powerful, because you learn to stop letting your worries disrupt your conversation. In the training I did with her, Kimberly Morrow, LCSW, said:
“They will have a very difficult time filling that time up and because they delayed the worry, it won’t feel so urgent or emotional to them. It might feel a little bit ridiculous to them. And that’s when they are beginning to change their relationship with those worries.”
Immerse yourself in the conversation
Here’s what I learned from Larry A. Cohen, the co-founder of the National Social Anxiety Center:
Instead of getting sucked into your overthinking, pull back and focus on the conversation instead. In other words, treat your thoughts as background noise.
This is just like having a conversation in a noisy restaurant. To speak and listen clearly, you lean forward and pay more attention to your friend. You can still hear the chattering and the clanking, but the sounds become less of a mental focus.
(Here are other mindfulness techniques to stay present in a conversation.)
Accept that you will say the wrong things now and then
Here’s the reality:
It’s impossible to say the right things all the time.
And, you can’t control the outcome of a conversation, no matter how hard you try. You certainly can’t control how the person will think or feel in response to what you say!
So, let’s play this out. Let’s say you said something that triggered a frown or complaint from someone (rare, but it happens). You apologize but you still feel bad.
Here’s what you could do: practice self-compassion (a proven strategy for emotion regulation).
You could give yourself a warm hug, or a gentle touch to your chest. You could also say something kind to yourself like…
I’m sorry for hurting them. But I’m still worth loving.
Blurt it out (more)
When you’re in overthinking mode, it’s easy to catastrophize i.e. worry about the worst-case scenario.
To challenge your assumptions, try having a conversation without planning what you are going to say next. If that’s too much, experiment for a minute or two.)
Imagine that you are in an improv and you have no script.
How would you talk differently?
Settle for OK responses
To help you talk more freely, here’s what Daniel Wendler, PsyD, the founder of Improve Your Social Skills, recommended:
“Stop pressuring yourself to say the perfect thing or (even to say a good thing) and settle for saying something that is just okay.
As long as the thing that comes to mind is not offensive or hurtful, just say it. Don’t worry if it’s boring or trite. Giving yourself permission to say the boring thing gets you unstuck and builds momentum that will allow you to say the interesting thing that might be right around the corner.”
I agree with Dan. Even the best conversations have dull moments!
Ask yourself this one question
Whatever strategy you end up trying, it all comes down to this:
Do you choose connection (as a result of being fully engaged)?
Or do you choose safety (as a result of overthinking)?
Making the shift from safety to connection isn’t overnight, but if you choose the former conversation by conversation, you will start building the social confidence you’ve been dreaming about 🙂
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