Blog: How not to confuse between problem solving and overthinking
Often misunderstood as problem solving overthinking is just inaction and paralysis.
Late Sunday night, you get a text from your boss. It just plainly reads ‘Let’s meet at 10.30 in my office tomorrow morning. Need to discuss a few things!’ The moment you read it there is a panic alarm that goes inside your head
‘Why did he call? What could be the urgency? For him to message on a Sunday night, it must be a grave issue!’
‘Did I say something wrong in the last team huddle?’
‘Have I been keeping my deadlines?’
‘Is the rumor on job cuts from corporate really true?’
A hundred ‘what if’ scenarios go inside your head. If you are a chronic overthinker it would end with a ‘what if he wants to meet me to tell me that I am fired’ and finally ‘How can I face my family and friends when I lose my job’
On the other hand, if you are a good problem solver, the only thing you would do is just note down the appointment with the boss and schedule it in your calendar and maybe permit yourself an idle curiosity on what it could be. What you would not do is make assumptions with the full awareness that you need to cross the bridge when you come across it.’
Viktor E. Frankl, a neurologist, psychologist and Holocaust survivor very famously said in his book Man’s Search for Meaning, “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” The core difference between an over thinker and problem solver is in how each of them responds to external stimuli. The overthinker worries, over analyses, imagines and ruminates about a situation which is unclear or sometimes not even manifested itself as a problem. A problem solver would have a solution-oriented, fact-based methodology of handling the issue on hand.
Let us delve into certain questions which would help you distinguish between the subtle differences of the two.
What is the end result that I hope to achieve by thinking about this problem? Are my thoughts directed towards that?
If your thoughts are not productive and solution oriented it means you are going round and round on a loop. This just results in the issue gaining a completely imaginary magnitude because of the time spent thinking about it without any real purpose
Do I know enough to find a solution or do I understand the problem in its entirety?
Even to make a reasonable assumption, you need facts. To accept an employment-offer from a company you need to know more about your role, the profile of the company, its standing in the industry, its background, promoters, the results it posts etc. You don’t accept or reject an offer just because someone vaguely familiar gave an opinion of the place or the name of the company sounded good or bad. The parameters on which you can base your decisions should be accessible for you to review. If they are not available then it is not the right time to make a decision. You need to know more and then decide.
Does the problem have a solution which is in your capacity to find or is it completely dependent on outside factors?
It is pointless to stay awake all night worrying about a trek you have committed to do on the weekend with your friends, if the decision of the trek is dependent on the weather on that particular day. It essentially means the decision is not in your hands. For something entirely dependent on outside forces, your overthinking is of absolutely no consequence. It will be just a sleepless night and nothing more.
Am I sure there is a problem or is it just a situation which has become a problem in just the realm of thoughts and hasn’t actually snowballed into one and might not even?
This is one of the most common and deceptive lines of thinking. Human mind is fraught with innumerable logical biases. One of them is the assumption of existence of a problem which becomes big because of the thought and energy poured into it. After a point our mind starts believing an assumption to be a fact and what’s worse is we start building on it as well. So, a non-existent problem gets life, grows and eventually eats us. The case of the text from your boss on Sunday given at the beginning of the blog is just that. The boss would have wanted to just discuss with you about hiring new hands for your department while you were getting worried sick and contemplating shame of losing your job which was a totally baseless assumption
Is my understanding or belief true?
We always have a favorable bias towards our own beliefs. It takes tremendous effort and will power to question yourself and the truth of your beliefs. To be unbiased or admit that you might not be right is a herculean task. Most of the overthinking would be based on your erroneous beliefs as well and hence pointless
What is the worst that could happen if it were to come true?
It is said that 85% of the things we fear don’t happen. So, there is only a 15% chance of the worst thing ever happening which is a pretty manageable number in itself. Most of our worries are based on the worst-case scenarios. Thinking about something and about its impact a million times will not make it happen nor avoid it from happening is the harshest truth which we all know but refuse to accept. As long as it doesn’t result in death of a person the worst-case scenarios have very miniscule odds of happening.
However much we plan, over think or worry about our future, life has a way of surprising us with something entirely new. Then, isn’t it better to just read the text from your boss and go about your life hoping that he wants to talk to you about your promotion? You can have a good sleep and a few good dreams about how to spend all the extra money that is coming your way!
If you are looking for some help in preparing yourself or your team to be goal and plan oriented in the approach to life or looking at equipping yourselves to lead a smarter life with any kind of soft skill coaching, do write to us at harish@harishrao.world to know how we can help you with it. We would love to work with you on this or any other business coaching needs you may have!