Your mind isn’t broken. But something underneath is running the show.
You made a decision. A good one. Maybe you said no to something that wasn’t right for you, or you stepped up for an opportunity you’d been circling for months. And then you spent the next three days replaying it. Picking it apart. Running through every possible way it could go wrong.
That’s not a personality flaw. That’s not because you’re anxious or weak or indecisive. It’s what happens when you’ve learned, somewhere along the way, that your judgment can’t be trusted.
I’ve spent 15 years coaching women through exactly this, and without exception, the ones who struggle most with overthinking are not the ones who think too much. They’re the ones who’ve been taught, directly or indirectly, that their instincts aren’t safe to follow.
Overthinking is not the problem. It’s the symptom. And until you understand what’s actually underneath it, no amount of journaling prompts, breathing exercises, or “just make a decision” advice is going to stick.
Overthinking isn’t about the decision in front of you. It’s about an older belief that your judgment leads somewhere painful.
What Overthinking Is Really Protecting You From
Here’s what most people get wrong about overthinking: they treat it like a bad habit. Something to be managed or minimized. A thinking pattern that can be swapped out for a better one.
But your brain doesn’t do things without a reason. Overthinking is a protective response. It’s your mind trying to prevent a specific kind of pain, the pain of getting it wrong, being judged, losing something important, or confirming a fear you already have about yourself.
When you trace overthinking back to its root, it almost always connects to one of a few core experiences:
Past decisions that led to real consequences. Not just minor regrets — the kind of decisions that shook your confidence in yourself. A relationship that fell apart. A career move that backfired. A time you trusted someone who let you down. Your brain filed all of that away as evidence that careful thinking is the only thing standing between you and disaster.
Environments where being wrong was costly. Some of us grew up or worked in places where mistakes weren’t just mistakes — they were shameful. Where getting it wrong meant criticism, withdrawal, or being told you should have known better. You learned to check and re-check before doing anything, because the cost of being wrong was too high.
A deep fear of disappointing people. If your sense of safety has ever been tied to keeping people happy, then every decision feels like a potential letdown waiting to happen. Overthinking becomes a way of pre-managing everyone else’s reaction before you’ve even taken a step.
None of these is a character defect. They’re adaptations. They made sense at some point. But they’re probably not serving you the way they once did.
The Difference Between Thinking and Spiralling
Not all deep thinking is overthinking. There is a version of careful, thorough consideration that is genuinely useful, the kind that helps you make aligned, thoughtful decisions.
The difference is in what the thinking is doing.
Useful thinking moves forward. It gathers information, considers options, and reaches a conclusion. Even if it takes time, it has a direction.
Overthinking loops. It revisits the same territory over and over without resolution. It generates more questions than answers. And crucially, it doesn’t feel like thinking — it feels like something being done to you.
Useful thinking moves. Overthinking loops. If you feel like you’re spinning rather than progressing, that’s the signal.
Spiralling is also often triggered by specific kinds of thoughts. Watch for these patterns:
“What if” thinking that focuses only on worst cases. What if it goes wrong? What if they think less of me? What if I’m making a mistake I can’t undo? These questions aren’t bad on their own, but when they only generate catastrophic answers, they’re anxiety-driving the bus.
Seeking reassurance that never actually reassures. You ask for an opinion. You get it. And five minutes later, you need another one. Or you feel better for an hour, and then the doubt creeps back. External reassurance can’t fill a self-trust gap; it’s a temporary patch over a deeper hole.
Revisiting closed decisions. You made the call. It’s done. And yet you’re still rehearsing the alternative version of events in your head. This isn’t a useful review; it’s your nervous system trying to process something it hasn’t fully made peace with.
What You’re Actually Trying to Build
The opposite of overthinking isn’t impulsiveness. It isn’t forcing yourself to decide quickly before your brain has a chance to catch up. That’s just a different kind of avoidance.
What you’re building toward is self-trust. A felt sense that even if a decision doesn’t work out perfectly, you will be okay. That you have the capacity to handle what comes next. That your judgment is informed, considered, and genuinely yours is worth acting on.
In 15 years of working with women in leadership and entrepreneurship, the transformation I’ve most consistently seen isn’t the one where someone finally makes the right decision. It’s the one where a woman stops needing external confirmation before she’ll trust what she already knows. That shift from looking outward for a green light to recognizing the authority she already carries is what I call inner authority. And it is available to every woman in this work, including you.
Self-trust doesn’t come from getting it right every time. It comes from building a track record with yourself of showing up, deciding, learning, and moving forward. It’s accumulated evidence that you can handle the outcomes of your choices, including the imperfect ones.
Self-trust isn’t about certainty. It’s about knowing you can handle what comes next, whatever it is.
Where to Start
If you’re caught in an overthinking spiral right now, here are three grounding questions worth sitting with:
1. What am I actually afraid will happen if I get this wrong? Get specific. Name the fear underneath the loop. Vague dread has more power than a named fear.
2. What do I already know? Not what you’re uncertain about, but what do you actually know, right now, that is relevant to this decision? Often, you know more than your spiralling brain is giving you credit for.
3. What would I tell a woman I respected if she came to me with this same question? This one bypasses a lot of the noise. You probably know the answer. The work is learning to apply that same generosity to yourself.
These questions won’t dissolve years of learned self-doubt in one sitting. But they interrupt the loop long enough to give you a foothold. And that foothold, taken consistently, is how self-trust actually gets built.
Reflection Prompt
Where in your leadership are you currently overthinking — and if you're honest, what is the belief underneath it that makes acting on your own judgment feel unsafe?
