Over-Thinking

As an advocate of thinking - and generally of thinking more, rather than less, than we usually do about any complex or fraught issue - I sometimes wondered about people who accused themselves of over-thinking. What did they mean? I sort of got it, but my instincts rebel against the term. Can one really think too much?

I suppose that if one delays necessary decisions and actions on the pretext of thinking further, that would be problematic. But in general, that wasn't the context in which I heard the comment. 

As so often, it is my coaching clients who have helped me to work out what I think.  So just recently, I have had some interesting discussions with a few people about rumination. And that label - rather than over-thinking- seems more helpful to me. 

Further, in discussing the issue with someone who worries about her tendency in that direction, we had some useful insights. Initially, we wondered if the difference was that useful thinking (what I call thinking) was solutions-focused, whereas ruminating tended not to be.

But we discarded that: we could both think of examples from our own and others' experience where issues without a potential solution could be the subject of either kind of thinking.

So what we settled on was intentionality; and in two senses.  Rumination often happens uninvited; and also often has no clear purpose. Whereas thinking is generally purposeful, in both those ways: one chooses to think about a particular issue, and one has some sense of purpose in doing so, even if it is merely to reflect on the awfulness of the situation. 

At least, I think so.