Episode 051 – Seekardo Short – How to stop overthinking things, dealing with choices, decision-making blocks, taking the first step and more

Harms: Hello it’s Harms here and welcome to another Seekardo show and today is a short. 

We’re talking about the concept of overthinking because right now, and any millennial will know this, anybody of the older generation will know that we are faced with an incredible amount of choices in our lives right now. 

There’s a group of us, which are inspired to do something but the choices are so overwhelming we are stuck in this trap of overthinking and we spend so much time thinking and thinking and thinking and very little time acting. 

So what we want to achieve today in the Seekardo Short is getting us or you the listener out of this mode of overthinking and into the mode of acting.

I’ve got Ro here as always to start talking about the subject of getting people out of this trap of overthinking.

Dr Ro: Thanks Harms. Let me think about this for a minute. I just want to think about this.

Harms: Would you like more choices?

Dr Ro: I need to think about this, I’ve got to think about this before I say anything. Imagine that podcast, thanks for joining us everybody. 

This is going to be an interesting one because it is one that Harms and I have faced together in front of audiences and I see it a lot particularly at the moment. 

We’re recording this in the middle of our third lockdown in the United Kingdom and Internet, social media, lots of people going online, more podcasts, products and offerings and services, write a book, create this and I just find they’re overwhelmed. 

Dr Ro: Let’s start with the first concept you’ve got to get used to and understand this paralysis of analysis. Paralysis is really where some people will just overthink it to the point where everything has to be just right, it has to be just perfect. I come across this a lot when I’m teaching people on courses where they have to invest in another course and they say I need to think about this. 

The problem is they’re ready to do it, but they’re almost justifying in their mind by delaying it more go check out another company, check-in with my wife, my husband, my boss, my dog, my cat, and so gets to a point where years later, they’re the same people that you meet that go yeah could have done that, should have done that but I just had a lot going on.

Harms: That throws another word in mind and it’s so spot on which is validation, another word that springs to mind you started with paralysis by analysis of the back of that is a word they need validation to get out of this mode of overthinking.

Dr Ro: And from everybody around them mum, dad, brother, sister.

Harms: Another one which is familiar and we see very often it’s a word that’s lived and it’s been around for decades now is procrastination. 

What’s your experience with procrastination when coaching people or educating them or getting them to make a decision because they desperately want to make a decision?

Dr Ro: Last weekend I ran an event. It was a real estate based event. We gave them three days of great content, but like anybody who is smart enough to understand this you can’t become an expert on the subject over two or three days. You did your degree and went on to do engineering. I did my degree and PHD in engineering but that took different phases in my learning the same thing with you. 

Often what will happen is people get to a point where they go great. I really want to get going on this business for example, property or online digital marketing and then to go to that next level, they have to make further investment in themselves and they don’t. They hesitate, they say what do you think?

It seems like a lot of money, I’m looking at thinking if you can do this right in the next couple of years you’ve got the next 30 years without having to work for somebody else that is equivalent to millions of pounds worth of freedom and they’re weighing up a handful of thousands of pounds worth of investment. 

The procrastination is based on fear, past programming from parents, maybe miss valuation of their money as it’s sitting in the bank and they’ve worked hard for it so they figure best to leave it there without realising the best investment is in themselves. 

That is a classic example of procrastination but it can come into relationships, marriage, other people committing to a business or having kids, for example. You’re in your 30’s you’ve got your first child, but there are people that go, I think I have to get everything right the first mortgage, get job stability and then probably be living somewhere for about three or four years first make sure everything is right. 

All of a sudden 20 years have gone by and they still haven’t had kids. Procrastination is a massive stealer of so many opportunities.

Harms: One of the things that exists I think almost permanently in someone’s mind is this small, subtle level of anxiety, this feeling of anxiousness because there’s something in their gut, something in their heart which is telling them do it, do it. 

But the anxiety is created because they’re being held back by something in their mind overthinking this paralysis, this procrastination is holding them back and then they’re living in a constant feeling of anxiety.

Dr Ro: The FOMO creeps in because they know they should be doing it.

Harms: They’ve seen other people doing it and they’re being inspired. They go on YouTube videos, listening to motivational talks, listening to this podcast and it makes sense.

But there’s something holding them back where are they living?

Dr Ro: Picture two images in your head, one is your head and one is your heart. This is the head now the head is like logically saying, but look how many people have failed, how much do you have to put into this?

Somebody made a mistake in this.

Can I do it, am I good enough?

By definition all of a sudden, the past historical events become a belief system for the future although the future doesn’t exist; we are in the present. 

The heart is pulling in one direction the head is pulling in another and so it comes to a decision point where you go my gut everything in my soul tells me I want to do this, but there’s a bunch of logical voices from past whatever, family members, programming from our society Asian culture, non-Asian culture, West Indian culture, Irish culture, whatever it is. 

All that comes onto you, plus one bad experience in the past might put you off making a decision in the future. So it’s a dangerous place to be. You have to get out of your head and into your heart and if you really, truly want to do it is then taking the next step.

Harms: Taking the next step to make it happen is a decision and being decisive in making a decision is the next step. 

What have you observed when it comes to people making decisions Ro, because that’s the act which is not happening, which is holding them back from taking the next step, it’s the decisive action.

Dr Ro: It’s like a double bind, and there’s a part that wants it and there’s another part holding them back. It’s like a figure of eight it goes round and round and you can never get out of, it’s like an infinite cycle. So what you have to do is break that and the way we break it is we have to go back to why. You talked about anxiety. The only reason there is anxiety is because there must be a part of you one part of the foot is on the break, the other part is the foot on the accelerator. We have to go back to the accelerator and say how badly do we want this? 

Why do we really want this?

Harms: Like a car the engine is whirring.

Dr Ro: It’s about abundance and fear is, this sense of lack and fear versus abundance and you’ve got to weigh the two up. You’ve got one person waving the banner of fear and lack and the other waving abundance once abundance becomes so massive in your soul and this desire to achieve something it will drive you forward.

Harms: Add a layer on that Ro, this phrase everyone knows what fear is but not anybody would have heard the word abundance before just decode that one. 

What does abundance mean to them in a contrast of fear as it is holding them back. 

They are living in fear at the moment if they are overthinking, whatever that feeling is there that is a feeling of fear that’s. You’re living in a form of fear when it comes to abundance what are we saying?

Dr Ro: Basically we are living in a world where everything you want is around you every resource that you need is either within you or without you, meaning that there are people around you that could provide that to you. 

The universe will provide based on your resonant frequency, your vibration harmony that you bring to the table you only attract to you that which you put out. 

If you come with the belief that you can always overflow every human being within them a nature to want to be able to give and to contribute to help and that money and energy and happiness all the things I genuinely want to attract each have their own vibrational frequency. I just have to tune into that and its abundant, infinite within the universe around us. 

So if I vibrate in that space I’ll bring those things to me. I work on the assumption and somebody who’s abundant that whatever I need is there. 

The minute I allow it to come to me by putting the intention out, but the same thing applies to lack if I vibrate a frequency of lack, it’s not available to me and I’ve got a low vibrational frequency I’ll only attract things that are lower vibrations. Abundance is about infinite availability of whatever resources and energy and spirit that we want amazing.

Harms: It’s such a large subject in itself. 

The word abundant in such a place of fear just that definition alone may access a different part of their minds and they will think, I didn’t look at things that way, incredible. If they are even for a glimmer or moment in time in a headspace of abundance and heart abundance. 

What do they need to do now, what’s the next step?

Dr Ro: Meditation is a great way to do this. 

Put yourself into a space where you imagine what you want to attract so this is about choice. Now remember, whatever that thing is holding you back we have to put that aside for a minute and make the visual strong.

If you’re a sensory person it could be kinesthetics, internal feelings, visual, auditory, whatever, and that has to come into some manifestation now once that’s done, we now need to ask a simple question. How badly do I want this? 

Because remember, up until now the procrastination has been pushing more on the break, which suggests that maybe they don’t want it enough or the fear is heavier than the desire to get that. We need the clarity of the vision. In the car we can see we want to get to the top of the mounting we’ve got our foot on the accelerator, but the brake is down now, so the more we clarify and simplify what we want we don’t look any distractions. Look at that ravine on the side, look at the tree, do we have to jump over that river there on the rocks on the road. 

That’s all the distractions, that’s the heady stuff we’re telling ourselves. 

But what if we could simplify this and just say how badly do I want this on a scale of one to 10? 

That third step is like attaching an incredible amount of importance to number two, which is your why.

Another way to think about this using the car analogy would be we’ve got both feet on accelerator and the break and when you ask yourself the question, how badly do you want it, let’s say you’ve got to place and you’ve taken the foot off the brake completely you’ve got to ask yourself how hard were you pressing the accelerator pedal? 

If you don’t really want it badly at least now you know but you’ve to be in the space to make a decision.

But even before we get to that there’s a fundamental question as it might be they did not want it as bad as they say they wanted it and that’s when we draw the line and say, I’ll stop beating myself up. There isn’t paralysis or procrastination here actually, I don’t want this. 

In which case walk away and it doesn’t become that tug-of-war you talked about.

Harms: The weight is off your shoulder, anxiety disappears.

Dr Ro: The flipside to that is let’s assume you do what is really bad and now what’s the next step? 

I like to do a contrarian conversation and say what’s the consequences if I don’t get to that place? 

We are looking at one thing. Would it be nice to get there, sometimes to get emotional leverage we have to ask the question, what if I don’t do this?

 What if I walk away from this incredible opportunity whether it’s a date, marrying a person, starting the business, having kids, whatever. 

What would life be like in three, five, 10 years’ time if I didn’t do this? Really paint that picture and if there’s pain associated with it, magnify the pain if there is loss associated with it, magnify the loss and get a sense of being there 10 years down the line looking back going, I should have done. It’s that retrospective looking back in regret conversation, but we have it now as though we’re in the future.

Harms: If now at this point, you find the consequences aren’t big you again go back to the default acceptance. It’s a feedback loop, but you have to go through this exercise of awareness to understand how badly you want it because the other consequence is you live for many years in this feeling of procrastination going back to any paralysis, anxiety.

Dr Ro: Then you get the real experience of the consequences.

Harms: As you’re living in this emotional state. 

I think one consequence of that is people around you just start to get turned off by you because you’re always talking about something you want to do but never doing it. You are telling other people they should be doing this, but you’ve never done it so you end up in this particular loop and for the overthinkers out there that’s often the case.

Dr Ro: What’s sad is and you’ve seen this with me where people get numb and then they lose the passion and they become the people that talk about what they could have done and should have done. 

Of course, who do we become as parents if we keep putting stuff off for ourselves but we teach our children not to do that, part of this being a great role model to the people around us as well.

Harms: If we’ve established the consequences what’s next?

Dr Ro: Take the first step. 

We’ve got a vision, we know the reason we want to do this and we’ve also established it’s quite a big reason and we’ve also established that as simple as it is, I actually genuinely want this on a scale eight, nine out of 10 and I flipped on its head and said what if I don’t do this it’s really bad. 

The consequences of not doing this is worse than sitting here doing it. It is a little bit like you make a decision with the consequence conversation to say I’m not prepared to live with that. In which case by default, I just have to take the first step. 

You are driven by the pain of not doing it or you’re pulled by the desire to do it. Whichever one is your motive but everyone is driven, in which case what is the first thing? 

Is it a phone call to that lovely lady or man that you were going to ask out on a date but you procrastinated or is it getting a first chapter done of your book or finding a coach or an education company that teaches property investing or getting online and finding out how to market your business?

Whatever it is, do one thing one step. It does not have to be massive, just a tiny step.

Harms: I think for those who are listening who have been in the place of overthinking or you’ve got somebody who is in the pace of overthinking and you’re getting frustrated by them because they keep talk about something they want to do and the last 12 months has magnified that get them to listen to the Seekardo Short.

Dr Ro: I would actually sit down if you said what would be one good thing, sit down and write down all the things that you’ve been putting off. 

It is like a download, because these things will build up over time and then you get this semi-regret conversation at the end of the year. 

What if you piled them all into one piece of paper and applied these four, five steps we did, maybe do 20 minutes or 25 minutes on each one. That will filter it down to a set of projects you can take on.

Harms: Absolutely and one or two of those, once all is said and done, will be the things that you really want to pursue everything else is just a distraction to get you to the place you want to get to. I’m excited for the other thinkers listening to this get busy get to work, take that first action step. 

That’s myself and Ro signing off we shall see you on the next Seekardo Show.