Stop the swirl

Stuck inside your mind?

I was talking with an athlete yesterday who, like me, has a tendency to rinse and repeat decisions and thoughts through the mind like and endless stream. Maybe you’re the same?

• They call us ‘overthinkers’

• We suffer from ‘paralysis analysis’

• There’s a certainty of outcome we demand before we act

Even though the thoughts, problems, and decisions that swirl inside the mind endlessly are specific to our individual contexts, we share a common pattern.

The brain wants shortcuts and certainty at the same time. The mind filters information and aims towards an ‘objective’ assessment of the costs and benefits. After the fist ‘wash’ through the brain, the answer is less clear and the mind attempts to untangle it through a neverending swirl, rinse and repeat.

But you don’t find the answer, in fact, all the thinking makes it HARDER to see what’s the ‘right decision.’

And you’re paralyzed into a frozen state, unable to move forward for fear of making the ‘wrong’ choice and living with guaranteed regret.

If that’s you, I hear you and have a solution to this consistent problem.

Here’s your sign

The brain is a great place to rationalize decisions but not all decisions should be rationalized. If you can’t discern a clear cost vs. benefit winner in the first times through a problem, it’s a signal that you need to make this decision with a different part of you.

This is a values or principles based decision that requires the heart, or gut, to aim properly.

This leads to a difficult question: what does it mean to live by values, and how do I identify when I’m correctly living by them?

The answer: Get out of the mind and into the body

This is where the solitude and challenge of physical activity shines bright in bringing a different part of us to the forefront.

When I’m deep in the challenge of a training session or competition, the immediate presence of pain and adversity forces me into a different place. The brain becomes a servant, not a master, to the body and the spirit. Willpower and grit come to the fore. I begin to embody virtues, feeling them viscerally, knowing myself as a person who holds and acts on these virtues in times of struggle.

This type of self knowing is much different than a rational analysis and it puts me directly in tune with what can be called my values and principles.

Stripped away of distractions, such as external opinions and internal doubts, I’m able to aim squarely at the part of me that intuits, feels, and understands.

Takeaways

Now, how to translate this type of knowledge into practical action when faced with that overwhelming swirl of the brain?

That’s the real skill here.

And it’s not as easy as a ‘one size fits all solution’ (to be fair, anything of true value rarely is)

Being inside the body in a moment of physical exertion forces you to see a mirror of yourself. And it shines a bright reflection onto your best qualities.

That type of internal ‘knowing’ is the signal you need to respond to when your in the thralls of a brain swirl, ruminating in the mind, and only making the moment of decision worse and worse.

So here’s a simple framework to apply when you get stuck inside your own mind.

1.Identify the swirl

Has it been days of the same type of ‘back and forth’ over the same problem and has the anxiety only increased over that time? If the answers are yes you’re deep in the swirl.

2. Get out of the mind and into the body

Go for a LONG run no headphones. Head to the gym and lock in for a an hour or two and really push yourself. Hit the bike path and let a few hours pass by, go hard too.

Change the energy and put the mind in the backseat for a minute and let the heart and body take over the momentum.

3.Listen deeply for a direction

People are terrified of the truth, especially about themselves. These moments stripped away of the power rationalizing tendency of the brain gives a chance for a different razor to emerge, you can make decisions from the heart instead.

You may not like that answer at first, but deep inside you knew all along this was the ‘right decision’

4.Release the need to know for ‘certain’

Paralysis analysis results from a hope that you can make a decision in the present and now the complete outcome in the future. Fool’s errand at best.

Instead, you must come to peace with simply making a decision in the now and recognizing that there’s always tradeoffs with any decision. You accept the tradeoffs more easily when you’re literally engaged in an activity forcing you to trade off, go through adversity, and gain strength and knowledge in the process (your training).

When you make a decision from your heart, it may turn out objectively worse than if you made a calculated decision with your brain, but you will never subjectively resent or regret that decision. And ultimately, that’s what’s causing the paralysis anyways.

By trusting your gut, after reaching the limits of the mind, you take pressure off the decision to be ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, it just ‘is’.

And you find that signal by turning the mind off and getting into the body and spirit through righteous exercise aimed at self knowing.

This is how we tackled the problem yesterday, my athlete and I, and the result “This was by FAR the best coaching call we’ve ever had.” Proud coach, my guy is a killer!"

If you find yourself in a similar position, consistently over thinking and aiming incorrectly as a result, you need to consider how to get into the heart and out of the mind. My advice, practice exercise spiritually to know yourself.

If you’re interested in what that looks like and how I can help guide you there, send me a message using the button below and let’s talk.

Happy training team!