Speaker 1 (00:00):

[inaudible]

Speaker 2 (00:13):

Hey, welcome to female leaders on fire podcast. And today is episode number nine. I don’t know how we’ve got here so quickly, but say I’m super excited

Speaker 3 (00:26):

Because I’m going to be talking about something that I see so many female leaders struggle with, and that is overthinking and getting stuck in your own head. And I think this is a really, really important one because I think it really impacts on your influence and your impact when you get stuck in your own head and your overthinking, you’re thinking through different scenarios, your over-analyzing things that are probably going to lead to being overwhelmed and to help you today. My intention stays help you to get past that overthinking, to really have that level of impact and influence that you want, and to be a female leader on fire. So for those that don’t know me before we get into today’s episode, I am Nicola Buckley. I’m the coach for female leaders in the corporate world. So women reporting to the board, I helped them to find their fire.

Speaker 3 (01:13):

So that passion, that purpose like excitement and really fall back in love with what they do, um, without neglecting the sales without compromising who they are and without over-giving so that they end up feeling invisible. So I absolutely love what I do. It’s an absolute privilege to really support the women that I do. Um, and this podcast is all part of my mission, helping women really in the corporate world to become a force for good and for female leaders to role model for themselves, their value in their work, but also to create that path for future leaders as well. So why am I going to be talking about today? So it’s all about overthinking. What I’m going to be covering is a definition of overthinking. So what it actually means that I’m going to geek out with some noggin knowledge and what’s actually going on in your brain when you’re overthinking the symptoms of overthinking.

Speaker 3 (02:05):

So how to know when you’re stuck in it, and also some top tips to get past and stop overthinking and start taking feel-good action. So let’s start at the very beginning. So really the biggest message from today is that overthinking is really a lack of clarity, which then leads onto lack of confidence because you’re externally distracted living in the noise, trying to people place, trying to meet expectations, trying to be people need you to be. And that means that the voices of other people allowed her instead of internally leading from the heart and trusting your intuition and knowing what is right for you. So really that overthinking is a form of being distracted. It’s a form of listening to others more than you is a form of keeping yourself small and not having that input impact and influence that you deserve. So if you do struggle with overthinking, no, that this is something that you’re absolutely not alone with.

Speaker 3 (03:04):

This is something I struggle with. This is something I see my clients struggle with and women that I work with. And it’s really an epidemic amongst female leaders. Because if you think about the last year and the pandemic now more than ever, women have really stepped into trying to just really make a shift and make a change within a world. That’s more challenging than ever juggling roles at work and at home blurred boundaries, working from home, trying to influence from a far trying to inspire teams remotely work in. So it’s not a surprise if you overthinking it at the moment and you’re feeling overwhelmed. So be kind to yourself, listen in today, go and grab yourself a cup and listen today. And hopefully this is really going to help you to clear your head and start taking feel-good action instead of being stuck in that overthinking.

Speaker 3 (03:51):

So let’s start at the very beginning. I always like to start with a definition and the definition of overthinking is really it’s, it’s thinking too much is thinking for too long it’s over-analyzing and going through every different scenario and thinking how it might play out, um, is what my, some of my clients kind of term getting stuck in your own mind, okay, it’s stuck in your own head and it leads to procrastinating. It leads to not really being proactive in what you’re doing and not performing as you know that you can. And it’s no judgment if you’re in a place that moment where you’re overthinking and feeling overwhelmed. If you look back over our last 18 months, my life, your life everyone’s life is so different and that’s our home life. And also our work life is so unrecognized to be different from 18 months ago.

Speaker 3 (04:37):

And there’s certainly no judgment if you’re feeling that right now, because the world is an ever changing place. Now more than ever. I know for me, I can be a big old over-thinker. And I think part of that is down to being in corporate. Well, because in corporate world, I was paid to think through every scenario I did well based on having always having an action plan. So when I ran, um, I spent 16 years in corporate marketing. I ran multi-million pound launches for big corporates. And as part of that generally guarantee a couple of weeks before a big launch, everything would go, something would go fundamentally hugely wrong. That would just really pin down, being able to launch in time and on budget. So I was paid to think through every scenario I was paid to test different options, different ways of delivering things.

Speaker 3 (05:24):

And I think that’s still, I still have that legacy now because even in my own business, even when I choose to be know something’s right, even when I know something isn’t right on the flip side of that, I still will overthink. I was still more things over and I trust myself more than ever. And I’m very proud of that, but I also see it in so many in the lives of so many women whose lives I touch in that I work with. And I just, I think now more than ever, if you are at a point where you’re overthinking and you’re stuck in your head, no that’s okay. And what other great article that I read a couple of weeks, that was a New York times article that had gone viral and it was talking about languishing and we’re stuck in this kind of in-between place.

Speaker 3 (06:05):

Now, when we’re not in that survival mode, because we understand the pandemic, we understand lockdown, but we’re not yet past it. So we’re not yet in a place of framing. We don’t have just that ability to go and get on a plane. We don’t have all the freedom that we used to have. So we’re in this middle bit between surviving and thriving, which is being termed, was Cohen is languishing. And with that, you can get very stuck in your own head. You can just feel like things that you used to fly for. You could just feel difficult and challenging, and you might feel like you’re doubting yourself. And if we geek out for a moment as well. So it’s been shown in studies of brain scans. I’m a geek. I like to, I like to research deep geeking as well. So if you look at the noggin knowledge that women’s brains have much more activity in the thinking areas while men on the opposite hand have much more activity in the doing areas.

Speaker 3 (06:54):

So if you go back through to when we lived in caves and we were our biggest worry was where we were going to be eaten by that saber tooth tiger and really staying alive. It’s just goes back to that because women were thinking about others, women were thinking about feeding their family, raising their children, men were out hunting, providing shelter and we’re wires, therefore in slightly different ways, you can also then add to that, that women have more developed social parts of the brain. Um, and actually the mammalian part of the brains. There’s three parts of the brain, the animal brain and brain and the human brain and the mammalian part of the brain is more focused on social care, connection, and love, or talk more about the three brains and the whole episode. I think. So I think it’s really important to understand why you say think and feel, do certain things, but the mammalian mammalian, part of the brain, all about social care, connection, love is proportionally bigger in women.

Speaker 3 (07:47):

So it means that we are hardwired to care more about what people think. Um, we can get stuck overthinking about how does someone take that text that I sent them. I haven’t heard back from them that email did that London, the way that I wanted it to I’ve just come out of this big, bold presentation. How did that go for me? What will they think of me? What are they saying now that I’ve left the room and we can get really stuck in our own minds and overthinking. And if you think about it in summary, then with that bit of geeking, we’re designed as women to over-think, we’re designed to overanalyze, we’re designed to go from ruminate over the different decisions that we can make. And if you think of the brain in this way, the brain is this incredible supercomputer. It’s the most advanced, super computer on the planet.

Speaker 3 (08:27):

And we input the six senses and then the brain works out a reaction from there that then needs into a physical, emotional, hormonal response. And then it starts to send those signals to the area of the body to carry that out. But that brain and the brain is supercomputer and it’s capable of so much yet the brain receives millions of bits of information per second. And the brain isn’t really designed to cope with that level of input. And you think about the inputs that we have, then we’ve added more and more over the last few decades, our phones and how often we’re on our phones, social media, and being on social media, constant communication, then Glennon, Doyle talks about this on her podcast, which I love, which is just how can someone, someone can invade my life at any time by sending me a text that I then feel pressured to respond that then there’s an ongoing communication.

Speaker 3 (09:17):

Um, and she’s renowned within our friends and family for not responding to texts, not because she’s really not because she doesn’t want to, but just because she finds it really overwhelming, she finds it too much. She finds, it’s just, it disrupts what she’s doing and her focus on attention by having constant tax conversations. So she’s just stepped out of it. She just doesn’t, she doesn’t do it. And she now really starts is she shaped and told people how she wants to be communicated to. And I think our modern day lives, we are the most connected we’ve ever been through technology yet, or we’re the least connected to ourselves. And that leads to the brain focus and the brain hard wiring within women to focus more about what people think and feel and where we sit in the social hierarchy, add that into that constant communication or relationship with our phones or constant looking at social media and our relationship though, with how it makes us feel.

Speaker 3 (10:12):

Can’t be much of a surprise if you are feeling overwhelmed and you get stuck in your head. So what are the symptoms of feeling overwhelmed? What are the actual physical symptoms, just so that you can recognize them? And the reason that I like to cover symptoms. So whenever I talk to clients about certain things that they might be stuck in, or they might be feeling just talking about actual symptoms, separates you from the thing. So it means that you can know it’s just a brain process that you’re going through rather than anything where you’re failing or you’re not performing, or you’ve let someone down. So I think it’s really important to know what the symptoms of overthinking are because leading on from that, you can start to recognize them. You can start to recognize when they’re coming in more and more, and you’re starting to really gain to that point of overthinking, because if you let overthinking carry on and on and on, that’s why when you might be end up signed off work of anxiety or referred on for counseling or, um, prescribed antianxiety medication.

Speaker 3 (11:10):

And those are all scenarios that clients have been in before they’ve come to work with me or feeling like you just need to run out of the job you have, because it’s just too much for you overthinking. If we go back to what it is, it’s hard. It’s just a lack of clarity. And that lack of clarity leads to a lack of confidence. And that’s when you get very stuck in your own head. So what are the symptoms of overthinking? And just as I’m going through them, I’d really invite you to think about the ones that you recognize that can become almost like the warning lights for you on the dashboard, which are the ones that, you know, are a sign that you’re overthinking and that you’re feeling overwhelmed. So the first one is this sense that you’re stuck in your own head. So the sense that there’s so much going on in your own mind, that you feel like can’t get star through anything.

Speaker 3 (11:54):

You don’t know where to start. And it’s all feeling like it’s just too much things you might be saying just off. I’m stuck in my own head. It’s all feeling like too much. I don’t know where to start. So really checking with that language and what you’re saying to yourself and when you’re overthinking and you’re stuck in your own head because you don’t know where to start, you also tend to procrastinate. So you don’t know where to focus. You’ve got that lack of clarity leads to that lack of confidence. So you tend to procrastinate. I know when I say procrastinate, and when I talk to my clients about it, pro is with the capital letters for PR like you procrastinate like it, your life depends on that light. Suddenly the washing becomes more exciting. Suddenly everything, the dog needs a bath, suddenly hoovering becomes much more something that you want to do because you don’t, you avoiding the fact that you’re feeling overwhelmed and you’re overthinking.

Speaker 3 (12:47):

So know that this is perfectly normal behavior. I would love to know what your procrastination story is. I am a Procrustean eater, especially with starting to do jobs and things that I haven’t done and things around the house. And suddenly the dog’s being groomed and everything’s put away in the kitchen and there’s no washing out. Even my worst tour home, which is putting the washing away. I just, I don’t know why, but some reason I really struggled with it that suddenly becomes a thing because I’m procrastinating and it all goes back to that same thing. Don’t have that clarity. Therefore, I don’t have the confidence to take action. So it might be that you’re procrastinating or on the flip side of that, procrastinating is what Bernie Brian called. Under-functioning, it’s kind of like freeze. If you like, it might be that you end up overfunctioning and that’s where you start to do everything.

Speaker 3 (13:36):

You start to try to be everything to everyone. You try and take back control of doing everything. So Brittany Brown gives us example of when her mum went into hospital, her comfort zone and her reaction to something that very emotional that’s going on, it’s obviously having a huge impact on it is overfunctioning. So it’s ringing people, telling them what’s happening is going home and getting her moms and her favorite pajamas. It’s being there to speak to the doctors. It’s making sure that our children have dinner and they can get to their different activities on time. She just goes into this overthinking the way she articulate their overfunctioning. So the way she articulates, it just really resonates. It, just get into doing mode. Cause I’m scared of being and how I’m feeling. So be aware of when you’re either procrastinating or where you’re overfunctioning you might also notice another symptom is you just might be second-guessing things and living in what if I bought a call?

Speaker 3 (14:27):

What if scenarios? So what if scenarios are where you play things forward, another word might be catastrophizing. So you’re kind of thinking the worse and the, what if is kind of ruling your world? What if this happens, then this happens and this happened? What if my board presentation is a complete flop, then people think I can’t do the job. And then I don’t ever get the promotion that I know that I want. So the war is kind of ruling your world. It might also be that you’re analyzing conversations and events and just really anything, anything you can absolutely think about. You’re just, you’re putting so much insight into them that isn’t actually there. You’re just making assumptions. You’re making stories up your getting, going into those. What if scenarios you’re over analyzing? I sent my best friend a text message. They’ve not replied. What does that actually mean?

Speaker 3 (15:14):

When actually they’re just busy and they’re at work and it’s letting go of those overanalyzing, those conversations. It might also be that you’re finding it hard to let go of things and you can live in the regret and ruminate over the things that you’ve done. So it might be that you’ve made a bit of a mistake at work. You’ve taken responsibility, but you’re still ruminating in beating yourself up now. So you might be stuck in that, just that negative voice being so hard on yourself, never sign near over overthinking, taking things too personally, and reading into the stories that aren’t actually there. As you’re reading into message, you’re reading into tones, you’re reading into words, things that aren’t actually there because you don’t have that clarity. Therefore you don’t have that confidence. So you’re just going back to your old stories and your old beliefs.

Speaker 3 (15:57):

Another sign is that it might be that you’re not feeling really confident in our feelings. It’s a hundred percent certain, which leaves you kind of on the edge and feeling tired. And you’re not trusting yourself. You’re not stepping forward. You’re not putting your hand up. You’re not dragging your chair to the table that you want to be Satur or you’re feeling on edge. You’re feeling low energy. And you’re feeling tired. Overthink is welcome lead to being a perfectionist, putting things off because they’re not a hundred percent right. And criticizing yourself when that thing isn’t perfect. When you haven’t done the perfect presentation when you haven’t sent the perfectly worded email, even after looking at it for hours. So it might also be that you’re procrastinating and keep redoing things that are actually good enough because they’re good enough. It might also be I, I can do this when I overthink not so much anymore, but I certainly did for time, you become like almost this Interpol, I’m going to ask anyone that has a view and you’re kind of seeking permission for what you want to do to know that it’s right.

Speaker 3 (16:51):

So you might go around and ask him for views and opinions and just perspectives when you know what is right, but you’re overthinking it. So you’re almost wanting to get that approval and permission. These are all symptoms of overthinking and also physically it might feel like you might feel on edge. You might feel like your heart races race. Um, it might feel like you’ve got a slightly sweaty hands. It might feel like you’re feeling quite hot. Um, it might be like you’re feeling stressed, anxious, worried, um, stuck in your head. And something that I shared a couple of weeks ago on LinkedIn was it’s almost like is stress. I stressing about the stress before this even stress is stress about, then I stress about stressing over stress. It doesn’t need to be stressed about, and all of that is stressful. And that is kind of what overthinking is.

Speaker 3 (17:37):

So the big message out of all of this, it’s really, the overthinking is a lack of clarity, leads to a lack of confidence. So then you’re not taking action. Then you’re stuck. Your own mind might procrastinate my over-function. You might reading things and take them way too personally. But I think what I see from my clients is that really overthinking is a huge warning light on the dashboard. It’s a, it’s a warning light that you you’re giving too much time, energy, and expertise to everyone else. And you’re not looking after yourself. It’s almost a sign of, you need to refocus on yourself rather than trying to be everything to everyone else. So I worked with a client when she had been through a relationship breakdown, she was just overthinking everything. She was trying to go through and finish off the actual process of divorce. She was then also rethinking what she wanted to do with her career then where she wanted to live, then where she, what she was going to do financially, how she was going to make everything work.

Speaker 3 (18:37):

And she was just trying to what I would call kind of boil the ocean. She was trying to do everything at once. And that overthinking was really a warning light on the dashboard. So our coaching was really about helping her focus on that clarity on her immediate needs and the confidence to take that inspired action to meet those immediate needs. Um, and for her, the focus immediately was on her, her health on what she needed to feel safe and secure. And then we went on to focus on her career and actually she was, um, a GP. Um, and she was over time as she focused on herself more and more, she started doing things. She loves, she focused on, uh, how, um, she focused on new passions like walking and dancing, and she came to life and it was amazing to see. And it was a very physical change from a woman on our first call who been crying fruits of women that stood proud and tall behind who she was.

Speaker 3 (19:28):

I absolutely love that physical change in her, um, and then to focus on her career, um, and she’d wanted the partnership for so long, but again, that energy, she bought to work as a different, as more of herself than ever loving her life, focused on her passions outside of work meant that over time she was asked to become a partner. So where she was going to start the process to actively really pursue it. It came to her because she was in that energy because she demonstrated her value and worth because she’d gone from that overthinking to feeling on fire. And this is who I am. I stand proud and tall behind this. This is me. That’s one of my favorite songs by the way. Right. So how can you start to really get past that overthinking? How can you start to clear your head? How can you start to get that clarity back in your own mind to then feel really confident and take inspired action?

Speaker 3 (20:22):

So point number one is clear the clutter. So this is a really simple part of the process I use with all my clients. It’s one of the favorite things they have to go to when they’re feeling a bit stuck. Um, and that is a really simple thing. It’s a brain dump or a mental vomit as I would call it. So when you’re feeling, when you’re stuck in overthinking, when you’re feeling that overwhelm, it’s just getting a blank sheet of paper and it’s emptying ahead of everything. So you don’t need to worry about spelling, grammar pros, what it says, how neat is, don’t worry about any of that. It’s the process. So when you go through this process of writing the brain looks at everything and process everything twice. So as you’re preparing to write it, and then as you write it. So what that means is the brain is kind of recognizing the priorities.

Speaker 3 (21:07):

It’s kind of seeing the things that need to be done immediately, but also things that can be done later. And then when you have that, um, that mental vomit, you can then look at the things that you can move to later and put them straight into your diary, and then forget them. You can look at the things where you can get some support and help. Um, and you can also think of the things that are stories, um, and just, aren’t actually true. So you can kind of take that big mental vomit and put it into a bit of a framework and an action plan. Again, that’s something that I help my clients to do and learn to do so they can then go and see that for themselves. Point number two is what’s the T. So I am a huge fan of repo and drag race and talks a lot about what’s T um, so what is your dream?

Speaker 3 (21:48):

So in amongst that mental vomit, there’s going to be a lot of things there that aren’t actually true. It’s going to be stories that you’re telling yourself, beliefs, that you’re still holding up as true, um, and frameworks that you live by the now outdated. So what is your tree? So go back to that mental vomit list and just cross out anything that isn’t true. And when I say not true, I mean, you need to be able to demonstrate to me with evidence that this is true. Otherwise it’s not true. So go through that lesson, cross out anything that isn’t true. So stories, beliefs, things you’re telling yourself that negative voice and what is telling you, and just cross out, look at what is the truth and start, start to really make that framework for what’s next. And that inspired action through the things actually true 0.3 is switch off distractions.

Speaker 3 (22:35):

So take time to be and take time just to really slow down because at the end of the day, we’re all human beings. We’re not human doings. So switch off those distractions. So have really clear time where you switch off from work the end of your working day. Even if you’re now working at home more, still make a clear and have your day. So it might be closing your laptop, putting it in it bike. It might be closing the office store, whatever way you need to set a really clear boundary of this is now home time. This is now time where my family work is done for the day. Also we’re distractions. Think about your relationship with social media, um, your relationship with your phones though, should you, would it feel good to you to set time limits? Would it speak, feel good to you just to have one point in the day where you have a look at your social media and allow yourself just to scroll.

Speaker 3 (23:24):

And actually where I talked about language in earlier, that scrolling of an evening is something it’s almost a symptom of languishing. So it’s almost a symptom we’re creating connection in a different way, because we haven’t necessarily had that connection physically for a long, long time. So think about your relationship with your phone. Think about your relationship with social media. What boundaries do you need to set in place? Where do you really need to take back some control rather than just being stuck in it it’s really, every time you look at social media, it might be that you’re triggered. It might be that it takes you back to something that you don’t feel great about. What talk about being triggered. I think in a whole, a whole episode in itself, that’s a huge one. Um, when you switch off your brain waves are actually different. So again, let’s just geek out for a moment, but your brainwaves or the brainwaves along and looping.

Speaker 3 (24:08):

So you can have the opportunity for a big idea when you’re very busy and there’s lots of distractions, your brainwaves are very spiking close together. So you don’t have that opportunity for the big idea about the strategy that you’ve been working on about the conversation, the challenging conversation you need to have, or that email, that you’ve just not known how to, how to word it. Point number four is turn off and tune in. So how can you be more in the moment? How can you really just be in your own skin and be present with your family? So again, relate it to the point above, but switching off those distractions, but also consciously being in the moment. So is that about for you? Is that about meditation is about breathing. Is that about putting your phone in another room when you’re with your family? How do you turn off and tune in?

Speaker 3 (24:51):

And also when I say tune in OSA means tune into yourself. So how are you going to check in with how you’re feeling and when the overthinking becomes too much, what are your warning lights going to be on the dashboard for you? So is that going to be, when you can feel yourself procrastinating? Is that going to be, when you feel like it’s all too much? Is that going to be when you’re just saying just off, I don’t know where to start. So really think about how are you going to help yourself to check in on yourself and how you’re feeling. And then 0.5 is know your signs. So we’ve talked about overthinking stay. It’s a lack of clarity, leads to lack of confidence. What are your signs almost before you’re getting into that place, where it takes more work to come out? What are your signs?

Speaker 3 (25:33):

What are your warning lights on your dashboard that you know, that you’re starting to overthink, you’re starting to get overwhelmed. You’re starting to get stuck in your own head and almost think of it. Is this going to be a series of signals that are going to take you from just feeling slightly like you’re overthinking slightly into, oh my God, I don’t know where to start. And this is all too much. I’m just going to hide under my DV and not go and be the leader that I know that I need to be or can be. So for me, I can very easily get stuck in just when I’m very focused on work. I can get very stuck in finishing something off, just committing to it and just working for it, which can leave me hungry, which is my worst. It’s one, I’m hungry because I’ve worked.

Speaker 3 (26:13):

I’ve overworked. I’ve not eaten consistently through the day. And also I’m tired because I’ve given so much energy to something. Um, and when my partner comes home, he knows now to ask me if I’m in that mode, do you need a hug? Do you need some food bolts? You need to have a nap. And it’s just, uh, it’s been really great having that relationship with my partner, but also for me to raise awareness of what I know that I’m guessing there so that I can make sure that I’m not getting stuck into that very deep overthinking, where I’m just, I’m just consistently overthinking and really ruminating over things. So that’s it for today. That’s everything that I wanted to share with you. I would love to know what you think, but really the big message from stay. What I would love you to take away is if you’re struggling with overthinking, know that it’s a sign of the times that we live in, know that it’s the symptoms of female leaders, really stepping into the breach over the last 18 months and really helping businesses survive and get through the pandemic and get food locked down.

Speaker 3 (27:07):

Um, and it’s really a symptom of us proving and pushing and giving so much that really it’s about knowing the warning signs. It’s about getting back to clarity in your own mind, on your part, on who you are and what you want, then have the competence to take inspired action. So if you’re a feeling like you’re overthinking, always have your way of coming back to feeling that you have that and knowing that you have that clarity, because that will lead into that confidence to take inspired action. So I’d love to know what you thought of today. I’d love to know how you get on with those points that I’ve mentioned. If you are feeling like right now that you’re overthinking. If you know, you’re over thinking of feeling overwhelmed, you’re finding it really hard to clear your head. Then you can download my freebie, which is my overwhelms on fire guys.

Speaker 3 (27:53):

So five simple steps to go from feeling like your head’s about to explode to actually feeling like you’re on fire and that you’re just, you’re loving what you’re doing. And every day, if you would like more information about working with me, please drop me a message, because this is a huge part of the work that I do, helping women to really create their own toolkit, to get past the overthinking and get back to that point where they’re feeling on fire. And next week we are going to have office gas. So I am super excited about that, but please drop me a message. Drop me an email. If you have any suggestions, things you would like covered, or if you have any feedback on the podcast, I’d

Speaker 2 (28:28):

Also love you to rate, review and subscribe so we can stay in the top five, hit the top Warner though. I’ve seen the numbers on that

Speaker 3 (28:36):

One, which is pretty huge, but why not have that as an ambition? Why not? So thanks for today. And I will speak to you soon. Bye

Speaker 1 (28:42):

[inaudible].