Don't Overthink It Quotes

“Being a responsible adult is the most underrated form of self-care. Yes I mean: live within your means, make dentist appointments, save money, plan meals, wash your face before bed, go for walks, cook for people, keep your house clean, go to bed at a decent hour, all that boring stuff. Routines make everything in your life better and this is absolutely the most overlooked and underestimated form of self-care.” - Sarah Bessey”
― Anne Bogel, Don't Overthink It: Make Easier Decisions, Stop Second-Guessing, and Bring More Joy to Your Life

“With an experiment, there’s no “do it right or do it again”. Instead, it’s “do it and see what happens”.”
― Anne Bogel, Don't Overthink It: Make Easier Decisions, Stop Second-Guessing, and Bring More Joy to Your Life

“It’s hard today, but it won’t stay hard forever.”
― Anne Bogel, Don't Overthink It: Make Easier Decisions, Stop Second-Guessing, and Bring More Joy to Your Life

“If you care, you’ll be there. If you don’t, you won’t.”
― Anne Bogel, Don't Overthink It: Make Easier Decisions, Stop Second-Guessing, and Bring More Joy to Your Life

“(...) your thoughts can be the enemy, or you can make them your ally.”
― Anne Bogel, Don't Overthink It: Make Easier Decisions, Stop Second-Guessing, and Bring More Joy to Your Life

“ritual—any ritual—establishes a certain kind of mindset; perhaps this is why rituals benefit even those who claim they’re not important. When a routine works for us, we don’t have to pay attention to it, but a ritual calls us to fully participate in what we’re doing—even if it’s as simple as savoring a cup of tea. The specific action doesn’t matter, but its rhythm, regularity, and meaning do.”
― Anne Bogel, Don't Overthink It: Make Easier Decisions, Stop Second-Guessing, and Bring More Joy to Your Life

“Overthinking also carries a significant opportunity cost. Mental energy is not a limitless resource. We have only so much to spend each day, and how we choose to spend it matters. As Annie Dillard writes, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing.” When we spend our time overthinking, that’s what we’re doing.”
― Anne Bogel, Don't Overthink It: Make Easier Decisions, Stop Second-Guessing, and Bring More Joy to Your Life

“Sometimes I only pretend I don’t know what to do, because I don’t want to do it.”
― Anne Bogel, Don't Overthink It: Make Easier Decisions, Stop Second-Guessing, and Bring More Joy to Your Life

“I’ve learned to say, “Let’s experiment,” because that phrase doesn’t make my insides clench up like the word failure does. An experiment is neutral, dispassionate. There’s none of that paralyzing pressure to get it right. When I try an experiment, success is getting an outcome. Any outcome. The goal is to get results, not a win.”
― Anne Bogel, Don't Overthink It: Make Easier Decisions, Stop Second-Guessing, and Bring More Joy to Your Life

“Getting caught up in overthinking is a vicious cycle. As Emmons explains, “Many of us strengthen unhealthy nerve circuits through repetitive practice. Every time we repeat a fearful or defeatist thought, we strengthen the connections that make it easier to have that thought again.” In other words, the more we overthink, the easier it is to keep overthinking.”
― Anne Bogel, Don't Overthink It: Make Easier Decisions, Stop Second-Guessing, and Bring More Joy to Your Life

“The mental arena isn’t my area of expertise,” he said, “but I know this: your thoughts can be the enemy, or you can make them your ally.”
― Anne Bogel, Don't Overthink It: Make Easier Decisions, Stop Second-Guessing, and Bring More Joy to Your Life

“As Annie Dillard writes, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”
― Anne Bogel, Don't Overthink It: Make Easier Decisions, Stop Second-Guessing, and Bring More Joy to Your Life

“When we have a broader vision for our lives, many of the decisions we face become simple, because we have a reliable framework for making them. Because we made a single decision — that is, deciding on a big-picture value — we can see all other decisions as parts of a whole instead of as an endless string of isolated decisions. When a decision touches on our values, we have little to think about. With our internal world in order we can move outward in the right direction. These values can guide our lives in the big pieces and the day-to-day stuff. Whether we’re going to Thailand or the grocery store, what we do can flow naturally out of who we are.”
― Anne Bogel, Don't Overthink It: Make Easier Decisions, Stop Second-Guessing, and Bring More Joy to Your Life

“Hard writing makes easy reading.”
― Anne Bogel, Don't Overthink It: Make Easier Decisions, Stop Second-Guessing, and Bring More Joy to Your Life

“Habits gradually change the face of one’s life as time changes one’s physical face; and one does not know it. Virginia Woolf”
― Anne Bogel, Don't Overthink It: Make Easier Decisions, Stop Second-Guessing, and Bring More Joy to Your Life

“With an experiment, there’s no “do it right or do it again.” Instead, it’s “do it and see what happens.” Or “do it and then do it again,” incorporating whatever you learned the first time. This iterative approach frees us from the need to always get it right. Instead of waiting to feel certain before we take action, we can get good information, and fast, by trying something and seeing what happens next. There’s no agonizing over the right decision, and there are rarely regrets. Because all you need is an answer, not a victory.”
― Anne Bogel, Don't Overthink It: Make Easier Decisions, Stop Second-Guessing, and Bring More Joy to Your Life

“Creating an imperfect product helps developers determine if pursuing a perfect version is even worth it. Not everything is worth doing perfectly.”
― Anne Bogel, Don't Overthink It: Make Easier Decisions, Stop Second-Guessing, and Bring More Joy to Your Life

“Intelligence and curiosity don’t inevitably cause analysis paralysis, thank goodness. But if we’re unaware of the connection, these positive qualities are more likely to lead us astray.”
― Anne Bogel, Don't Overthink It: Make Easier Decisions, Stop Second-Guessing, and Bring More Joy to Your Life

“When we assume we can’t, it’s guaranteed we won’t. It’s true that some of us are naturally more decisive, more laid back, or more confident than others. Some of us are more inclined to overthink. But that is the starting point, not the last word. That is where we begin, not where we’re destined to end up.”
― Anne Bogel, Don't Overthink It: Make Easier Decisions, Stop Second-Guessing, and Bring More Joy to Your Life

“Anything that we practice this consistently we will eventually get good at.”
― Anne Bogel, Don't Overthink It: Make Easier Decisions, Stop Second-Guessing, and Bring More Joy to Your Life

“Being a responsible adult is the most underrated form of self-care. Yes I mean: live within your means, make dentist appointments, save money, plan meals, wash your face before bed, go for walks, cook for people, keep your house clean, go to bed at a decent hour, all that boring stuff. Routines make everything in your life better and this is absolutely the most overlooked and underestimated form of self-care.”
― Anne Bogel, Don't Overthink It: Make Easier Decisions, Stop Second-Guessing, and Bring More Joy to Your Life

“Overthinking also carries a significant opportunity cost. Mental energy is not a limitless resource. We have only so much to spend each day, and how we choose to spend it matters.”
― Anne Bogel, Don't Overthink It: Make Easier Decisions, Stop Second-Guessing, and Bring More Joy to Your Life

“We think that we have to learn how to give, but we forget about accepting things, which can be so much harder than giving.”
― Anne Bogel, Don't Overthink It: Make Easier Decisions, Stop Second-Guessing, and Bring More Joy to Your Life

“Nothing had just happened to her, she had made a choice, and then she had made another and another after that. Taken together, the small choices anyone made added up to a life. J. Courtney Sullivan”
― Anne Bogel, Don't Overthink It: Make Easier Decisions, Stop Second-Guessing, and Bring More Joy to Your Life

“Naming “showing up” a big-picture value has made those choices much easier, and we’ve grown accustomed to making decisions this way. We travel to be at weddings without endlessly debating if the trip is “worth it.” We recently bought pricey plane tickets for an inconvenient family reunion, because there’s nothing like being there. When friends invited us to join them in celebrating a big family milestone hundreds of miles away, it took just a few minutes to decide. We could make the trip happen, so we did. We sometimes meet up with old friends in faraway places, not for a wedding or graduation, but just because everyone’s getting together. This value applies to my work as well. I prioritize visits with writer friends and colleagues, both in town and across the country, because I’ve never regretted making the effort to see people in person.”
― Anne Bogel, Don't Overthink It: Make Easier Decisions, Stop Second-Guessing, and Bring More Joy to Your Life

“Because of our overanalysis, we’ll be less satisfied with the outcome, even if we arrive at an objectively better one.”
― Anne Bogel, Don't Overthink It: Make Easier Decisions, Stop Second-Guessing, and Bring More Joy to Your Life

“When we’re overthinking, the easiest thing to do is keep overthinking. To stop the cycle, we need to interrupt these thought patterns, and we can do that by taking a small step in the right direction. Then it becomes easier to take another right step, and another.”
― Anne Bogel, Don't Overthink It: Make Easier Decisions, Stop Second-Guessing, and Bring More Joy to Your Life

“Shifting your mindset is just the first step, but it’s an important one. Now you’ve got some work to do. Improvement won’t happen on its own, and it won’t happen overnight, but it will happen.”
― Anne Bogel, Don't Overthink It: Make Easier Decisions, Stop Second-Guessing, and Bring More Joy to Your Life

“When we assume we can’t, it’s guaranteed we won’t. It’s true that some of us are naturally more decisive, more laid back, or more confident than others. Some of us are more inclined to overthink. But that is the starting point, not the last word.”
― Anne Bogel, Don't Overthink It: Make Easier Decisions, Stop Second-Guessing, and Bring More Joy to Your Life

“In 2017, researchers at the Amen Clinics released imaging data showing “the brains of women in the study were significantly more active in many more areas of the brain than men, especially in the prefrontal cortex, involved with focus and impulse control, and the limbic or emotional areas of the brain, involved with mood and anxiety.”
― Anne Bogel, Don't Overthink It: Make Easier Decisions, Stop Second-Guessing, and Bring More Joy to Your Life