The Real Reason You Overthink Every Decision (Yes, Even the Small Ones)
You've been staring at the same two options for three days.
You've made the pro-con list. You've asked your best friend, your partner, probably a stranger on Reddit. You've Googled every version of the question you can think of. Somehow you have more information and still no answer.
I want you to hear something before we go any further: this isn't a you problem. What's happening has a clinical explanation and understanding what’s really going on will help you to stop shaming yourself.
Your brain isn’t trying to screw you over. It's trying to keep you safe.
Most advice about overthinking treats it like a productivity problem.
“Get a better framework!”
“Set a timer!”
“Flip a coin!”
But none of that works because for many anxious people, overthinking decisions isn't about the decision at all. It's about intolerance of uncertainty (that's the clinical term for a low tolerance for not knowing how something will turn out).
While everyone has some discomfort with uncertainty, when you’re anxious, uncertainty becomes a threat. The brain registers "I don't know what's going to happen" the same way it registers danger. Then it activates your fight-or-flight response.
The biggest problem with trying to make a decision from that place is that it simply doesn't work.
A dysregulated nervous system leads to overthinking decisions.
When your nervous system is activated, your body shifts resources away from the prefrontal cortex (the part of the brain responsible for reasoning and weighing options) and toward survival.
You feel this happening: your mind spins, every choice feels somehow wrong, and all you want is to land on the right thing. And what’s worse as that this can look like you’re indecisive or non-committal to other people.
But what’s really happening is that your nervous system is dysregulated and trying to combat a threat that it fully believes is present. Anxiety further inflates the stakes by catastrophizing, fortune-telling, and shifting into all-or-nothing thinking. Before you know it, choosing the wrong job or apartment starts to feel like it could ruin everything.
Navigating cultural and familial expectations can also lead to overthinking decisions.
A phrase I’ve heard from my clients over the years is, “The decision doesn’t even feel like it’s mine.”
When you’re navigating cultural expectations, family loyalty, or identities that have been shaped by what others needed you to be, decisions feel more like negotiations rather than personal choices. And instead of choosing based on what feels right to you, all of the options get get filtered through a list of invisible questions:
What will my family think?
Does this fit who I’m supposed to be?
Am I being selfish?
Will I be rejected if I choose this?
In IFS (aka parts work) terms, these questions are asked by a part of you that is so practiced at scanning for other people’s reactions that it’s become the loudest voice in the room. It drowns out the parts that actually know what you need (or simply want). This same part of you also keeps track of all the values your family instilled in you, along with the sacrifices your family has made, and choices you have available to you that they didn’t have.
Through this lens, overthinking can be seen as being fueled by love for your family, mixed with fear of disappointing them and the remnants generational trauma.
There’s also a link between marginalized identities and overthinking.
If your identity has been minimized or policed over time, you’ve likely learned that your preferences, instincts, or desires are wrong, inconvenient, or too much. And all of this has led you to stop trusting your own inner voice.
Decisions become hard not because you don’t know what you want, but because you’ve spent years being taught that what you want doesn’t count for much, or is somehow wrong.
If this is the kind of overthinking you live with, the question underneath your decisions probably isn’t “what’s the right choice?” It’s “who am I allowed to be when I choose?”
Therapy for overthinking can help you trust yourself (maybe for the first time).
In my work, I use brainspotting, somatic therapy, and Internal Family Systems (IFS) to help you get underneath the surface-level overthinking and work with what's actually driving it.
That might mean processing the early experiences that taught your nervous system that uncertainty was dangerous. It might also mean getting to know the part of you that works so hard to prevent the wrong choice, and helping it trust that you're safe enough now to let go.
The goal isn't to become someone who never feels anxious about decisions, but to become someone who can make them anyway, even when anxiety is present.
Work with an online anxiety therapist in Colorado who specializes in therapy for overthinking.
I work with anxious adults who are exhausted by their own minds: people who are self-aware, motivated, and tired of the gap between what they know and how they feel.
All services are private pay, and provided online. The only requirement is that you have to be located in either Colorado or Oregon at the time of our sessions.
If you're ready to go deeper than managing your overthinking and anxiety, I'd love to connect. Start by checking out what weekly therapy looks like and then book a free consultation call.
Not ready yet? Or live in a state other than Colorado or Oregon? That’s okay!
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Hi! I’m Halle, an Anxiety Therapist in Colorado & Oregon.
I help adults who feel torn between cultural expectations and the life they actually want get out of the mental spiral and move forward with clarity, confidence, and self-trust
