Chess is probably the best strategic board game ever made. But it can get boring, how so ? Well if you’re playing by yourself, or you’re playing with the a friend who repeats the same sequence of steps in a very predictable pattern. But the game can get unnervingly complex and challenging when you play against a computer or a new opponent , i.e. you voluntarily change the environment.
By re-framing your environment, I noticed a couple of subtle things begin to change which makes the game a lot more interesting. You become more attentive because you don’t know much about your opponent, you adopt a defensive or offensive strategy according to your opponent’s moves and of course you try to repair your mistakes as you go along.
However this post isn’t about how to get better at chess, but more about one particular aspect of game-play which I feel can be applied to Productive work — to think and act in harmony.
I tend to do less when I’m over-thinking. I tend to do nothing when I’ve exhausted my mental ability to think further, thereby not taking any action at all. But I definitely find myself completing a task (often not knowing how I managed to do it) by acting on the initial seed of thought. In other words, I have just the right amount of information needed to begin… and eventually act on that judgment. But if miss that train, then my today becomes a someday.
To think through an entire series of events in your mind before Life has made its move is premature because you’re playing a one-sided game.
Yes, positive thinking is important but I’ve never heard of positive over-thinking. Which brings us to the question of ‘What exactly is over-thinking ?’. For once, we don’t need a Dictionary meaning. Over-thinking is simply thinking too much beyond what is necessary (to act).
“We are dying from over-thinking. We are slowly killing ourselves by thinking about everything. Think. Think. Think. You can never trust the human mind anyway. It’s a death trap.” ~ Anthony Hopkins
Grown-ups compared to children don’t like to make mistakes, we feel vulnerable and weak, maybe even stupid. As a result, I believe adults think a lot, definitely much more than kids; at times probably much more than needed, because we need to get it right — on the first try. Does all the over-thinking make us smarter, I doubt that. In fact it makes us numb and frigid, unable to act because of a mental hyper-drive that is not convinced with the outcome.
Signs of Over-Thinking
- You had a bright idea but put it aside thinking it would never materialize, without doing any ground work.
- You tend to think of reasons for it to fail versus the number of attempts you’ve made to see what and how it can work.
- You think of doing it after you’re convinced that the remaining pieces of the puzzle make sense to you.
“Winning and losing is not an external game. It is an internal battle over telling yourself the truth vs. lies regarding why you haven’t stepped into the life you dreamed of.” ~ Shannon L. Alder
To act with that initial motivation will extinguish every flicker of doubt and irrational speculation. There is no cure to over-thinking other than deliberate action on the first brain wave that sparks inside your head.
Thanks for reading.
