Overcoming Analysis Paralysis

I get overwhelmed making decisions. We have so many choices in the United States. This is awesome and paralyzing all at the same time. When you get stuck in overthinking decisions, it’s called analysis paralysis. The overwhelm can cause us not to decide at all or to let other people make decisions for us. Neither of these are great options.

Psychologist Barry Schwartz gave a great Ted talk on this subject. I encourage you to watch it (19 minutes).

My article An Overthinker’s Nightmare was recently published on Psych Central.  In it, I describe the stress of having to make a million decisions when I remodeled my kitchen. Did you know they make 945, 290 models of refrigerators?

Thankfully these strategies helped me avoid analysis paralysis and get the kitchen finished.

How to Stop Overthinking #anxiety #overthinking #perfectionist

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Dr. Sharon Martin, LCSW

Sharon Martin, a licensed counselor and psychotherapist in Northern California, specializes in helping adult children of alcoholics and others who struggle with anxiety, perfectionism, and self-criticism. She has a private psychotherapy practice in CA where she is available for online counseling. Sharon is also the author of The CBT Workbook for Perfectionism and write the blog Conquering Codependency for Psychology Today.