How to Stop Overthinking by Choosing a Shade of Blue

Recently my husband and I painted over the somber gray walls of our bedroom with a bright blue called Amalfi. As the name implies, this shade gives us the impression that we just stepped into our dream vacation every time we walk into the room. We came upon the color by walking into Lowe’s, seeing it on a color swatch and asking the paint attendant to mix us up two gallons of interior paint, flat finish.

No samples. No swatches.

Go big or go home and repaint.

Hearing this may lead you to believe that I am a decisive person, the type who walks into a room, quickly accesses the situation and takes action.

You would be wrong.

What you don’t know is that we spent five months with ten different swatches of blue paint on our bedroom walls like some sort of ocean camouflage because I couldn’t decide on the right color. It had to impart warmth and coziness, but feel fun and sexy at the same time. It couldn’t be too green, or it would clash with the curtains. It needed to feel fun, but not childish.

With each new swatch we applied to the walls I kept thinking through every pro and con and wondering how I would sleep at night with Jay Blue and if Moscow Midnight would make me feel like I was waking up in a foreign country in the dead of night.

Walking into the hardware store and choosing a color with barely a second thought was probably the most liberating thing I’ve done in a decade. And bonus, we love the color.

After years spent perfecting the subtle art of overthinking, I’m now realizing how much it’s been a crutch that’s kept me from running after my goals.

I’ve always known that I’m someone who spends a great deal of time inside my own head, processing, planning, imagining. What I’ve come to understand as I’ve begun to explore the Enneagram and learn more about what drives me is that a lot of that thinking is a way to avoid the actual doing. Thinking about something makes me feel like I’m working on it, but in fact, I might just be avoiding taking action toward that thing because of fear of failure, rocking the boat, or otherwise upsetting the harmony that exists when it still lives inside my head. 

Take this blog as an example. I’ve been planning to start blogging again for a few years, and finally settled on this domain after months of deliberating over what I should choose (overthinkersanonymous.com was taken, FYI). And while there were certainly factors outside my control that kept me from making progress (a toddler and a pandemic come to mind), I spent hours trying to get my website just right, despite the fact that I have about as much skill at web design as you would expect from a Gen-X mom who still hasn’t figured out how to sync her phone with her car stereo. I wanted my site to be perfect and spent months imagining what it would look like if only I had taken that coding class instead of Latin 101 and 201 when I was bored and taking classes at the junior college in my twenties. I worried that my niche audience wasn’t defined enough, and that I needed to have the perfect plan in place before I blogged again, and would anyone other than my mom and my best friend even want to read what I wrote?

Trust me, if I can overthink the nutritional density of purple versus orange carrots when planning my garden, I will most definitely overthink the words I’m publishing on the internet.

So, it was timely when I saw an Instagram video from Mel Robbins the other day where she talked about the two types of people: those who take action when opportunity strikes, and those who have a bias toward thinking. Those of us in the latter category tend to lean away from opportunity and hesitate while we think about it. 

The truth is that thinking about life won’t change it. Action will.

Which is not to say that being a thoughtful person who processes the world internally is a personality trait that needs to be changed. In fact, I’m certain it’s saved me from many rash decisions that would have led to regret down the road and probably a lot more shoes than one person, in fact, needs.

But like any characteristic left to its own devices, thinking can become a vehicle left in park. We’re in the car, engine running, sunglasses in place. We feel like we’re heading somewhere, but we’re going nowhere.

Instead of waiting until the time is right, the kids are in school, the traffic is clear, and there’s nothing but green lights in sight, let’s practice putting the car in drive and inching our way out of the driveway.

Even if it’s some small action every day—sending that one email, writing down your business plan, signing up for that class, journaling about your goals, finally writing that blog post—we’re on our way.