The answer is pretty simple.

I changed the way I thought about it.

But if you’re an overthinker like me, your mind isn’t satisfied with this answer. A million possibilities have already started running through your head. You’re not sure what to think about. You have no idea what to do. 

And suddenly, you’re in a battlefield. You’re standing alone with no weapons, no means of self-defense. You can see a cavalry in the distance, charging towards you—archers on warhorses and soldiers in tanks.

The artillery fires. The arrows rise. The bullets ricochet. They all have the same target. And it’s not you, but the precious resources you’re defending: your mental space and attention.

You know they’ll win. It’s happened before. It will happen again. You’re defenseless and they’re loaded. It’s not a fair fight.

So the arrows of your sorrows pierce all parts of you; the bullets of your doubts poke holes in your self-worth; the artillery of your fears blasts away your confidence and hopes.

And you’re back in the rut. Your mind is a mess. You’re feeling out of place. And all you can do is think, “Ah…here we go again.”

The War Begins:

To the outside world, nothing feels different.

But inside, the war wreaks havoc. 

Your fears, doubts, sorrows, confusions win over you and suddenly, the time, focus and energy you were guarding so preciously goes down the drain. Your mind declares an emergency and the first thing that goes away is rational thinking.

That’s how you know you’re in an overthinking spiral. It feels like a war because it is one! You are in an active conflict with your fears, doubts, and other learned behaviors that serve only one purpose: to hold you back and keep you comfortable.

But you want to grow, succeed, make waves in your career, and find your place in the world. To do that is to directly defy your fears, doubts, and uncertainties.

And the truth is, they don’t like it. They’ve become used to the comfortable you, the obedient you, the never-take-a-single-risk you.

So, when they see the dream in you, they’re terrified to their core.

Because, if you succeed, you wouldn’t need them anymore. What purpose will your unnecessary doubts serve on the path of growth? What role will a low self-worth play if you take control and make things happen?

All of them would be out of a job, and let’s be honest, no one likes that.

What would you do if you suddenly found out that, tomorrow, you’ll be fired? Would you just accept that fate and move on? Or would you fight it out? Resist? Protest?

We all know you’d pick the fight.

So why do you feel so surprised when your fears and doubts do the same?

Especially when they have the upper hand. They have the cavalry to call upon and you have…you.

And that’s why the war begins.

The moment you choose to grow, step outside your comfort zone, and build a dream, you declare the war.

How They Fight:

Well, it turns out, your fears, doubts, and faulty beliefs (hereafter, the enemy), aren’t all that smart. They follow the classic playbook for a war.

Their first step is deception. The control of your life is slipping out their hands, and they know it. But they don’t show it. They still act like they’re running the show, even when they know it’s just a hoax.

And they send a flood of, “What if?” questions your way. They make you question every move, every decision, every new thought you get. And if you’re really weak, they succeed and you retreat thinking, “Ah, it’s just too uncertain. I’d rather stick to what I know.”

But if you don’t fall for this deception and think, “You know what? I’ll figure it out. This dream is important,” their war rooms go on high alert.

They notice that you’ve called their bluff, so they do the next thing in their playbook and get the troops moving. But they know, if they catch you when you’re strong, you’ll fight back stronger.

They wait. They look for a weakness in your position. And when it ‘triggers,’ they launch.

This is that inexplicable moment where you’re just going about your day, and a wave of heaviness hits your chest. A word, a feeling, an emotion, or a visual triggers you in a certain way and suddenly, your mind is in the battlefield. Everything is happening fast. The arrows, the bullets, the artillery is here.

You’re overwhelmed. Confusion is racing through the neurons inside your head, and you enter that spiral of overthinking where all you can do is worry and wonder about how your future is going to implode and how your life is an apocalypse.

Because the enemy knows a simple truth: if you’re not focused and attentive on the dream, you can’t achieve it. And that’s their strategy—overwhelm, distract, destroy.

And you can’t win this fight with resistance because you often lack the resources.

They know they can overpower you. So, a brave stance is futile. It makes no sense to stand in front of this onslaught with a broad chest. That just makes it easier for them to hit you.

Resisting this overwhelm only strengthens the emotions powering it.

That’s what they are expecting you’ll do.

So don’t.

Winning Without Fighting…

…is simpler than you think.

When you can’t outpower them, outsmart them.

Instead of standing like a brave soldier and resisting, duck and let the arrows and bullets pass over you. This means that instead of resisting your feelings and fueling them with it, you accept and feel them as they are, letting them pass through you.

When those feelings of overwhelm, confusion, and overthinking eventually subside (i.e. the cavalry runs out of ammo), you step back up again—unhurt and unharmed.

And you can pick up where you left off, devoting your time and attention to the dreams that matter to you, and baffling your fears, doubts, limiting beliefs.

What could have been an easy spiral for overthinking and lost time turns into a small hiccup that makes no difference to you.

And that how you stay in control. That’s how you win without a fight.

But why is there a war in the first place?

The reason your fears and doubts can overpower you is because you think they are a part of you, that the cynical voice is coming from who you are, and that maybe, just maybe, it’s right and you should stay in your comfort zone—overthinking for a living.

And it’s tempting. I get that. I’ve been there too. But I’ve recently realized that in times like this, my life is at stake because if I give into this voice (and give up on the dream), the trajectory of my future changes…maybe forever.

I don’t want that decision to be made out of fear.

If you’ve made it this far, I know you don’t want that too.

And thus we have the metaphor of war. It doesn’t just teach you how to win, but it shows you a crucial truth that eludes people all their lives:

YOU ARE NOT YOUR FEARS.

YOU ARE NOT YOUR DOUBTS.

YOU ARE NOT YOUR BELIEFS.

If you can fight them in a war, that means you are separate from these feelings that hold you back.

Now I can’t say you’re stronger than them because, when pitched against emotions, logic is always draped in a paler shade of power.

But when you recognize this simple truth, the world and all its opportunities open up to you. Why?

Because for the first time, you surrender.

You let the enemy attack. You let yourself feel the overwhelm. But you don’t get carried away. You don’t overthink every single detail, or mull over every fear.

You experience all the emotions, but without the baggage. You make all the decisions, but without the irrational voices.

For the first time, you feel at peace even when the world spirals into chaos. For you know that the chaos isn’t you, and you aren’t the chaos. The noise isn’t your voice, and your voice is not the noise.

No amount of overwhelm, overthinking, and onslaught of your fears can change this simple truth: You are the deciding force of your life.

The only question that remains is, “What will you choose?”