IS THIS YOU?

“I replay cringe moments in my head.”

“I beat myself up when I make mistakes.”

“I get stuck in my head.”

“I can’t stop thinking.”

“I’m negative and anxious all the time.”

“When I mess up, I dwell on it and beat myself up.”

“I analyze social situations after they happen to see what I did ‘wrong.'”

“I have imaginary arguments and fights in my head.”

If I told you that you could learn one skill to stop overthinking, get out of your head, get focused, and drop unproductive thinking patterns, would you believe me?

It’s hard to describe this skill in one sentence, so let me explain.

I’m Tam.

I used to be an overthinker. Always anxious, always stressed. I got frustrated easily on the inside, and I worried a lot.

I worried about things that I couldn’t control — how “bad” some social situation went, how “those guys” didn’t like me, or how I couldn’t believe I did that one thing that one time. I replayed times I failed in my head for years after they happened, looking at what “went wrong” and twisting the knife on the most painful (and shameful) ones.

I was hard on myself, and I was hard on the people around me — towards family and especially towards coworkers. I always thought that we weren’t working hard enough or we weren’t doing enough. Whenever we got blasted on the internet for messing up, I took it pretty hard and felt like we were letting the company down. The rest of the company was putting out amazing work. Why weren’t we?

I was in my head, all the time. I was negative. I judged people. I loved (over)thinking but sucked at taking action, so I’d think on and on and never got to any results. And then I’d think even more. One time, when I was thinking about ending my relationship with my then-girlfriend, I thought for so long that I tired myself out. I then let it go and told myself I’d think about it more the next day. Repeat that cycle for awhile.

The way I destressed was smoking (not tobacco). This usually led to me sitting at home, inebriated, and worrying about work and life even more. Most people thought that smoking would make me more “chill,” but in actuality, the more I smoked, the more I worried. That one took me awhile to figure out.

It was a terrible way to live. It was a stressful way to live. It was a tiring way to live.

The turning point came when I decided to go to a therapist, who gave me an exercise to deal with my stress. He pointed me to some other resources, I started digging into learning about the mind, and everything changed after that.

In the years after, I started approaching my mind as a muscle. A muscle that could be trained.

I learned how to stop overthinking, how to get out of my head, and how to handle fear.

I stopped worrying so much. Talking with strangers didn’t give me that nervous feeling in my stomach anymore. I was actually there during conversations, instead of wondering whether I said the right thing or not.

It wasn’t an overnight change, but as I got better at it over time, it got more fun and I saw more and more results.

It was fun seeing my old fears drop away. Fun to be able to let go of the times I failed, and fun to stop overthinking things and just be present.

I stopped judging people so much and was less hard on them, which in turn, made me less hard on myself.

Life felt easier. Lighter. Fun again.

I starting going through my days with confidence cause I knew that no matter what happened — whatever failure, life crap, or struggle — I’d be able to pull myself out of the overthinking and moping that I would have been stuck in just years ago. This was particularly helpful when I failed a job interview, was heartbroken, lost my job, failed another job interview, and was (almost) disowned by my mom, all in the span of about 6 months.

Life has its ups and downs. It’s inevitable.

But there’s one skill that can always help you recover, get you out of your head, and move forward — that’s the ability to drop unproductive thinking patterns.

Over the years, I’ve learned a lot about this skill. I’m still not perfect at it. But based on my ability to learn, my background as a trainer, and how determined I am to share this stuff with others, my hope is that by sharing this information, other people can learn to deal with the struggles in their lives the same way I did, or at least with similar tools, so that they can go through life with less strain, less struggle, less stress and with a little more calm, a little more focus, and peace of mind.

So, before we go any deeper, take a moment and think — if you could stop overthinking, if you could drop your fears, your anxieties, your habits, and all of the thinking patterns that have gotten in your way in the past, what would it mean for you?

What could you do that you couldn’t do before?

About Me

I’m Tam. I spend too much time on Reddit, and I like breaking things down for fun. I grew up as a gamer, went to school as an engineer, and worked as a trainer (not the gym kind).

Mindfulness and meditation have changed how I approach stress, anxiety, anger, fear, and (pretty much) life, so I’ve been trying to share what I’ve learned so that other people can learn the same. I believe in a deliberate practice approach to meditation, much like how athletes approach sports, with the goal of using small wins and real life application to build motivation for practicing long-term.

This site and the pages you find in it are a collection of what I’ve learned over the years, broken down, and distilled into as simple (and usable) form as possible. 

I hope you find as much use in it as I have.