How to Overcome Overthinking When You Embarrass Yourself

Embarrassing story time 😳.

I messed up. I was scheduling an email to send to a group of colleagues I met at a recent local networking event, sending them information about me, my practice and a link to my newly-updated and beautified website. 

Now, I was doing this in Convertkit, and if you know me, I am… let’s say technologically challenged. I managed to set up an email list (with help mind you); I wrote an email to send to that group of colleagues and scheduled it for delivery. 

Unbeknownst to me, I had inadvertently merged that intended group of people with ALL of my professional therapist colleagues locally and around the country—all the colleagues I have met and worked with in other professions over the last 17 years—AS WELL AS a group of therapists/business coaches that I admire, follow on social media and one day hoped to work up the courage to reach out to. I sent ALL OF THEM the same email, referencing the local event and chatting them up about my work like we were besties. EEK!!!! 

OMG! I felt like such a moron. I didn’t realize I’d done it until my friend Drew, a therapist in Rochester (who was NOT at the local event) emailed me telling me how much she loved my site, and I was like, “Oh shit!”

I logged into Convertkit and realized what had happened. I spent the next 20 minutes mad at myself. Why can’t I figure this tech stuff out? Even with help I managed to mess it up! All my cool and awesome therapist friends are gonna be like, “What the hell?!”

I was embarrassed and felt stupid. 

Another story about letting go of perfectionism

Then I remembered that several years ago when my son was in middle school. His teacher accidentally emailed every single parent a picture of his grade book with the grades of every student in the class. When I got that email I felt so bad for him and imagined how mortified he must be, and I deleted the email. That was the end of it for me. 

He probably imagined everyone was spending a lot of time judging him, but, in reality, most parents, like me, probably saw it, realized his mistake, and didn’t give it much thought as they went about him. For him it was probably horrifying, but for everyone else it was a blip. 

We are so hard on ourselves, and imagine that other people spend even a fraction of their time thinking about us-and they don’t. They have their own shit to worry about. 

And the silver lining with my happy little accident email? I was able to touch base with a large number of people in one email–even if some of the email didn’t make sense to some people. Hey, done is better than perfect, right? It saved me the time of writing several different emails to several different groups. 

How to overcome overthinking: practical steps

So the next time you get all hyper focused on how you think others view you; the next time you think people are judging you or fixating on your every move; know that they probably don’t, and they probably aren’t. We are so much harder on ourselves than we are on others. 

Can you relate? Are you obsessing over a mistake you made? Here are some steps you can take right now to move on. 

First, realize that EVERYTHING seems bigger to us than it does to others. What feels like a colossal mistake to us often hardly even registers to others. Remember that and try to keep it in perspective. 

Then ask yourself, “Will this matter in five years?” There’s an expression, “If something won’t matter in five years, don’t spend more than five minutes worrying about it”. So that’s your max. You get five minutes to worry. Set a timer and…go! 

And lastly, give yourself a freaking break. We are all human; we are all juggling a zillion things; and we will mess up. More often than not, our mistakes will be “little-m” mistakes, not “Big M” Mistakes. So chill. 

Do you have stories about letting go of perfectionism?

I’d love to hear about a mistake you made that felt like a big deal in the moment but turned out to be no big deal and how you were able to gain that perspective. Send me an email at afctherapy@gmail.com to share!

And BTW, I didn’t get one angry email demanding I stop sending them emails. No one said, “WTF are you even talking about?!” In fact, I received many congratulatory replies and compliments about the website. (If you did judge me, please don’t tell me!)

If you’re struggling with overthinking or spinning out over something that feels like the end of the world–even though you logically know it isn’t–I can help! I am a therapist for people living in New York (afctherapy@gmail.com)  and I do coaching for clients regardless of location (alyse@coachingwithalyse.com).

Chronic overthinkers are my specialty!

You don’t have to be up all night obsessing over your “little m” mistakes.

Let’s set up a time to talk and fix this shit!

xo 

Alyse

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