There’s too little thinking, too much thinking, and the right amount of thinking.

Too little thinking is simply being impulsive—reacting to whatever your first knee-jerk reaction is.

Overthinking happens when you’ve already made a decision, but you keep thinking further without taking any action.

Confident people think the right amount and then act.

The right amount of thinking is essentially eliminating all bad options, leaving yourself with a range of good options. From there, you rank those options from best to worst, as much as you can, and then pick one to act on.

That’s the right amount of thinking, and it’s the kind of thinking you can apply to any situation.

Most people, however, do one of the other two: they either impulsively act on whatever thought pops into their head, speak without thinking, or do whatever their body urges them to do.

Or they overthink—they keep justifying, rethinking, and reconsidering even after they’ve already identified what they need to do.

The key is to come to a decision as quickly as possible about what seems like the right next move. Do some tiny action before you overthink it again. That’s considered, thoughtful thinking.

To dive deeper into this topic, check out the original video here: