How Overthinking Quietly Undermines Self-Confidence

Overthinking, often driven by underlying anxiety, fuels negative self-talk and self-doubt, which over time undermines self-confidence and lowers self-esteem.

How Overthinking Quietly Undermines Self-Confidence

Let’s untangle what’s the connection between overthinking and self-confidence. Research supports the idea that there is a top-down and bottom-up effect to how we overthink and how that affects our self-confidence.

Bottom-up: The under the surface, deeper roots and psychological patterns that create overthinking

In my Iceberg of Overthinking model the underlying psychological patterns are identified as the roots and reasons of our overthinking and associated behaviours (such as overanalyzing, replaying conversations, worrying, decision paralysis). These patterns can be fear of judgement, perfectionism, fear of failure or people pleasing. Research shows that these patterns are linked with increased worry, rumination, and repeated negative thinking, contributing to an emotional discomfort and psychological distress. Basically, the deeper insecurity manifests in behaviours attempting to control and prevent a negative situation by overthinking, overanalyzing, worrying, or procrastinating.

Top-down: The actions we take to prevent a negative outcome leads to more insecurity

On the behaviour level we try to avoid a negative situation (e.g. embarrassment, social awkwardness, being seen as not competent) by ruminating, replaying, overanalyzing, over-preparing, over-aligning, delaying, tweaking or not deciding. These may feel like protective actions but in fact we are (un)consciously telling to ourselves: ‘Hey, you’re not good enough, you need to prepare more, do more, give it some more thought, craft your message more carefully, not say those words or not say anything at all.’ This mechanism is called perseverative cognition. As overthinking becomes a habit, it prolongs our stress responses and magnifies criticism. In the end, our behaviours fuel our deeper psychological patterns to maintain and expand our insecurities.

When overthinking doesn’t give enough protection: Avoidance emerges

Over time, this cycle can bias how we evaluate ourselves and our performance, making us more cautious and more likely to avoid situations that feel risky. We start to hold back, weigh in if it’s OK to make that comment or rather stay quiet to avoid any raising eyebrows, we question our abilities, even our past successes (if those were out of luck rather than out of competence). As avoidance increases, opportunities for corrective feedback decrease, which in turn can reinforce the belief that we cannothandle challenges, driving self-esteem down in a downward spiral. The lower the confidence becomes, the more we retreat to avoidance.

Reflection - Rebuild self-trust

In this exercise, we will try to rebuild our self-trust in three steps.

1. Observe your protective behaviours (without judgment)

Protective behaviours often look helpful on the surface, but they can quietly keep insecurity in place.

Ask yourself:

• Where does overthinking show up most for me right now (e.g. preparing, replaying, second-guessing, seeking reassurance)?

• In which situations do I feel the urge to mentally “do more” before acting?

• What am I trying to prevent, control, or avoid by overthinking here?

  
  

2. Listen to the story behind the behaviour

Every protective behaviour is built on a story the mind believes is keeping us safe.

Ask yourself:

• What story am I telling myself about why I need this behaviour? (e.g. “If I don’t overprepare, I’ll look incompetent.”)

• What does this story suggest about me, my abilities, or my worth?

• What emotions does this story trigger in me (e.g. shame, fear, pressure, relief)?

  
  

3. Gently challenge avoidance with a small, safe experiment

Confidence grows through experience, not certainty. The goal is not to eliminate fear, but to gather new evidence.

Ask yourself:

• Are there situations I regularly avoid, hold back in, or over-control because of this belief?

• What is one small, low-risk action I could take to test whether my feared outcome actually happens?

• If this experiment goes well enough, what new belief about myself could I begin to practice?

(Think in terms of “safe discomfort,” not exposure by force.)

Conclusions

Overthinking and lower self-confidence can feed each other in a downward spiral. We overthink because of deeper insecurities, and each cycle of overthinking reinforces those doubts, gradually embedding them into our belief system. This can lead us to avoid certain situations in an attempt to protect ourselves. I hope this experiment helped you notice the link between your overthinking and self-confidence patterns—and gave you a chance to try a more adaptive way of approaching challenging situations.

Reflect and share: What was your biggest takeaway from this experiment? Drop your thoughts in the comments—I’d love to hear what you discovered about your overthinking and self-confidence patterns.

References

Clark, D. M., & Wells, A. (1995). A cognitive model of social phobia. In R. G. Heimberg, M. R. Liebowitz, D. A. Hope, & F. R. Schneier (Eds.), Social phobia: Diagnosis, assessment, and treatment (pp. 69–93). Guilford Press.

Xie, Y., Kong, Y., Yang, J., & Chen, F. (2019). Perfectionism, worry, rumination, and distress: A meta-analysis of the evidence for the perfectionism cognition theory. Personality and Individual Differences, 139, 301–310. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2018.11.028

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perseverative_cognition