How mental overdrive blocks performance

There is this notion amongst high-responsibility professionals: the more I keep spinning in my head about a difficult situation at work, the higher the chances that I resolve it successfully. But that’s not always true. Mental overdrive can block performance.

The experience of mental overdrive

Many high-responsibility professionals describe the same inner experience: you close your laptop, but your mind keeps going—replaying conversations, anticipating what might go wrong, mentally preparing for what’s next. This is the mental overdrive. Even in moments of rest, there’s a pressure beneath, like you might miss something important if you fully switch off. You find yourself overthinking decisions, double-checking details, and staying one step ahead because not doing it feels almost irresponsible. Perhaps, every now and then, you notice just how exhausting this constant mental overdrive really is. Regardless you push through it, because a part of you believes that this anxiety is your edge, the very thing that drives you to excel. It’s almost like a signal that indicates you care, and letting it go would feel like slacking. But, let’s assume for a second that this pattern may actually block your performance, even if it may feel like a driver on the surface. In this article we uncover how the measure of performance and responsibility is not your mental noise.

Your nervous system is trained to go on overdrive

These patterns are not random. They appear because they’ve been reinforced time and time again. It’s how we learn. When a certain way of thinking or behaving leads to a good outcome—or even just a sense of relief—something happens in the brain. The neural pathways associated with that response become stronger. Over time and after multiple successful usage of this method, the brain learns to make this a standard and subconscious go-to tool when you are in a high-performing state.

These neural connections start to build early on: even when your parents praised you for acting ‘mature’ or your teachers highlighting your essay being the best in class. Conversely, if you’ve regularly noticed the disappointment on your mom’s face when your test wasn’t perfect, or other classmates getting more praise for their good performance, you already started to pick up on these signs and expectations. These experiences quietly create a feeling of ‘I’m not good enough’ or ‘Above all I have to avoid making a mistake’ which then builds certain patterns like monitoring everything and every reaction of others, checking and double checking and keep spiraling about work.

It’s a subtle and gradual process and more often than note we don’t realize how it slowly takes over our life and state of mind.

The connection between performance and stress

We - who are operating in this high-responsibility staten - often feel like this stres, this pressure to overthink and overdo is what makes us perform, and that without it, we would easily slip. This is partly true but not entirely. According to the Yerkes–Dodson law, when stress levels are low, there isn’t enough stimulation to stay focused or motivated, so our performance may lag behind. Moderate levels of stress are optimal, as they increase alertness, focus, and energy, helping you perform at your best. However, when stress becomes too high, performance drops because the system becomes overloaded—leading to overthinking, reduced clarity, and impaired decision-making. If this high stress persist, it can lead to burn out.

You might be wondering: ‘What is moderate stress?’ Imagine a state where you are activated, as in focused on the subject, engaged but also clear. You can objectively assess all the ins and outs, make decisions confidently based on the information you have, judge on what is important and what can wait, and once you took the necessary steps, close off the laptop and direct your attention to the next thing or better yet, to your family/partner/friends/hobby. Moderate stress feel like readiness: ready to act but also be done with it when ‘ready’.

High stress feels more like pressure. When you catch yourself not being able to think deeply because your mind spins about an urgent topic. When you lose your creative power, because your thinking is narrowed down to a few pressing options. When you notice losing strategic clarity, the ability to judge on what is urgent and what is important. When you wake up the next day like you were hit by a bus. When despite wanting to be present with family, your mind constantly wondering back to the same scenario or a different disastrous one over and over. In this state of mind, it is becoming hard to perform, because the noise is getting too much and consuming the headspace that would enable you to deal with the actual work efficiently.

My edge is my standard, drive and clarity.

Many of us believe that the mental overdrive is the sign that things are on track, the key to our performance. With this overdrive we are able to deliver impressive results, continuously. It formed our personality, our work ethic from early on but it created an ever-high tension in our body, that sooner or later will put a strain on us. The strain shows up at first in our ability to relax, to enjoy the off-work time, but with less and less recovery, maintaining a facade at work will become harder and harder and it will unavoidably start to crack. The thing we need to realize is that behind our success there’s something else other than the worry: it is our standard, drive and clarity. A clear mind that can correctly judge situations, a commitment to do the right things that lead to a good-enough outcome and an internal motivation that keeps us going, one that is not driven by external validation. With this belief, we can move back to a moderate stress level and notice how performing suddenly becomes easy and achievable.

Reflection - mental overdrive and performance

Let’s try to embrace this new mindset. Think about a recent situation that you found difficult and were a lot in your head with it.

• What kind of corrective actions did you apply and what was happening in your head?

• Think about the moment the mental overdrive took over and how the pressure kept building in your mind and body. Relieve it for a moment. Try to formulate what you were believing in that moment. For instance, ‘I believed that spending another 2 hours polishing up that slide deck will make sure that I impress my clients but more importantly my team will drop their jaws of my excellence’. Well done, formulating this belief. This is not easy and certainly very confronting.

• Now imagine you believed this instead: ‘I rely on my standards, drive and clarity to reach a good enough outcome’. Imagine what that would be like, how would you have approached this situation differently, if the goal was to aim for good-enough. Maybe it requires some preparations and a second check, but it may also feel like you could have finished 4 hours earlier, because it was sufficient.

• Practice this new mindset as much as possible. When you notice the overwhelm taking over, stop for a second and zoom out. Go back to the new belief and use the clarity, your perseverance to reach the good enough state. Remember, this is being in your zone, performing at your best without the mental friction.

Conclusions

When we deeply care about our results, we easily fall into the mental overdrive trap. Our attention quietly shifts from actually getting the job done well to worrying, overpreparing, scenario playing and procrastination. It’s a common experience of high-performers. But it will at some point stand in the way of that very high performance. Doing at your best in fact is much more a calm, focused, just-enough-pressure experience than one with an underlying anxiety. What’s performing at your best feel like to you?

References

Yerkes, R. M., & Dodson, J. D. (1908). The relation of strength of stimulus to rapidity of habit-formation. Journal of Comparative Neurology and Psychology, 18(5), 459–482.