Overthinking as a coach usually isn’t about missing information. It’s about waiting for permission you haven’t given yourself yet. I see this pattern constantly, in myself and in the coaches I mentor, whether it’s setting a price, choosing a niche, or deciding if a coaching recording is finally “good enough” to send in. The way through isn’t more certainty, it’s recognizing the loop faster and trusting your own judgment instead of waiting for someone else’s green light.
I’ve never been a quick decision maker. Give me a choice, and I can very quickly get stuck in analyzing all the possibilities, the “What ifs,” and the reasons I “should” or “shouldn’t” do something. It drives my family crazy!
I can think myself into a corner without even trying. It’s like I’m attempting to go from point A to point B but going in loop-the-loops instead of a straight line. A lot of mental effort, a lot of motion, but not covering much distance. It has cost me in my business and in my life more times than I’d like to admit.
To be honest, even this article got loopy. I sat with several different angles for it much longer than I needed to, circling around instead of decisively choosing. So, I’m human. Still, I did catch my pattern, and that’s what’s important.
This is part two in a short series on stress and coaching. In the first article, I wrote about how chronic stress can become our baseline without us even noticing, and how that limits our clarity and our capacity for effective coaching presence. Let’s take a look now at how this stress can show up as a very common habit: overthinking.
The Pattern Underneath the Pattern
Here’s what I’ve come to understand about my own overthinking, and what I see in coaches I mentor. It’s rarely about the decision itself. It’s about waiting for permission. Some external signal, some sense of certainty, some person or system that will confirm we’re moving in the right direction.
I can catch this in myself around something as ordinary as structuring my workday. I keep thinking that someone else’s time management system should work for me. It doesn’t. Not for my energy levels or for my lifestyle. Yet I’ve spent a lot of time trying to force myself into someone else’s structure instead of trusting what I already know about how I work best.
I’m seeing the same pattern as I consider which recording to send in to be assessed by the ICF for my MCC credential application. Are they good enough? I could review them another dozen times and still ask the question. My mentor coach, Marion Franklin, has told me for years to trust myself and trust the process. You would think, after sixteen years of coaching, I’d have that down cold. I don’t. Self-doubt still shows up. What’s changed is how quickly I can recognize it and move out of the pattern.
Where This Shows Up for Growing Coaches
If you’re newer to coaching or are building your practice, I’ll bet this pattern is pretty familiar. Choosing a niche. Naming your business. Writing the copy for your website. Setting your prices. These decisions often get treated like they require some perfect, fully-informed certainty before you’re allowed to act, and that certainty never quite arrives. So the thinking continues. The doing? Not so much.
What’s happening in those moments isn’t usually a lack of information. It’s a lack of permission you haven’t given yourself yet. You’re waiting for someone else, a mentor, a course, a competitor’s example, to give you the green light to choose. That’s worth understanding, because it’s a different problem than not knowing enough, and it requires a different response to overcome it.
Intuition Isn’t the Enemy
Let’s take a moment to separate two things that often get tangled together: intuition and overthinking. Intuition is a genuine read on a situation, quiet, often quick, and usually worth trusting. Overthinking is what happens after that, when your thoughts keep circling long past the point of benefitting from new information. This may appear to be diligence, but it’s really just fear dressed up in a suit and tie.
The “should” is often the tell. When I catch myself thinking a system, a script, or someone else’s approach “should” work for me, that’s usually the moment I’ve stopped listening to my own intuition and started accepting someone else’s ideas instead.
What’s Changed for Me
As I said, I’m human. I haven’t fully resolved my own tendency to overthink. Maybe I never will. What’s changed is that I catch it faster now. I can feel the looping starting, name it, and question myself. Instead of asking things like “What if I’m wrong?” or “What if I don’t have all the information I need?“, I can ask more empowering questions: “What do I actually know is true in this moment?” “What can I trust about my own abilities to figure this out?” “What would it look like to act on my own judgment instead of waiting for someone else’s permission?”
That’s the shift I’d offer you, too. Not the promise that you’ll become a fast, easy decision-maker overnight. The promise that you can learn to recognize your own loop-the-loops sooner, and give yourself permission to act instead of waiting for certainty to arrive first.
Before We Move On
There’s a cost to this beyond your own frustration. A coach caught in overthinking has less presence available for clients. Clarity for yourself and presence for your clients aren’t separate streams. They flow from the same spring.
Where are you waiting for permission to choose when you could give that to yourself right now? I’d love to hear what you notice, whether it’s a business decision you’ve been circling or something more personal, like how you structure your day. Leave a comment or reach out directly. And stay tuned for what’s next in this series: what chronic stress means for coaching presence itself.
