How to Stop Fixating and Start Dealing With Small Problems
What keeps you from falling asleep at night? You know those tiny, irritating mistakes that you cannot to stop thinking about. Maybe you had an awkward interaction, earned a bad test grade, or experienced a weird interaction with your roommate.
Call it what you want—overthinking, fixating, or obsessing—moving on after you’ve made a mistake or encountered a small problem is difficult. You wish you could just get over it and move on, but you can’t.
How can you stop fixating on small problems and start moving on? Learn to ask yourself three important questions and to express your feelings in a healthy way. Then, see how moving on looks in action with three everyday examples.
3 Important Questions to Ask Yourself
When you face a situation in which you cannot seem to get over your mistake, what do you do? The temptation is to constantly think about the situation over and over again in your mind: how could I have done something so dumb? Instead of jumping to beating yourself up, stop and ask yourself three important questions.
What factors contributed to the problem?
In other words, why? Why did you make that mistake? Obviously, you didn’t “mean” to do it. If you could go back in time, you would most likely do things much differently.
Be demanding of yourself in answering “why?” Don’t let yourself get off easily with a vague answer. You need to get to the heart of the problem. Certain factors definitely contributed to your mistake.
The goal of this process is not to blame others for your mistakes, but instead to think through factors like lack of sleep, personalities involved, etc. This can help you to isolate and analyze certain factors, so be sure to give yourself time to get to the heart of the issue.
How can I prevent this situation from happening again?
This question can be tricky to answer, because you still may not be know the answer for yourself. You cannot control things out of your control, like people, but you can control your reactions and communication.
Think back to what you did or did not do that may have contributed to the problem. Were your actions or words hurtful, aggressive, or accusatory? Did you allow your emotions to get the best of you? Was your health poor or your lack of sleep extreme? These are all things you can at least somewhat control and hopefully fix to prevent the situation from happening again.
What can I do when I have no control over the circumstance?
The reality is that sometimes even when you do everything correctly, you will still make mistakes or encounter problems. So, how should you respond?
If you’re anything like me, your first reaction is frustration (which is just a nice way to say getting angry). You don’t deserve the treatment you received. Your intentions, words, and actions were considerate and thorough, but the situation still happened.
Learning to react to being treated unfairly is an important skill, because unfortunately this will happen throughout your life. Try to be gracious and understanding, whether or not someone deserves it. Remember how kind and understanding others have been with you in the past, even when you were certainly at fault.
2 Ways to Process and Express Your Emotions
A rare freshman can process all problems in the mind. Most of the time, you will need to express your thoughts in some way. Even the introverts out there cannot keep everything inside. They need to process their thoughts, feelings, etc. So, how can you process what happened to you in a healthy way?
Verbally express your emotions.
Some people use a process called venting. While venting—verbally spilling out everything you’re thinking—feels good but only temporarily. It usually leaves you feeling more frustrated for a longer period of time.
Venting isn’t the only poor way to deal with problems. Texting, posting on social media, gossiping—all of these methods of expression do more harm than good. Before sending a scathing text to your friend ranting about how horrible your teacher is, stop. Avoid acting impulsively. Give yourself time to cool off, then react.
You can verbally share your frustrations without venting, gossiping, or posting on social media, but you need to carefully choose with whom you share. You cannot share your struggles with just anybody, because many people are fixated on fixing you more than hearing your problem. There are times you need to hear some hard truth from these people, but this may not be what you need right now. So, avoid sharing all of your frustrations with people who tend to be fixers. You will only find yourself more frustrated after sharing.
When finding someone with which to share your struggles, think about the good listeners you know. These people can remain objective yet sympathetic, while you share about your bad day. These are the kinds of people with which you should share your struggles.
Caution: Do not constantly rush to this person, because you may wear out your friendship with your personal drama. Instead, give yourself at least a few hours to process what happened. Then, ask that person if you can talk to him or her about your rough day. This will give that person an “out” if he or she needs a break.
Express your feelings through writing.
For those who struggle to express feelings in conversations, this is a wonderful alternative. Writing allows you to process and express what you are feeling simultaneously. You can try a few different methods to see what works best for you.
One method is creating a pros and cons list. When you encounter a problem, you can list out your options. Then, explore the pros and cons of each choice. This method allows you to assess your best and worst case scenarios.
A second method is cloud-mapping. This method is often used by writers who are trying to narrow down their topic, but it can help those of you who would rather visualize than write your feelings. You group together similar concepts and then draw lines to connect causes and the resulting effects. This can help you “connect-the-dots” in tricky situations.
A third method is what you might think of when you think of writing—writing diary entries. Your brain needs to process the happenings of the day. If you do not want to or cannot process through speaking, a diary is a wonderful place to get your feelings out.
A fourth method is rewriting the situation. First, write the event as accurately as you can remember. Then, rewrite the event altering your actions, inserting what you should have done instead. You cannot change the past, but this method can help you learn from the past.
3 Practical Examples of Moving On
I want to end this post with everyday examples to help you see this process in action.
Example #1
A freshman student finds herself wishing she was dating, like most of her friends are. She would like to be, but she isn’t even good at talking to guys much less dating them.
She has a crush on a guy in one of her larger classes, but she lacks the courage to start a conversation. One day by chance she happens to enter the lecture hall at the same time as he does. While they are acquaintances, they rarely say more than a simple “hello” or “how are you?”
He says hello first. She returns the greeting. Desperate to continue the conversation, she awkwardly tries to add something to it. Instead of sounding natural, her words sound awkward and forced. He smiles, answers her question, and then walks to his seat.
During class and for days afterward, she constantly analyzes the situation. Why in the world was she so awkward? Why did those words come out of her mouth? In her mind, her chances of dating that guy are now non-existent.
She decides to stop overthinking her mistake, and instead think through the situation through journaling.
What factors contributed to her embarrassing stumble? She was completely surprised by seeing him and in turn was entirely flustered.
How can she prevent this situation from happening again? She can prepare what she will say if she runs into him or another future crush.
What can she do when she has no control over the next encounter? Rehearse what she will say now, so that she won’t be taken aback when she happens to run into him again.
After thinking through the 3 questions, she gets her feelings out and moves on.
Example #2
A freshman student holds a test in his hand. He’s never gotten a D in his entire life. How did this happen? He did study, but somehow he must have studied the wrong content.
He approaches the teacher after class to ask for the correct answers. The professor seems slightly put out with him, which only makes his frustration increase. Does the teacher even like him? Is that why his grade was so poor?
On his way to his next class, he shares his experience with a classmate walking beside him. The classmate listens and says that teacher is just a difficult person. The professor didn’t even cover all of the test content in class, so the grade probably is not his fault.
The freshman, after having time to cool off, realizes that he should’ve waited before sharing his experience with his classmate. In retrospect, he realizes that the teacher did tell the class not all test material would come from class lectures. He makes an appointment with his professor to discuss how he can better prepare for future tests.
Example #3
A freshman student wakes to the sound of her alarm clock. She can barely open her eyes, but once she does she reads the time 9:03. What? Her class started at 9. How did she oversleep again?
She quickly dresses, grabs her backpack, and rushes out of her dorm to her class. She cannot afford to be late again. She is barely passing, and her professor designates attendance as part of the class grade.
After class, she sheepishly approaches the professor. She apologizes for being late, again. The professor is kind but informs her that her attendance grade will still be affected. Oversleeping is not a legitimate excuse for being late.
How incredibly unreasonable? She is trying to get up on time, but she just can’t. Why can’t her professor see that? She calls home, complaining to her parents about how unfair this professor is. Her mom points out that she does needs to break this bad habit of oversleeping. She knows this is true, but she has tried. How could she have overslept again?
She mentally beats herself up for the rest of the day. What is wrong with her? She’s tried every trick she knows. She passes her RA in the hallway and shares her bad experience and her habit of oversleeping. The RA quietly listens and then asks if she would like some advice. The RA shares some practical tips that just might work. She decides to stop beating herself up and to start fresh tomorrow with her RA’s helpful tips.
Refuse to fixate on small problems, instead prevent that same problem from happening in the future. Ask yourself these three questions: “what factors contributed to the problem,” “how can I prevent this situation from happening again,” and “what can I do when I have no control over the circumstance?” Then, find a healthy way to process and express your feelings through writing or speaking. You can stop fixating and start moving on!
