Did I write a title? Yes.... but did I? Yeah. Let me make sure one more time....yep!

July 8, 2008 5:08 PM

How can I stop second guessing myself?

I constantly second guess myself on stupid stuff. For instance:

-I'm at the airport, and I check my boarding pass to see that it says my plane takes off at 5:00 PM. Five minutes later, I check again just to be sure. And then another five minutes a check again, because you know what if I was wrong the first time?
-I'm in the car, pulling out of a driveway. I look left, then right, then left again to be sure, then -- why the hell not? -- I'll check right one more time, then left again, then go.
-Etc.

I never really second guess myself on bigger decisions, it's always these small, pointless things.

Is this some form of OCD or similar thing? What can I do to trust myself in these situations more?

posted by nitsuj to Health & Fitness (17 answers total)

IANAD: It may be OCD although you're unlikely to receive a diagnosis of OCD unless these behaviors are interfering with your daily life and causing you discomfort if you do not perform them. More likely, this is an anxiety issue.
posted by proj at 5:19 PM on July 8, 2008

Just FYI, I do multiple visual checks when making turns with my car. I'm not OCD at all. It's just that I was taught to drive by my father, who was a bomber pilot, so I always have the noggin' on a swivel.

It's a good thing to do so stop beating yourself up over it.
posted by trinity8-director at 5:31 PM on July 8, 2008

That's right, there's nothing wrong with "check right one more time, then left again, then go." Keep doing that please.
posted by bricoleur at 5:40 PM on July 8, 2008

You may also have an anxiety disorder...
posted by KokuRyu at 5:59 PM on July 8, 2008

I had none of this, then a stressful life event happened, and all of a sudden I couldn't fall asleep without making sure the stove was off and the door was locked, like, at least three independent times. Then it went away again. Then, my job got stressful and I started drinking more coffee, and it came back again.

My advice: look elsewhere for the source of your problem, particularly if it comes and goes.
posted by salvia at 6:02 PM on July 8, 2008

I do this, too. I think the reason is that I agonize over every mistake and bad decision, big or small, that I make, so I figure that second-guessing myself in advance might save me some anguish and second-guessing after the fact. If you second-guess yourself for the same reason, then that's just a symptom of an inability to overlook small mistakes.

Unfortunately, I haven't any suggestions as to how to stop fretting over past misjudgments.
posted by ionnin at 6:17 PM on July 8, 2008

For some people, there is a kind of magical thinking that if I do x enough times then some bad thing y won't happen. You might to try an experiment - pick something where you know you feel the urge to extra-check. Decide how many times it is OK to check and then resolve NOT to check again. Pay attention to your anxiety as it rises and falls. Can you do it just with willpower or do you need to distract yourself? Most importantly, did anything bad happen because you didn't check. Keep a record of these experiments. Either you will be able to kick the habit with practice (and proff the things will be OK with the third check) or you will realize that it is too hard to do all alone and you should get professional help.
posted by metahawk at 7:16 PM on July 8, 2008

You might find some form of mindfulness meditation enjoyable. It's a good way to get yourself centered at the beginning -- or any time -- of the day. No belief system required.
posted by Kinbote at 7:31 PM on July 8, 2008

Best answer: Nthing the stress thing, but I'm also curious: are you sure you want to stop?

I spent a long time fighting this behavior (and largely succeeding), before I realized that it wasn't such a bad thing.

So you check both ways more than once. How many car accidents do you get in?

So you check your plane ticket more than once. How many times have you ended up at the wrong gate?

Furthering metahawk's comment, I'm just asking if you've thought:
How much checking is enough?
Why am I so sure that amount is better?

Maybe the only thing worth losing is the guilt about double-checking.
posted by systematic at 7:52 PM on July 8, 2008

If it's not impacting your life in a negative way, then you're just cautious and maybe a little bit anxious. Try slowing down and really paying attention to what you are doing and that should help.
posted by The Light Fantastic at 8:40 PM on July 8, 2008

I consciously fight this stuff. Yeah, I checked the damn door was locked. Nope, I'm not going to check it again. Some day I will come back home to discover that my flooded and burned-down house has been burglarized and that will teach me to fight mental illness. Until then, it seems to have served to make me a bit less uptight.
posted by nanojath at 9:11 PM on July 8, 2008

Next time you double check, take an extra second to really notice and confirm whatever it is you're worried about. I.e. look at the boarding time and say to yourself "yup, it's 5:00 PM. I'm going to doubt this in a minute so let me just engrave this in my mind: 5:00 PM. Strange font they used there." I find this helps some of the time. Also, in some situations (like the airport one) you can get multiple different verifications for the same thing (look at the DPT times table or the display at the gate instead of your ticket).

For things like driving, double checking does make sense because what's around you can change from second to second.
posted by trig at 9:58 PM on July 8, 2008

I look left, then right, then left again to be sure, then -- why the hell not? -- I'll check right one more time, then left again, then go.

Somewhere, I heard that this is the proper procedure for looking before you pull into traffic. I don´t see a net benefit in making yourself look right only once and then left only once. You might feel better about looking right once and left once, but it´s not as though people getting in car accidents is a rare thing, and it usually happens because someone didn´t see something.
posted by yohko at 6:03 AM on July 9, 2008

I think everyone does this with at least a few specific things. I cannot for the life of me remember locking a door, so almost every time I leave my home or office, I get 30 steps away, then turn back to check again. Sometimes after doing that, I forget checking and so I end up returning again later. Ninety nine point nine percent of the time, it's locked, but it's become such an automatic thing to do that my brain just refuses to register the event.

But this only happens with locked doors. If it started happening with every task of my day, I would consider it a problem.
posted by rokusan at 7:25 AM on July 9, 2008 [1 favorite]

If I keep checking something and then second-guessing whether I've really checked it, I find it helps to say what I'm doing aloud ("I'm checking my boarding pass now, and it says the departure time is 5:00"). For some reason it gives me more faith that my act of checking it actually happened.
posted by dfan at 9:06 AM on July 9, 2008

Well, if you lock the door, then either knock on the door, or say out loud "It's locked," you may not remember locking it, but you will remember knocking on it. This habit seems odd to anybody with you, but has saved me many trips back to check the door. Checking the ticket and similar habits are, in fact, reasonable in the circumstance.
posted by theora55 at 9:19 AM on July 9, 2008

I have a pretty bad memory, so it always benefits me to check things one more time. My only advice would be that when re-checking takes time, try to make it as easy as possible to re-check, eg: keep your boarding pass in an easy-to-access pocket. Similar to what theora55 suggested, you could also use memory tricks like mnemonics to cement things in your memory the first time you see them, eg: You see that your flight is at 5:15, so think: on my flight there will only be 15 passengers, and they will make us sit in only the first 5 rows. Voila, 5:15.
posted by biwa-shu at 8:50 PM on July 9, 2008