Why Moms Overthink Everything—And a 3-Step Reset to Stop

Ever spiraled over a “simple” decision like what to make for dinner—or which sun hat to order—for way too long?
It's not just "mom brain" 

In this episode, we’re unpacking why high-achieving moms tend to overthink everything—and how chronic stress, decision fatigue, and people-pleasing are all tangled up in the swirl. You’ll learn my Head-to-Heart Method: a simple, repeatable tool that helps you get out of your head, back into your body, and make decisions that feel light, not loaded. 

Because confident decision-making isn’t about certainty—it’s about self-trust. 

In This Episode, You’ll Learn: 

• Why overthinking is often a nervous system response—not a personality flaw
• How chronic stress hijacks your brain
• The four survival strategies that keep you stuck in indecision
• A simple 3-step tool to make decisions faster & easier
• How to stop spiraling and start trusting your inner “yes”

Noteworthy Quotes from This Episode: 

“Overthinking is a survival strategy—it’s your brain trying to keep you safe from being judged or getting it wrong.”

“The more capable you are, the more pressure you feel to make the perfect choice.”

“What decision would you want your child to watch you make?”

“You don’t need to be 100% sure. Just 51% YOU is enough.”

Resources & Links: 

✨ Want support? DM the word SHIFT to Siobhan on Instagram to book a free Guilt Shift Audit call. 

✨ Follow me on IG: @everwellcoaching  

Connect with Siobhan:
Tired of spiraling over every decision? Let’s build your self-trust muscle—together.
📲 Book a free Guilt Shift Audit Call
📸 Instagram: @everwellcoaching
🌐 Website: everwellcoaching.com 

Transcript

 Have you spent more energy today deciding what to make for dinner than you did on your actual job?

This episode is for the mom who spirals over even the smallest choices because you feel afraid that you're going to get it wrong. I have been there and I have got some tools for you. This episode is going to help you get out of the mental spin cycle and back into your body's wisdom. You'll learn a simple practice to make decisions from clarity and not fear, so you can stop second guessing yourself all day long.

Welcome to the Everwell Mama Podcast, where moms drop the guilt, have more joy, and live in a way that feels right without burning out or missing out on the good stuff. I am Siobhan Bingham, a mom of two wellness coach and mentor for moms who are ready to stop overthinking and start living with grounded confidence and joy.

By the end of this episode, you'll have a repeatable tool to help you make confident decisions without spiraling polling five people or putting your own needs last.

So at the time of this recording, and hopefully by the time I release it, this is June, 2025, and here in Canada the weather's getting nicer. So we need to be ordering new summer clothes for our big kids who are growing so fast. And so we have had to do some research on what sun hats to get and what bathing suits to upgrade to, and new crocs and flip flops and all of the things.

And I remember a couple days ago scrolling through Amazon and trying to decide on what brand of hat I was going to get and which one would kind of meet the needs that I wanted the most.  I was scrolling through and starting to feel overwhelmed, honestly, by all the options. And I stopped and said, this is ridiculous.

I do not need to be overthinking. A hat, but I think that it's something that a lot of moms can relate to because it's very easy to get overwhelmed and start overthinking all of the smallest little details of our day.

And especially for high achieving moms, we can actually get stuck here. And this is not you being flaky or not being able to decide anything. It's that you're exhausted and you're overextended, and you're probably trying to avoid disappointing anyone.

Overthinking is something that we can fall into the trap of really easily because it's kind of a control mechanism. And as high achieving moms, it's very easy for us to want to control things because before becoming moms, we were really good at it. We were able to control our days control. Our nutritional needs, our hydration.

We were able to control what we did at work, how we got to work, how we were able to work out. Like we could control our days down to the millisecond and we were really, really good at it. But as I'm sure you know, once kids come into the picture, all of that control just kind of goes out the window. So it takes a lot of unlearning and.

Practicing new skills in order to get out of this overthinking pattern.

And I call it a spiral and a pattern because it is often something that. Can take us out of our executive functioning part of our brain, which is that nice, beautiful big part that controls our decisions and our communication and all of those really core pieces and can actually bring us down towards our brainstem and that wonderful little amygdala who is just like, there is danger here when you're trying to pick out that summer hat.

There's a saber tooth tiger running after you. Okay, so we get this, this swirl of thoughts in our head and that can cause us to fight, flight, or freeze or fawn. And all of that is worsened by any past trauma that we may have and chronic stress that we're printing ourselves through. And if you are a high achieving mom, you probably have a lot of chronic stress.

So that's  like a great big funnel, right? We have this swirling of thoughts, which causes us to go into  our fight, flight, freeze, or fawn mechanism, and that brings our brain into that lower base. Position of thinking about our traumas and our chronic stress, and then we get into our survival strategies.

So this is when we get stuck into perfectionism, when we are getting into people pleasing and wanting to make sure that we're not making the wrong decision to mess up something or to disappoint anyone else. And then we get into analysis paralysis as well, because we are. No longer able to use that part of our brain that makes decisions.

We are fully into survival mode. And honestly, it's kind of a catch 22 because the more capable you are, the more. Of a high achieving wonderful like problem solver that you are, the more pressure you're gonna put on yourself to make those choices. And the more pressure means more swirling thoughts, which means more survival strategies.

So let's kind of shift out of this lower brain part and get out of our brain as much as we can and into our body to build up that self-trust muscle.

I'm going to give you what I call the head versus heart decision making  practice. We are gonna start with our head because we're here, right? That's where we're starting. Before we start overthinking everything, just tell me what is the logic? What is the clear thing that we are looking for?

So in my example of looking for a hat, I needed to get. A set of hats that would work for both a 4-year-old head and a 1-year-old head

and not be crazy expensive. That's my logic. And then we're gonna drop from our head down into our heart. And now what do I really want? If no one would judge me? if there was no judgment about the hats, if there was no worries about the hats, and I was just purely thinking of what I want, I wanted a cute pattern.

You know, I didn't want it to just be plain white hats or black hats. Like I wanted a cute little pattern to have it be fun.

And I wanted it to be an easy decision. I didn't want to be stuck wondering about things. Then from there, we're gonna drop all the way into our body. Take a deep breath and think about your body right now. Where does it feel light and where does it feel tight? That tightness, that is the stress, that is the trauma, that is all of your survival strategies trying to come out at play.

When you are making this decision, , are you feeling light about this decision or are you feeling tight about this decision? If it's light, it's probably the right one. If you feel really tight about it, then you either need more time, you need to go back through the process, or it's just not the right decision right now  and I've got a little trick for you to kind of reframe your thinking.

Every single thing that you are doing all the time, whether you are conscious of it or not, your child is watching you make all of these decisions all day long. So when you're choosing the hat or what you want for dinner or any other major decision, I want you to think, what decision would you want your child to watch you make?

Do you want them to watch you Making that really tight? Fearful decision because you're worried that someone's gonna judge you, or do you want them to watch you make the decision where you feel really light and you're excited about what's coming?

 To really actually put this into practice, I would love it if you could try one  really low stakes decision today. So it could be something as simple as like, what you're gonna wear today, what you're going to eat, and give yourself just 30 seconds to decide. Don't give yourself time to overthink it.

If you need to set a timer on your phone, do it after 30 seconds, walk away. That's it. The decision has been made, there's no second guessing allowed.

And with any decision, you don't have to be a hundred percent sure, especially in our society, especially as high achieving moms. We love the number 100%. We have been conditioned to search for that our whole lives, through school, through work, all of the things. But when it comes to decisions for you and your family, you don't have to be a hundred percent sure because a hundred percent doesn't actually exist.

Perfection doesn't exist. You just need to be 51% you. It has to be mostly you, and that is all that really matters. So your reflection question today is, where in your life are you waiting for clarity that only action can give you?

 instead of overthinking things and not attempting to do the thing that you're thinking about, where are you waiting for the clarity that only trying. Only action can give you and see if you can attempt this head to heart practice  and if you. Maybe have tried something like this in the past and you're like, I don't get it.

I can't do it by myself. I've tried. I still get bogged down. I still get lost in the spiral. Then let's build that self-trust together. I have some guilt shift audits that are available. They are free calls where we are figuring out how to work through this challenge for you.

Without having to spiral. If you're interested, just DM me the word shift on Instagram and we can get started soon.