Two hours. That’s how much time I spent using AI in one day trying to optimize an email and choose a product to buy.
Not because I had to. Just because I could.
I kept thinking maybe the email could sound better. Maybe I still didn’t know enough about the product to make the right choice. One more prompt became another one and somehow minutes turned into hours.
And the strange part is I didn’t even notice it happening.
I have been doing this for months now.
Recently I started seeing discussions about how AI is affecting our thinking and cognitive abilities. At first I didn’t take it that seriously. AI is just a tool right? It helps people save time. That’s all.
But then I started noticing things about myself.
I was overthinking small decisions more than before. I was rewriting things that were already fine.
I was asking AI for reassurance after already making a decision.
Sometimes I wasn’t even thinking properly anymore. I was just asking for more answers.
That realization honestly made me uncomfortable.
So in this post I want to talk about some of the ways AI can slowly affect how we think, make decisions, process emotions and see ourselves. And also how we can use it like a tool without becoming too dependent on it.
Section 1: AI &Perfectionism
Researching and optimizing – these are perfectionist’s specialties. It’s a rabbit hole – a never ending one.
Before AI, these had some kind of limitations.
Research can run dry, some of them are not accessible due to a paywall. Too many open tabs becomes a struggle to manage.
It becomes a hassle after some time. There were some inconveniences that actually put a natural break even though you have spend more than enough time researching or optimizing.
AI has removed all of these difficulties. The rabbit hole has no bottom.
You can always research more, optimize more just with one prompt, one response.
More information feels addictive. It makes you feel like you are being more productive, doing more work to make something much better.
Perfectionism doesn’t have any bar as such. Even if it had one, it just completely disappeared.
More research, refinement and optimization was just one prompt away and its unlimited so good enough cease to exist.
How do you know if you have fallen in this trap?
- Writing an email take more than hour now. Rewriting it many times to make everything correct.
- You spend hours comparing features of different product before making a decision to buy. Asking for alternatives, cheaper ones, expensive ones – it just goes on.
- Planning an event or a trip becomes a life project because AI can make it better with every response.
Pause and Ask Yourself:
Are you improving something because it matters or because AI makes endless refinement possible?
Mindset shift
Done is better than perfect. Progress is better than perfectionism.
You cannot know everything. You aren’t supposed to know also.
Information overload is a real issue. Too much information, too much choices will paralyze you.
Also, you might have noticed that AI is so good at making things perfect but it misses something – a soul.
Imperfections are a mark of humanness, it’s a quality. It is to be celebrated and not to be avoided by chasing after perfectionism.
How to Stop AI from Fueling Your Perfectionism
01. Set a time limit on research / optimization
- Before you begin researching or refine something, set a timer.
- Once the timer has gone off, you stop no matter what.
- Use your own discretion while setting the timer. Refining an email should take a few minutes but researching a topic for exam might take an hour.
- Don’t override this by setting unnecessary longer timer.
02. Come up with your own draft before opening AI
- Come up with your own draft before opening AI
- Always write your own first draft for an email, message, essay or whatever it is, before you open AI.
- AI is a tool that should be helping you to think, not the one that thinks for you.
03. Ask yourself this
- Is this much of researching or optimization even necessary for this particular task?
- Will my boss or my friend even care if it was slightly imperfect? Will they even notice if I spend so much time on this?
- Usually, the answer is no. And that’s why you should stop. Because it doesn’t matter as much as you think.
Related Post:
➡️How to Overcome Perfectionism To Be Successful and Happy in Life
Section 2: AI & Overthinking
AI never stops. Every prompt comes up with another question, open another thread which wouldn’t have even existed if you didn’t use AI to begin with,
Each answer can lead to five more, every response can add more nuances.
And suddenly you are worried you are missing out on information. It feels like you might be making a wrong decision before knowing everything.
Ignorance really is a bliss sometimes.
The more you know, the more you can make things better, lesser are the chances of you being satisfied. Because you know this could have been much better.
This leads to overthinking.
Overthinking every decision you make, every email you write, every trip you prepare.
An unnecessary mental overload that brings no positive outcome.
How do you know if you have fallen in this trap?
If you find yourself thinking could this have been better, would the response have been better if I had prompted it better that’s overthinking.
It’s worse if you do it after sending that email or planning a party. If you can’t close that loop after you took the action, it shows you are too AI dependent.
Pause and Ask Yourself:
Do you really need more information right now, or are you afraid of making the wrong choice?
Mindset Shift
More information is not clarity.
It’s fear of making mistake, unable to accept imperfections disguised as productivity.
It is way of expressing your anxiety.
No one is immune from making mistakes.
Also, as I mentioned before you cannot and shouldn’t explore all possibilities and information for doing day-to-day things.
Not everything requires military precisions.
This mindset shift will help you save time, energy and become more relaxed and less dependent on AI.
How to Stop the AI Overthinking Spiral
01. Identify what you want to know
- Instead of prompting ‘tell me about X’ try ‘I need to decide Y – what are the 2 or 3 important things I should know before making a decision.
- Constraint the prompt to get concise, required amount of information.
02. Stop when you get good enough information
- 99.9% of the time you know that you are pushing for more even if you have enough information to make a proper decision.
- You should practice to stop yourself when you know this.
- Remember, this is just a random Tuesday decision, your life doesn’t depend on it.
03. Set a number of AI exchanges on one topic
- AI has more patience than monks. It will never stop as long as you don’t stop prompting.
- So, before you even begin set a maximum number of AI exchanges for that topic.
- One more exchange is not going to make things better.
04. Watch for diminishing returns
- After a certain amount of conversation, AI is just giving the same answer as lengthier versions with no added merit.
- You are just rephrasing, tweaking the prompt a little expecting a better answer. That is your overthinking mode taking hold of you.
- Actively watch out for these. This is cue for you to stop. Continuing feels productive but it’s just waste of time with barely anything in return.
Section 3: AI & Decision Making
Many of us have outsourced decision making to AI rather than using it as a tool to help make us informed decisions.
It decides for you and you are completely stopping making decisions by yourself.
Decision making requires researching, weighing options, prioritizing and even need to consider your gut feelings. Every time AI decides for you, your decision-making muscles are getting weaker.
It’s affecting you cognitively.
To put it bluntly – it’s making you dumber.
There is plenty of research to prove this.
How do you know if you have fallen in this trap?
You stared the research to make an informed decision. But the end of it too much information has paralyzed you and you end up asking AI to make the decision for you.
I have done this mistake myself. I use AI to compare different products before buying one and it does a splendid job in doing thorough research.
At the end, the information overload paralyzes me and end up asking AI to choose for me.
Have you ever done this?
Pause and Ask Yourself:
When was the last time you made an important decision without asking AI?
Mindset Shift
Decision making is an important skill.
Read that again it’s a skill.
Every time you ask AI to make decisions for you, it’s getting smarter.
You are exchanging your cognitive abilities for saving a few minutes or hours of your life.
The immediate result feels like a win but in long term it’s doing way more harm.
Every mistake, imperfect decisions will teach you something. It hones your decision-making skills. It makes you better.
So, don’t skip this step.
How to Take Back Your Decision Making Skills
01. Separate information gathering from decision making
- Before I had mentioned about setting a timer for researching. After this close AI and then make decisions.
- Never do researching and deciding in the same window. Because you will be tempted to keep on researching and optimizing.
02. Ban AI for making smaller, simpler decisions
- Don’t even think of using AI for making small day-to-day decisions.
- Use your own judgement, do a simple google search to gather basic information and make that decision by yourself.
- Life will surprise you for good if you let it.
03. Use AI to stress test decisions you already made
- When you catch yourself asking AI to make decisions, stop it right there.
- Make a decision with all the information you have gathered, ask your friends and family, trust your gut feeling too.
- If it’s a high stake decision, use AI to stress test the decision you already made.
Related Post: The Only 3 Decision Making Frameworks You’ll Ever Need
Section 4: AI & Self Doubt & Creative Confidence
Have you ever caught yourself comparing to the results given by AI? I am guilty of this.
AI produces perfect, structured, articulate, scholarly response every simple thing you ask.
Your own messy first drafts, even the finished product starts feeling incomplete and just not good.
You start comparing your outputs to AI – a machine that was trained on everything available under the sun, a machine that has never had a blank page syndrome or a bad day.
Your self-confidence starts to take a hit because now you know what perfect is. Even though it’s by a machine.
Slowly, you are not confident anymore. Especially, if you see someone lese giving perfect responses each time using AI, you feel your imperfect ones as a step back.
You start second-guessing everything and slowly stop believing your gut feelings.
How do you know if you have fallen in this trap?
As mentioned before, comparing yourself to AI’s output, not feeling confident about your writing or decisions as before AI existed means your self-confidence have taken a hit.
It might not be something that have happened suddenly. It happens slowly, with every prompt, every response you extract from it.
Pause and Ask Yourself:
Have you started trusting AI’s output more than your own thoughts and creativity?
Mindset Shift
AI is a tool and not a benchmark.
It’s a tool too powerful, too good that it has somehow become something more than it was intended to be.
You cannot change this but you can understand this and make better, constrained use of AI as a tool. Nothing more, nothing less.
The judgement, experience, nuances that you bring makes something you create unique and soulful. An AI can never do that because it’s a machine, a tool.
How to Rebuild Confidence in Your Own Thinking
01.Create without AI
- I had already mentioned this under perfectionism. This is very important so I am mentioning it here again.
- The more you rely on AI, the more it’s going to make you stop believing in your skills.
- So, you should be the one coming up with first draft, first decision – always. Never AI.
02. Notice when you are criticizing your own work
- Be self-aware. Catch yourself when you start comparing your own work with that of AI’s output.
- Why can’t write like that, why didn’t I think of this – these are all warning signs. Identify them and remind yourself that this is a trained tool.
- This comparison is not valid and it you need to name it every time. Then only you can counter it.
Related Post: 30 Day Self Confidence Challenge to Become a Bolder You
Section 5: AI & The Validation Loop
You make a decision then ask AI whether it’s right.
This is completely different from stress-testing a decision that was mentioned before.
Asking AI if the decision as right is seeking validation and reassurance. Stress testing it means you are committed to it. You are asking how can I make this better, what can go wrong etc.
One is going backward and the other is marching forward.
Second guessing your decisions is so much easier now because of AI.
Every time you ask AI if the decision you took is right, it’s going to bring up more information, infinite angles to think about. It’s never ending.
AI never satisfies. And that reassurance might not happen.
How do you know if you have fallen in this trap?
Asking AI
- What do you think?
- Did I make the right decision?
- Act as X with Y number of experience and tell me if I made the right choice?
These are all ways in which you are asking AI for validation.
Pause and Ask Yourself:
Are you asking AI for reassurance that your decision is right?
Mindset Shift
AI doesn’t know you as a person. It doesn’t know your values, your life, what matters to you, your current situation.
It only knows patterns. And you are not just patterns.
You are a person.
No matter how much trained AI is, it’s still a machine. It lacks the nuances that only a human can bring.
Stop seeking validation from a machine about a decision made by a person who is capable of doing its own thinking.
How to Break the Validation Loop
01. Make the decision and close the laptop / phone
- Once the decision is made don’t go back to AI for validation.
- It needs execution not further investigation whether it’s right or wrong.
02. Name the feeling
- Whenever you open AI tools to validate your decision, name the feeling behind this choice.
- Is it anxiety? Are you overthinking? Is it perfectionism? Fear of failure?
- Name it to see it properly. And stop feeding it.
03. Keep a Journal
- Instead of relying on AI, write in a notebook the reasoning behind the decision made.
- Writing helps to think clearly and see much more possibilities that you couldn’t have otherwise known.
- In long term this helps to strengthen your decision- making muscles, see your patterns, help you understand your decisions betters, see what went right and wrong and decide better the next time.
Section 6: AI & Emotional Outsourcing
Have you ever asked AI if what you are feeling is valid? Whether its an over-reaction or justified?
Many people are increasingly turning to AI to know how to handle a fight, how to respond to conflict and much more. A tool has replaced friends and family to their support system.
AI is trained so as to make you feel better. It’s going to give answers that you want to hear, not the one you need to hear.
This is a huge difference.
Again, it only knows how much you are telling it. When you are blinded by emotions you tend to miss out on details. Whatever you share would not be an unbiased, whole scenario.
AI will always give you a calm and measured answer.
Just like the decisions you took, you will second guess your emotions too. You will need to run it by AI to know for sure if they are valid and how to deal with it.
Sometimes people use to do this with other people.
Now AI is more convenient and at your fingertips and free. So, people turn to it.
How do you know if you have fallen in this trap?
If the first thought that comes to your mind when faced with a fight with a friend or a conflict with a colleague is to run it by AI, then emotional outsourcing has become your habit.
You don’t share your thoughts and feelings with your friends. You rather trust AI than them.
If a man made, trained tool is your first choice to share thigs it is very concerning.
Pause and Ask Yourself:
Who do you turn to first when emotions gets difficult – your friends and family or AI?
Mindset Shift
Your emotions shouldn’t have to be validated by AI.
Feelings aren’t something that needs to be interpreted by data.
It’s personal experiences. The moment you outsource it to AI, you are handing over the key to your deeper, inner self.
Not only is it unnecessary, it’s also dangerous.
Emotions and feeling are human. And that needs to be understood and dealt with by a human and not by a trained tool.
How to Stop Outsourcing Your Emotions to AI
01. Feel it first
- Instead of opening ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini, open a notebook or a journal app and free write whatever it is that you are feeling. Let your thoughts flow and emotions be given life by words on paper.
- Talk to a trusted friend, colleague or family member. They know you, your situation and can do more help than AI.
- Ai should never be the first step in processing your emotions and feelings.
02. Ask yourself this
- What happened here? Sit with this for a while.
- Try to understand what happened by yourself.
- Your interpretation matters. It will help you to deal with the situation better.
AI isn’t the enemy – Using it without boundary is.
AI is not a villain here. It turns into one if you use it without any restrictions.
It’s an amazing tool to speed up research, to generate outlines, stress-test decisions, handling repetitive tasks and so on.
It becomes a danger when there is no clear boundary where it ends as a tool and where you begin. Most of us never drew this line.
They just used it and kept on expanding its use without thinking about the consequences.
It’s easy, fast and free. Deadly combination.
One question to use every time you use AI – am I using it to assist my thinking or to do the thinking for me.
Your decisions first – AI second. Your draft first – AI second.
AI shouldn’t be a replacement.
Conclusion
None of these problems appeared because of AI.
Human beings always struggled with perfectionism, overthinking, decision making and many other things.
Every tool if not used with caution can feed on these struggles, your insecurities and makes things worse for you – even if you are using them to make things better.
People think that if you don’t use AI the real cost is time or efficiency. But it’s skill atrophy and effort devaluation.
Your instincts, your emotions, your capabilities get eroded away slowly without you even realizing.
You don’t need to delete AI from your life. Learn it to use it as a tool.
Don’t let it become the crutches you lean on when you can walk perfectly fine.
Before AI existed, you were making decisions, choices, doing research and optimizing on your own. You could do it then and you can do it now.
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