#131: Your binary thinking is trying to tell you something
Binary thinking is that horrible all-or-nothing approach that holds us back by convincing us that any positive change we consider will inevitably lead to disaster. You know the sort of thing: 'I should be more assertive, but if I try, I'll end up being an arrogant psychopath who everyone hates', or 'I should get out for a walk every day, but if I do, I will neglect all my duties and get fired', or 'If I show compassion towards myself I will give up and stop trying and never get anywhere in life'. If you catch yourself doing the binary thinking thing, then you need to stop immediately.
Even so, there's wisdom in the binary. If you can resist the temptation to let it sabotage all your plans, you can use it to help you realise those plans. By using your binary thinking as a prompt for reflection, you can turn your idea for positive change into a detailed, workable strategy.
Try out the brand new Binary thinking worksheet! Oh, and I also mention the Core values exercise.
Episode transcript:
What if binary thinking isn’t all bad?
You’re listening to The Academic Imperfectionist. I’m Dr Rebecca Roache. I’m a coach and a philosopher at the University of London, and in this podcast I draw on philosophical analysis and coaching insights to help you dump perfectionism and flourish on your own terms.
Hello everyone, and welcome back! There are changes afoot at Imperfectionist Towers. It’s about time, because I haven’t really changed the way I do things since I started coaching during the lockdown, and then the podcast about 6 months later. I’ve let things toddle along at their own pace, without doing anything to drive things along or make things more efficient as it all scales up. But especially over the last year or so, I’ve found it difficult to ignore the fact that there are things I struggle to keep on top of - a big one is the emails I receive from people recommending potential guests for the podcast, so I want to put something in place to make that system more efficient, which is a fancy way of saying that I am going to create a form on the website for people to use to recommend guests. If you’re one of the people who has tried to get in touch with me and hasn’t had a reply, I’m sorry! Another thing is the interest in group coaching. I only do one-to-one coaching, which is great, but I know it’s not affordable for everyone, and it also doesn’t do anything to build a community, which is obviously not suitable for all problems, but I think would be great for some. So, for a while, I’ve been thinking of offering some group coaching programs, focused on tackling a particular issue. Watch (or listen to) this space on this - I’m going to talk about this again, and I’m going to want to hear from you about what sorts of things you’d most like help with. Another thing on my to-do list is to create an email list. As someone whose inbox is perpetually out of control - see above - inflicting emails on other people isn’t something I’ve found very appealing. But, especially as I quite often have people actually asking to hear from me about various things - ‘let me know when you organise a group coaching program’ for example - and also because, as I say, there are some changes about to happen that I want to keep you all updated with - I’m thinking that an email list makes sense. I’ll let you know when it happens. And, as someone who not only hates inbox clutter but also gets really stressed by it, you can rest assured that you won’t be hearing anything from me unless I am confident that what I’m sending is likely to make a positive contribution to your day. And another thing I’m doing! You see, this is why I need an email list - that way, I don’t have to rely on the podcast to share my important updates - I’m going to be changing the ‘free coaching session for everyone who wants one’ offering. That’s something I set up right when I started doing all this, and I haven’t changed it since. Still (for now, anyway) anyone can go to my website and book a free coaching session. I’ve kept doing it because, honestly, I just like it and I find it rewarding, because people really do take something valuable from that free session, regardless of whether they go on to have any paid sessions with me. But it can be quite demanding, especially as more people find me these days than in the past. I’m not going to stop offering free sessions completely, but I am probably going to move to an application-based system that’s a bit more selective. That’s a fancy way of saying that anyone interested in a free session will need to fill in a form with a bit of detail about themselves and I may or may not be in touch to arrange a free session with them. If you’re listening to this and wondering whether I’ve made that change yet, just take a look at the website - basically, if it gives you the option to book a free session, feel free to go ahead and do that. Things don’t move very fast here - it really is just little me doing everything, in my spare time, which explains both why I’m slow to make updates and also why I really need to make them.
Right then. That’s the update over. It wasn’t even really a proper update, was it? It was me telling you about what sort of update you can expect at some unspecified point in the future. I need to take my own advice and make some SMART goals instead of all this vague ‘when I get around to it’ stuff. Actually, while I think of it, let me say a bit more about that. Making this podcast is incredibly useful and rewarding for me, because it helps me think through issues and challenges that I (and at least some of you) face. But I’m really not implementing every single thing I talk about here. I mean, I try. But old habits are hard to break, and implementing something new comes with an overhead of cognitive effort as we need to be conscious and intentional about the way we do something, rather than trusting things to autopilot. If I’ve been sitting at my desk for hours, bleary eyed and mentally exhausted, I am often just trying to get stuff done so I can close another mental browser tab. I’m not Wheel-of-Lifing my way through my day. I’m not asking myself whether marking 5 more essays or doing that compulsory and overdue institutional online fire safety course best maximises my core values. I’m not sketching a quick comfort vs relevance anti-procrastination chart every time I wonder whether I really need the toilet or whether I’m just trying to delay opening another email. I wouldn’t expect any of you to be any different, really. It’s true that all my advice is motivated by a desire to push back against perfectionism, but we definitely don’t want to end up accidentally being perfectionists about implementing it. If you find yourself listening to my episodes and thinking ‘That sounds like a great idea!’ but then continuing to do things in exactly the bad old way you’ve always done them, you’re completely normal. Often, it’s only when some issue is really causing trouble for us that it becomes worthwhile to expend that initial effort on switching to a different way of doing things - which is exactly the situation I described a moment ago when I told you about some of the changes I’m looking to make with my website and my coaching. But that doesn’t mean that all that time spent learning about issues and challenges and strategies that never lead to the obvious sort of changes is a waste of time. Simply being in a mindset of reflecting on what things you struggle with, whether there are any unfounded assumptions behind them, and how things can be done differently is hugely valuable, I think. My source here is my own experience making this podcast, along with the feedback about it that some of you lot have been kind enough to share with me. Take the last episode I released, which was about writing anxiety. At the end of that episode, I suggested - as is my wont - a strategy to help you improve things. Perhaps you tried that out - I know some of you did, because you kindly emailed me to tell me. But even if you didn’t change anything, I hope that I might have prompted you to reflect on whether your writing difficulties are actually a bit more complex than you thought, and that perhaps that might lead you to be a tiny bit more compassionate and understanding towards yourself next time you encounter them. And even if you don’t do that, perhaps listening to an episode that resonates with some of what you struggle with will make you feel less alone. If that’s you, you are very much a typical listener. Honestly, when people get in touch to tell me they’ve been enjoying the podcast, ‘Thanks, I feel validated’ is easily as common as ‘Thanks, I tried that strategy you described and it worked’.
With all that out of the way, I suppose I’d better get on with this episode’s topic, hadn’t I? I want to talk to you about binary thinking. Yes, again. I’m always on at you to resist the binary. Binary is bad. Nuance is good. I’m completely right about all of that, even if I say so myself. This time, though, I want to talk to you about a positive aspect of binary thinking. I’m sure you feel relieved about that. We all spend so much time accidentally thinking in binary terms and then (I hope, at least some of the time) noticing what we’re doing and telling ourselves off, that hearing that you might not be completely wasting your own time is probably music to your ears.
So. Let’s have a think about how binary thinking usually shows up. You’re considering making some positive change in your life. Let’s say you decide that you need to get better at saying ‘no’, because that way you can save some time and energy to devote to the things you care about most, instead of ending up completely spent on things that other people have asked you to do, and which you’d really rather not do, but you’ve ended up doing anyway because you’re not very good at saying no when people ask you to do things. You decide that your life would be better if you could be a bit more selective about the things you agree to. That way, you could spend more time with the people you care about, finish that writing project that’s been on the backburner for ages, finally accept that open invitation from an old friend to rent their holiday cottage by the seaside at mates’ rates. Great. What’s not to like about this plan? But then, the old binary thinking kicks in. You can’t just say no to everything. If you say no to things, then someone else will have to step in and do the work, and you’ll end up with a reputation in your community as someone who doesn’t pull their weight and everyone will hate you, and also the people who you say no to will remember that you said no and then if you ever need to ask something from them they will say no to you - gleefully. Your refusal to do anything for anyone ever will result in your being completely alone, friendless and unemployable, and eventually you will die and nobody will even bother to come to your funeral. Better not to make that so-called positive change at all, isn’t it? I mean, sure, you’re swamped by other people’s priorities, but that begins to look not quite so bad now you’ve thought through what pushing back against other people’s demands would actually look like.
Phew. How did that happen? All you were doing was contemplating saying no occasionally, and yet somehow it’s all escalated and we’re looking at everyone ghosting you at your funeral. Where did the middle ground go? You know, the nuance - the alternative ending in which you say no a bit more often than you have done in the past, the people you say no to respect your decision, and you end up finding a bit of space in your life to pursue rewarding things? Most of the time, simply pointing out that this middle ground exists is enough to snap people out of their binary thinking and prompt them to take a more level-headed approach to thinking through the changes they need to make. But why do we do it in the first place - why do so many of us jump straight from ‘Maybe it would be good if I were to make this change’ to ‘Everyone will end up hating me’?
I’ve got a couple of ideas about the answer to this question, my friends, and considering those will lead us to see the positive side of it all. The first is this: plain old terror. Making changes - even positive ones - is terrifying. At least, it is for your inner critic. You might remember me talking before about how your inner critic is simply trying - however ineptly - to protect you. She’s worried that bad things will happen if you make a mistake or do something that’s anything short of perfect. She’s acting like an anxious parent - holding you back with the good intention of keeping you safe, but in doing so failing to consider that this holding back is itself a harm. When you contemplate making some important change in your life, that sets her off. You’re considering saying no to things, and you’re seeing that doing so might lead to positive changes for you? Get a load of your inner critic having to fan herself and urging you to consider the dangers! Stay where you are! Don’t leave this nice safe comfort zone - sure, there are things to grumble about, but at least it’s not fraught with danger!
She’s right, in a way. Very often there are risks associated with making a change. Maybe the next person you say no to really will be grumpy about it. Maybe that thing you turned down would have led to some great opportunity, and you’ll never know, because you missed out. But what your inner critic - and the anxious parent - misses is that there are also risks associated with not making a change. That kid whose anxious parent won’t allow them to go on a school camping trip, because what if there’s a murderer stalking the camp site, misses out on an exciting and enriching adventure with their friends. You, if your inner critic convinces you not to make this change in your life, stay stuck where you are, with all the frustrations and exhaustion that pushed you to consider the change in the first place.
Now, I’m describing this fearful response as due to your inner critic, and another way of expressing that point is to say that you feel a bit torn about this change you’re planning. Part of you recognises that change is needed, but another part thinks it sounds like a big hassle and maybe you’re open to being convinced - or convincing yourself - that it’s not necessary, after all. Because that’s when binary thinking tends to show up. If you’re absolutely at rock bottom, completely miserable, and not making some changes really isn’t an option, you’re less likely to be engaging in the sort of binary thinking where you convince yourself that making some changes is going to lead to some terrible outcome. Nobody who finds their house on fire is standing around going, ‘I suppose I ought to call the fire brigade, but if I do that, they’re going to spray water everywhere and I’ll probably drown’. If you’re tempted by the binary, then the chances are that the problem you’re trying to address isn’t yet urgent - which isn’t to say that it’s unimportant.
Ok. Let’s pause here and draw some lessons from everything I’ve said so far. Because I promised you that there’s a positive aspect to binary thinking, and so far I haven’t exactly been selling it to you. The positive is that, whenever you find yourself engaging in this sort of thinking, there are important insights you can draw from it, if you’re willing to look for them. Those insights arise from the two aspects of binary thinking that I’ve just described: the fact that it’s based on fear, and the fact that the change you’re considering isn’t urgent.
Let’s zoom in on the fear first. It’s normal to be fearful when you consider making a big change. Healthy, even. Things as they are might not be perfect, but they’re working ok-ish - that’s why it’s not urgent that you make the change. So, clearly, there’s some value in how things currently are. When you catch yourself thinking in binary terms - and it really is a challenge in itself to catch ourselves doing that, so don’t think badly of yourself if you don’t notice you’re doing it - it’s because you’re being cautious. You recognise that there might be risks involved in making the change. So far, so healthy. The problem here is that that’s where lots of us stop. The binary thinking kicks in, we think to ourselves, ‘Oh no! Danger! Retreat!’ and that’s the end of the story: we stay where we are, for a while at least, and perhaps we also tie ourselves up in knots because we feel stressed about the fact that we’re frustrated with how things currently are but we’ve managed to convince ourselves that things are going to be just as bad, if not worse, if we try to change. We don’t need to do that. What we can do instead is recognise the fears we have and engage with them: what, exactly are we afraid of? How likely are these things to happen? Are there steps we can take to make the change we’re considering while mitigating the risks? Is there a way to make progress towards the change in such a way that we enjoy some benefits without encountering too many drawbacks or dangers?
Interrogating the fear that underlies binary thinking is really important. Because, while it’s a good thing to be alert to the risks, that’s not what you’re doing when you’re in the grip of the binary. What you’re doing is catastrophising. You recognise that there might be risks, and you leap straight into imagining the worst possible outcome - just like the anxious parent. And that’s where you leave it when you decide that it’s better not to make the change after all. You let yourself off the hook - you know how much I disapprove of you thinking you belong on a hook, so as revenge I’m using it against you today. You let yourself off the hook by allowing yourself to be swayed into inaction by your own catastrophising, without pausing to consider whether there’s any substance to it. You bypass sensible thinking and, led by fear alone, move straight to a questionable conclusion, like those people who were panic-buying toilet paper back in 2020.
Here’s what I think you should be doing instead. First of all, get attuned to when you’re thinking in binary terms in the first place - because, as I’ve said, that’s not always easy or simple. When you catch yourself in binary thinking, view it as an alarm bell. Like a smoke alarm. It’s happening because there might be a danger. But, just as a smoke alarm can go off when there’s no fire - like when you burn toast or when your kids leave the bathroom door open after a shower, having forgotten to turn on the extractor fan (ask me how I know) - binary thinking can be triggered when there’s no real danger too. What you don’t want to do is take the dangers that your binary thinking is screeching about at face value, which is like calling the fire brigade just because you’ve burnt some toast. (Why am I so obsessed with fire in this episode?) Instead, you need to investigate. The same way you investigate when your smoke alarm goes off. You go and check whether there’s actually a fire or whether - more likely - there’s some extremely minor issue that you can easily address. So, ask yourself: what’s set this off? What’s the underlying fear, how likely is it to materialise, is there anything I can do to avoid it - and perhaps even: is it really so bad if it happens? You could even - and this is level 2 thinking, my friends - learn to tune in to how sensitive your binary thinking response is. You know how some smoke alarms are ridiculously sensitive, and you basically just need to exhale too close to them and the entire house stages a giant dramatic meltdown, with the eventual result that when you hear the smoke alarm you don’t panic at all, and instead you think to yourself, ‘Well, I’ll need to go and check, but I’m already certain that there’s no problem’? Perhaps your binary thinking is also ridiculously sensitive, which means you can practice changing your default response from ‘Oh no! Panic!’ to something like, ‘It’s probably nothing, but I’ll check just to make sure’.
Let’s go back to that example I used earlier so we can see how this might play out. You’re considering saying ‘no’ more often, but your binary thinking has kicked in and convinced you that if you do this, you’ll antagonise everyone and they will all hate you. That’s your internal smoke alarm. So, you roll your eyes and go to check it out. Is this a real danger you’ve identified? I mean, maybe it’s a danger if you say no to literally everything, while laughing and giving the middle finger, but that’s not actually what you’re thinking of doing (I hope). What this change would look like in practice, realistically, given that you’re a considerate and thoughtful person, is politely declining a single request, in the first instance. ‘I’m going to say no this time, I’m afraid, I have too many other commitments’, when someone asks you to join some ghastly committee. Something like that. That’s not going to antagonise anyone. Nobody’s going to hate you. They might be a bit shocked, admittedly, if they view you as someone who’s an easy target for this sort of thing because you always say yes - but that’s not a bad outcome. In fact, I’ll tell you a secret: even while they’re busy being shocked, they will also probably respect you for pushing back. So, what we learn here is that although your inner critic is on to something - we do need to take care when saying no to colleagues, simply because it’s a point at which what you want clashes with what they want, and we need to be polite as we assert ourselves - it’s not the huge drama that your binary thinking would have you believe. So, that’s lesson 1 from your binary thinking. Recognise that you’ve spotted a danger, and instead of taking that as a reason not to make the change, view it as an opportunity to learn about how to make the change. How can you make the change you want to make while avoiding any pitfalls?
Which brings us to the second aspect of your binary thinking. Because, maybe you don’t really want to make that change. In fact, part of you would really rather not. I’ve already described how you can view your binary thinking as a possibly malfunctioning smoke alarm that may or may not be alerting you to a real danger - but another thing it’s alerting you to is that you’re a bit torn. And when we feel a bit torn about whether to make a change or not, we’re often biased towards leaving things as they are: that way, we can basically just operate on autopilot, following the same old habits without being conscious or intentional about how we do things. If in doubt, it makes sense to go with the option that involves less effort. I mean, this is exactly what I was talking about at the start of the episode, when I described not making certain changes that it would be beneficial to make. And, understandably so. There’s no end to the positive changes that it’s possible to make, and if we were to try to implement all of them, we’d find ourselves constantly exhausted by that initial high-effort phase of implementation, and never enjoying the improved ‘new normal’ that we were promised. So, it’s a good thing to be selective about what changes to make, and to direct our precious time and effort to the right sorts of things. If you’re feeling torn about whether or not to make a change - as you are when you’re gripped by binary thinking - you’re doing things right. You’re being cautious about where to invest your time and energy. However. As I’ve already explained, you’re also focusing on the dangers - real or imagined - that accompany this change. If those are the only dangers you take into account, you end up with a skewed picture that tips the scales towards the status quo. But the status quo also comes with dangers - it’s just that they’re comfortable dangers that you’re already experiencing, which means you’re not panicking about them. So, to introduce a bit of balance, you need to ensure you take those into account. What’s bad about leaving things as they are? What opportunities would you miss out on? What dangers would you be exposed to? What regrets might you have a few years from now? It’s surprisingly easy to overlook all this - after all, this is our life, we know what it’s like, why would we bother to describe it in detail, especially when doing that would make us feel depressed about how shitty things are? Well, duh, that’s the point. If things are shitty, you need to know how shitty, and why, because that’s the only way you’re going to be able to weigh the costs and benefits of making a change. Don’t skip that part. You’re doing all this because you want to make positive changes, not because you want to pretend that everything is already rosy.
So, those are the two lessons you can take from your binary thinking. By engaging with your fear response - rather than taking it at face value - you can fine tune how to move forward so that you get to enjoy the positives and avoid the pitfalls. And by recognising your ambivalence, you can ensure you’re taking into account the risks on both sides of the equation, and considering the drawbacks of not taking action, instead of being preoccupied solely with the drawbacks of making the change.
If you can recognise and implement those lessons - which involves treating your binary thinking as a prompt for reflection, rather than as the final word on whether you should make a change - you can turn that binary, catastrophising, drama-queen streak of yours into a force for good. It can help you transform your idea for change into a detailed, workable strategy that balances the risks against the benefits and gets you what you want. And once you’ve done all this reflection, your next step is likely a small and manageable one. What makes sense, given what you’ve been thinking about? In the example we’ve been working with, where you’ve reflected on your need to be more comfortable about saying no and the importance of doing so in a respectful way, the next step is probably: work out a filtering strategy so you can decide what things you need to start saying no to. One way to do that is to do our old favourite, my core values exercise. Once you’re clear about your core values, you can use them to test any plan of action you’re considering, or that you’ve been asked to consider. So, that completely non-scary first step is what implementing this particular positive change involves.
In case you’d like a bit of guidance with all this learning-from-your-binary-thinking business, I’ve created a brand new exercise just for you. It’s called the Binary Thinking Worksheet, and it’s designed to walk you through the steps I’ve talked about here. I’ll drop a link to the worksheet in the notes for this episode, and you can also find it on the Resources page of The Academic Imperfectionist website. Happy strategising, everyone. Speak soon!
I’m Dr Rebecca Roache, and you’ve been listening to The Academic Imperfectionist. If you enjoyed the episode, please subscribe on whatever podcast app you use. I want to help as many people as I can with these episodes, and I’d really appreciate it if you’d share the podcast with any friends who you think might find it useful, and if you’d leave a review on your podcast app. If you’d like to support the podcast financially, you can do that at patreon.com/academicimperfectionist. For more information about me, the podcast, and my coaching, please visit the website - academicimperfectionist.com. You can find me on Medium too, as AcademicImperfectionist. If you have an idea or a request for a future episode of The Academic Imperfectionist, please drop me a line, either via the contact form on my website or via Medium. Thanks for listening, and see you next time!
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