How Black and White Thinking is Damaging Your Career
Perfectionists love black and white thinking. They say to themselves, “there’s a right choice and a wrong choice…so I’d better make sure I make the right choice!”
Have you ever thought this before?
Since I work primarily with high achievers in my business, I hear it a lot. I’ve even felt it before too! But if you’re struggling with this kind of binary thinking in your career, listen up, because it’s definitely not doing you any favors.
I was speaking to a client the other day who works in the entertainment industry. She’s been daydreaming about leaving that space and starting her own business for a while, but there’s all kinds of headtrash wrapped up in her decision. From “this is what I always wanted to do!” to “who am I if I’m no longer this media personality?” and everything in between.
As we were discussing this, I brought up the idea of alternatives. “OK, let’s just pretend you did decide to leave. You find this new thing that you think will be a better fit, and it turns out to not be a good fit. What do you do there?”, I questioned. “Well, I guess I could just go back to my entertainment job?”, she suggests. This client was assuming that there were two options: staying at her current unfulfilling entertainment job (option A) or leaving to start her own business (option B). If B fails, the only option is to go back to A, right?
Wrong!
As this client and I discussed, this is simply a binary way of thinking about a situation in which there are many options. If she opted to leave job A for a reason and job B wasn’t a fit, going backwards isn’t the solution! She still left job A for a valid reason, so if job B isn’t it, maybe it’s time for us to explore options C and D.
See how that works?
Binary thinking is so damaging to your career because it makes you feel even more stuck than you are! It puts you between two options and sometimes makes you believe that your only possibilities are bad or worse, neglecting the potential for something so much better.
So, a few reminders for those of you struggling with this mentality:
There are many options for where your career can go from here.
A choice in your career does not equate to a blood oath! All you can do is make the best decision for you right now based on everything that you know, so if you realize later that it’s no longer a fit, you can decide again.
You can make a “wrong choice” and it doesn’t make YOU wrong. You can fail without being a failure. Please stop taking these “wrong decisions” you’ve made in the past and holding them against yourself, sowing the seed that you can never trust your career decisions again in the future. I cannot tell you how damaging that thought is!
Capiche?!So, who needed to hear those things? And tell me in the comments if you struggle with black and white thinking. I’m happy to share more tips on this mentality if it’s coming up for you!
To embracing the gray,
