Faulty Logic
Hi friend,
I recently spoke with a rockstar 1L who was facing a conundrum with which I’m quite familiar – and which I expect may resonate with you even if you’ve never been to law school. She was panicking about how to study for her upcoming spring exams. She’d knocked it out of the park on her fall finals, and she was understandably inclined to precisely replicate her approach this semester. But the problem was that it was physically impossible.
You see, she’d gone all in (and then some) first semester, devoting every available minute to studying in an effort to guarantee her success on her three exams. But this semester, the bar had been raised, because in a seemingly sadistic manner, the administration (as is the case at most law schools) had required students to take four exam classes instead of just three. (In the event you’re assuming this must mean each class was proportionately less intensive, you’ve clearly never been to law school! But stick with me - I promise this will still be relevant regardless!).
Having been in this boat (which admittedly feels like a rapidly sinking ship), I advised her that it would not only be impossible, but actually destructive, to approach her studying in the exact same manner as she had first semester, because doing so would inevitably cause her to give short-shrift to whatever exam(s) she studied for last, and could very likely cause her to burn herself out along the way, jeopardizing her performance on all of her exams.
While it was hard for her to dispute the soundness of this reasoning (even the savviest lawyer has a hard time making the case that there can somehow be more than 24 hours in a typical day, at least without changing time zones), our conversation reminded me of a broader “thinking trap” that plagues many Type A+ Perfectionists across a wide array of circumstances:
Assuming that if you’ve OVER-done something before and achieved good results, then you MUST OVER-do it again in order to achieve equally good results.
While it may SOUND logical, this reasoning quickly falls apart under scrutiny, as I sought to demonstrate through the following exchange:
Me: How can you be sure that you must devote 100 hours (random number selected for illustrative purposes) studying for each exam in order to get all A’s?
Her: Because that’s what I did last time, and I got all A’s.
Me: But how do you know that you wouldn’t STILL have gotten all A’s if you’d devoted, say, 90 or even 50 hours to studying for each exam? That is, how do you know that at least SOME of the hours you devoted weren’t superfluous?
Her: Well I guess I don’t. But I also have no PROOF that would be the case because I’ve never tried it. So it would be risky.
Me: I hear you. But let’s think about it differently. What if I told you that because I wore my FAVORITE pink sweater to all of my exams last semester and got all A’s, that I must wear the SAME pink sweater to every exam this semester to achieve the same results?
Her: Well, I actually DO wear my lucky sweatshirt to each exam for that exact reason!
Now, you may have laughed at her response, but I surely couldn’t, because I’d done the EXACT same thing when I was in law school – except for me it was more like an increasing number of lucky charms that accumulated over time:
First just my pearl necklace (which I wore to my first exam to feel “lawyerly,” but then felt compelled to continue wearing going forward even when the rest of my exam outfit effectively consisted of pajamas)
Then, also my grandfather’s cufflink, which I’d turned into a necklace (because he was boss and always brought his A game)
And eventually, also an adorable stuffed pig christmas ornament that my mom had bought to make me smile during winter break 3L year
Did the pig still make me smile the second time around?
Sure.
But were ANY of those items responsible for my performance?
Surely not.
Thinking back on it, the same is almost certainly true for at least some of the ridiculously high number of hours I’d spent studying (and thereby not sleeping or performing other forms of self-care I now know would have surely aided my performance).
But like that 1L, I couldn’t BELIEVE it because I’d never TRIED it, and thus lacked any proof that studying even an hour less would not render all of my hard work for naught.
Instead, ever since high school I had deliberately OVER-studied for every single test in order to ensure peak performance. This included, by the way, exams for classes I was taking Credit/Fail, because I was adamant that I “simply didn’t know how to study to receive a B, C, or D” so it was either all-in or nothing (i.e., study for the A or take the F), and that was not a risk I was willing to take. (Talk about irrational black and white thinking, not to mention a waste of time and energy!)
Therein lies the conundrum for many Type A+ perfectionists: Because, at some point, we started OVER-doing things and obtained good results, we are terrified, and often completely unwilling, to deviate from that approach, even if doing so produces severe negative consequences – often including burnout. As I wrote in my last post about obsessive passion, they call it “doing something to death” for a reason.
But this conversation also reflects a different and equally pernicious problem:
That we lack faith in both ourselves and our ability to determine how much is enough.
As to the lack of faith in ourselves, my accumulation of good luck charms was not only evidence of superstition (and perhaps a smidge of OCD). It was also a reflection of my intense imposter syndrome and my core belief that I was not really smart enough to stand out academically on my own. Instead, my success to date MUST have been the result of DRASTICALLY outworking all of my peers, and PERHAPS (and just in case) the presence of some “lucky” objects. And that self-doubt extended well beyond my approach to exam studying, prompting me to squander precious energy, and limiting my ability to show up fully, in many areas of my life.
As to our lack of trust in our ability to determine what is enough, this can lead to at least two regrettable outcomes. First and foremost, as I previously highlighted, burnout – as well as anxiety, chronic stress, chronic pain, insomnia, and a whole host of other ailments that stem from overwork. But also, by always over-doing whatever it is we’re focused on, we inevitably end up UNDER-doing many other things – many of which, we might be surprised and even alarmed to realize (if we ever let ourselves stop to think about it) are actually far more important and central to our core values than whatever task we’re hung up on.
For example, in the case of the 1L, giving her VERY ALL to one or more exams would necessarily require giving less to her other academic pursuits. But it would ALSO require giving less - and perhaps even less than the bare minimum of energy/attention necessary to preserve not only her mental and physical health, but also the relationships and other responsibilities she holds most important.
And the sad truth is that far too many of us almost instinctively make this tradeoff time and time again without even realizing it because our inner critics and drill sergeants present it as the only available option.
But there is another option.
And it does NOT include slacking off or jettisoning our good luck charms.
You may be relieved to know that I did not ditch my pig when I moved out of my law school apartment.
If you zoom in you can see his cute little backside peaking out behind my husband Zach on the windowsill of our former NYC home.
But the fact that I still have not yet tried to figure out which sealed box of “misc. items” he got trapped in during our move to the suburbs suggests that he no longer holds the same sort of control over me.
So what CAN we do?
We CAN work on cultivating kinder relationships with ourselves, which will help us restore – or, in some instances, finally begin to cultivate – feelings of both self-worth and self-trust. Because we are worthy, and we are wise. And deep within us there is an intuition or fundamental sense of knowing that we CAN trust – if only we can quiet our minds enough to let us listen to our bodies.
On a practical level, we CAN also find ways to accurately assess our progress and the effectiveness of our work methods – enabling us to work better, without necessarily working harder or longer.
In addition, we CAN remind ourselves of other instances where we were forced to spend less time/energy on something than we’d normally be inclined to, and things still totally worked out. Parkinson’s Law – that work expands to fill the time allotted for its completion – is no joke. But we’ve all had the experience of working on an unusually short deadline where we still totally delivered. CONSIDER THAT PROOF that the same would hold true even if you took the courageous step of drawing that boundary for yourself.
Finally, we CAN be thoughtful and intentional about the tradeoffs we’re making – recognizing that while we can’t AVOID making them (alas, time and energy are indeed finite, even for the most productive and determined of us), we CAN ensure that they are at least of our choosing.
And, of course, as always, we CAN support and champion one another in these endeavors.
To that end, please know that I am rooting for you, my friend, and that if you ever need any support with any of the above, you know where to find me :)
With love,
Jordana
