Either/Or Thinking: You're Not a Toggle, You're a Dimmer

I owe a real debt of gratitude to Jonathan, a client who came to coaching having it all figured out. Most people come to me because something isn't working and they have no idea why. Jonathan was different. He showed up to our first session with spreadsheets. Eight goals, four personal and four professional, each with action steps and charts tracking his own progress.

When I asked what he actually wanted from a coach, he told me he needed someone to hold him accountable, push him, and be hard on him when he didn't follow through. I told him how I actually work: identifying roadblocks, bringing clarity to what's unspoken, and treating setbacks as information rather than failure. His response: "That's why I need you. I didn't even know I needed that."

A few sessions in, Jonathan told me his wife had a complaint about him. He had no dimmer.

He didn't know what she meant either, at first. But the concept she'd named was exactly right. Jonathan had two settings: all the way on - the brightest possible light, or all the way off - complete darkness. Like an old toggle light switch, not the modern kind where you can adjust how bright or dim the light is.

This is either/or thinking. Black and white. All or nothing. If I tell my boss the full truth, he'll fire me, so I must say nothing. But in the dimmer space, there's a version of the truth that's gentler, more politically savvy, that opens the door to an honest conversation over time instead of forcing an all-or-nothing moment.

For Jonathan, this showed up most clearly in how he split his focus. When his business was "on," it was on at full brightness: 90% of his attention, 10% left over for everything else. When he closed it the first time, the opposite happened. Nearly all his focus went to his family and his job, with a small amount on his job.

So we got to work on something different than goal attainment, instead we focused on: Not on, not off, but the middle of the dimmer. And in this space, his business, his personal life, and his family could all get real attention without any one of them draining the others completely.

Most of us aren't actually choosing between two extremes. We just haven't been taught that the space in between is not just an option, it is often the most effective and sustainable one. You don't have to be fully committed or completely checked out, fully honest or completely silent, all in or all out. You're not a toggle. You're a dimmer.

This is also true of the choice to get support. You don't have to be all in, fully ready, or have it all figured out before you start. You don't need a clean slate or the perfect window of time. You can dial it in.

What's one place in your life where you've been living at full on or full off, when the truth is you have a dial?