The Curse and Blessing of Having a Highly Analytical Mind
You need to know how to break the curses and embrace the blessings
You need to know how to break the curses and embrace the blessings
Growing up I’ve always been the quiet one in classes, the odd one who liked math, and the anti-social one who prefers alone-time over group hangouts. I’ve always had a highly analytical mind and have always been proud of it; I’ve prided myself on being able to delve deep into hard problems, spot discordance and connect the dots, and of course, on being good at math.
But after working for a couple of years in the US corporate world, I started doubting the benefits of having a highly analytical mind and started wondering whether it’s actually a curse — the quiet analytical person in meetings often doesn’t have a chance to say anything because they take time to REALLY digest the information and understand the details; the analytical details in presentations seem to put people to sleep and they instead prefer a simple “thumbs up or thumbs down recommendation”; the examples go on. This doubt started to eat at me in everyday life as well — I started noticing that I take longer to decide on a job offer or pick a piece of furniture than most of my friends; could it be because I’m over-analyzing the pros and cons?
Luckily, I recently stumbled upon the book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain, which restored my confidence in my highly analytical mind (I am aware that not all analytical people are introverts, but there is a strong correlation). Maybe I don’t need to “fake it until I make it” and force myself to adopt the showmanship of certain extroverts; I just need to be aware of the curses and blessings of being an analytical person, break free from the former, and take advantage of the latter.
It’s painful when it comes to decision making, but it’s easy to defend those decisions
It’s hard to make decisions, especially with a highly analytical mind, because there are so many pros and cons to consider. My mind is constantly trying to consume more new data and pull information from my memory to factor into the decision-making process. That constant flow of information is addictive yet overwhelming, and it cripples the ability to make snappy decisions.
Considering the amount of overlap between impulsive decisions and bad decisions, the inability to make quick decisions is often really a blessing in disguise; my analytical mind is my secret self-defense mechanism. Moreover, unlike people who quickly arrive at decisions and conclusions based solely on gut feelings, I can verbalize the reasoning behind my choices and defend it to others and myself when necessary.
How to reduce the curse and take advantage of the blessing:
The first step is to recognize there’s nothing wrong with analyzing situations and making informed decisions, as long as you know when to shut off the analytical mind so you don’t overwhelm yourself.
Not all situations in life lend themselves to deep analysis, and sometimes quick decision-making is required. If you want to lean into your analytical mind as a strength, choose a career path that rewards this (and leave it to those who are comfortable with split-second decision-making to fly fighter jets).
With a highly analytical mind, it’s hard to take a leap of faith. After all, risk aversion is built into us by natural evolution; making decisions based on incomplete information is scary. We have limitless information available at the click of a button; in order to avoid going down a rabbit hole and overanalyzing a problem, it is essential to be aware of the decreasing marginal value of additional information. This is a muscle you have to build over time, but if you pay attention, you will gradually develop a sense of when you have sufficient information to make a decision.
In his famous book The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, Mark Mason rightfully points out that if you give a f*ck about everything, then you will reach the point of decision fatigue really quickly. Decision fatigue is more common among people with highly analytical minds, because, well, we are constantly analyzing things and making micro-decisions. So choose your battles and decide what you spend your energy on. Famously, Steve Jobs wore the same black turtleneck and jeans every day, and Mark Zuckerberg has a wardrobe full of grey, custom-made t-shirts; in both cases, the reason is to reduce decision fatigue by eliminating recurring micro-decisions from their lives.
It causes physical discomfort if anything is out of place, but that means I’m precise and structured
People with highly analytical minds like to categorize things — the good vs. the bad, the positive vs. the negative, the black vs. the white; fuzziness and vagueness cause discomfort. Unfortunately, real life is fuzzy and vague. Because of this intolerance for imprecision, we get sh*t all the time for being “too rule-based” and “too literal” and often are emotionally drained from chasing the structure “high”. Moreover, we are usually disappointed and frustrated if others are not approaching life with the same level of precision and structure because it causes physical discomfort to see those dissonances in life.
But because my analytical brain is a sucker for precision, time and time again I’m the only one in meetings confirming things like “are we talking about UTC or some other time zone when we say 9 pm?”, which would later save us from a costly rebuild of data tables. My obsession with structure is the reason I have impeccable documentation for things and well-organized decks for presentations.
How to reduce the curse and take advantage of the blessing:
First and foremost, accept that not everything in life can neatly fit into a box or category; sometimes it’s okay to have fuzzy situations. Find a way to build up mental flexibility to deal with those situations and know not everything needs to be perfect.
Being precise and structured is a well sought-after character trait, so don’t change it. But make sure you are aware of the fine line between being precise and being too literal — not every instruction needs to be followed verbatim.
Don’t let others’ approaches to life become your mental burden, and do not impose your way of thinking on others — adjust your expectations, and stop hoping everyone will be just as precise and organized as you (this is especially critical if you are a people manager).
Communication with certain people is hard, but the right group of people will appreciate it
Analytical people love facts and information, so we are always skeptical and are constantly scrutinizing situations, statements, and things; and we assume others are doing the same. This assumption drives the need to constantly justify and caveat any statement we make; this is very common with PhDs and others involved in academic research. But some people, especially people who value efficiency over precision, would not necessarily appreciate the details. They want a simple decision, a simple recommendation, or a simple conclusion. But as we have already discussed, decisions are hard for the analytical mind. Perhaps that’s why data scientists get such a bad reputation on the communication front — to some people, we appear to be indecisive, not straight communicators, and always too deep in the weeds.
But to the right audience, to people who value precision, the analytical communication style is very much valued. You will be surprised how many people when given the chance, will prefer to learn more about the caveats and methodology instead of staying at 30,000 feet high. Details will never hurt anyone, the lack of it will.
How to reduce the curse and take advantage of the blessing:
Choose your communication style based on the audience. In my article about McKinsey, I highlighted the top-down communication style that’s highly valued by a lot of people in leadership positions.
Find the right working culture (this can be on the company or the team level) that appreciates the level of detail in the analytical way of communicating. Being able to pay attention and communicate the details is an amazing and precious skill, so if it’s not appreciated in a company, maybe it’s not the company you want to bet your future on.
I need more alone-time to digest life, but because of that, the right people around me will self-select to stay
The highly analytical minds need time to digest all the information gathered… alone. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that we prefer to have some time and headspace by ourselves. We might appear to people as loners and not fun to be around because we are in our heads too much.
I don’t have enough friends to fill a stadium for my birthday, but I have that handful of friends who are willing to go across the city to get my old passport and send it overseas when I got stranded in a foreign country (long story…). I don’t have a million contacts on my phone that I text with, but I have several friends who know almost everything about me.
How to reduce the curse and take advantage of the blessing:
Social in small groups. If huge groups drain your energy, avoid it. Invest your energy in the small group of people you truly care about. I personally love to hang out with my friends one on one so they can get my undivided attention and vice versa.
I truly believe you don’t need a million friends, you only need a handful of true friends. Instead of trying to force more friendships, prioritize quality over quantity. Nurture the friendships with the people you are comfortable sitting in silence with because they are the ones that will self-select to stay when you need more headspace by yourself.
Even though every “curse” of having an analytical mind is a blessing in disguise if we look at it from another angle, the constant analyzing and information gathering will be tiring. Sometimes, we need to give the analytical mind a break in order to better take advantage of its blessings.
Here is what helped me do so in the past:
Go to nature: Hiking and water activities have helped me provide my left brain a little break. Natural evolution has taught us that in nature, instinct and senses are more useful than the analytical mind. When the breeze touches my skin, when I step on the sandy beach, all the racing thoughts stop and all my brain is focusing on is soaking up the natural beauty.
Be Active: Similar to being in nature, physical activity helps the analytical part of the brain to rest. All the dopamine that’s released during exercise can also help reduce the stress level that’s built up throughout the day by being highly analytical.
Adopt a creative hobby: Creativity is controlled by the right side of the brain while analytics is the domain of the left side; so take the attention to the other side of the brain for a little bit — adopt creative writing, painting, interior design, anything that gets the creative juice flowing.
Write down your thoughts: I circulate a lot of thoughts throughout the day, constantly trying to remember important pieces of information I have received, the things I still need to finish as my to-dos for the day, etc. Instead of trying to keep track of all these important thoughts, write them down. Pour it over a piece of paper so the brain knows it has a safety net and can finally let go of the piece of information.
The most important thing to remember is: there’s absolutely nothing wrong with being highly analytical, don’t let anyone or anything convince you otherwise. After all, like Cain listed in her manifesto:
There’s a word for people who are “in their heads too much”: thinkers.