Breaking From All-Or-Nothing Mentality

We made it through Thanksgiving week! If you live in Colorado you know we got slammed with snow, making travel plans difficult. Highways were closed and flights were cancelled. Luckily, my family was able to manipulate their flights around the storm enough to get themselves to Denver.

In the midst of holiday chaos, I woke up on Wednesday realizing I had forgotten to write my weekly blog! I have been diligent about writing each week so this gave me an immediate surge of panic. Thankfully the surge was brief due to quick awareness that this is not a life or death situation. Against my initial instinct I allowed myself to take the week off from blogging.

Over the years (through lots of personal therapy) I have come to understand my “all-or-nothing” mentality. Usually, when I decide to do something I tend do it in full force. Any project, book, diet, yoga membership, vacation, etc. is approached with full focus and commitment. On the surface this doesn’t seem like a bad thing, but being all-in-all-the-time leaves little room for flexibility or recovery. The natural consequence to living in this extreme is the fast fall from “all” to “nothing.” This is why restrictive dieting almost always leads to a binge, or why overworking almost always leads to burnout.

Does this sound familiar to anyone?

All-or-nothing thinking is incredibly common. It’s understandable given that we live in a society that shames us for not being perfect. When we feel shame, our survival instincts tell us to run or hide. So we go on a new restrictive diet, rush into another relationship, or work 60 hours in one week. We try to be perfect. But perfection is NOT sustainable. There is only a matter of time before we are thrown back into a state of shame after giving up on the task completely. We binge, we break off the relationship, we get sick and miss the next work week. We go from “all” to “nothing.”

So how do we break the cycle? Next week I will share my top 4 methods for this. Stay tuned!

Do you struggle with all-or-nothing thinking? How do you know when you are caught in the cycle? Please share in the comments below!