Ditch Your All or Nothing Attitude: Small Steps to Progress

Does the phrase ‘all or nothing’ sound or feel familiar to you? Do you go all in on a diet or training programme, or all out partying and then feeling like you’ve completely fallen off track, never finding a happy medium? This is an all too common phrase and way of living I see with both friends and clients. It’s important to move away from this mindset, as it likely leaves you feeling up and down without much control or freedom in your life.

What is all-or-nothing thinking?

You can use all or nothing to say that either something must be done fully and completely or else it cannot be done at all. Either she went through with this thing or she did not; it was all or nothing.

All-or-nothing thinking is a cognitive distortion - a negative or twisted thought process. It means that if you go a night out, you go big, and you then see a sharp drop in your productivity, or you try to go from zero workouts in a week to five hour-long workouts. You are either a success or a failure. According to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Los Angeles: “Your performance was totally good or totally bad. If you are not perfect, then you are a failure. This binary way of thinking does not account for shades of gray, and can be responsible for a great deal of negative evaluations of yourself and others.”

The problem with an all-or-nothing way of thinking is that it can hold you back from achieving or trying new things in life. When we try new things or want to get better at a skill, we need to recognise that progress is not linear. Failures will happen. The key to moving past the cognitive distortion and into this healthier mindset is to just start. To live life on your terms and away from the all or nothing, focus on consistency, not perfection. Perfection is an ideal, but life is far from that. 

Here are five strategies to help you overcome your all-or-nothing attitude:

1.Decide What You Want

It’s super important to get clear on what you want and why you want it in your life. This doesn’t just happen overnight. But when you're clear about your goals, no matter how big or small, you can create an action plan. Once the action plan is in place you can then…

2.Take Action

Taking action is the key to making progress. It doesn’t mean you have to do it all at once. When we move from a scarcity mindset and into abundance we can really start to forge stronger relationships with ourselves, which translates to our external world. Remember, just because it didn’t go the way you had hoped, it doesn’t mean you quit.

“Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your new identity,” James Clear.

It doesn’t matter how small the action is that you take, it's more about the type of action you take, and how it supports your goals in the long term. Have a little faith and learn to…

3. Celebrate the Small Wins

The small wins matter. Celebrate them. Talk about them, smile at yourself, give yourself a pat on the back, because you deserve it. By celebrating the wins you are able to support and reinforce the belief that you are making change in many small but important ways.

4.Learn from Your Mistakes

With successes and wins there will always be mistakes and setbacks. It’s inevitable. That’s the fun part as you get to try again, do things differently, and come back stronger, more experienced, and more aware. Embrace the mistakes and learn from them, list the possibilities rather than the absolutes, and identify the emotions you feel. Keep working through them, not stopping and avoiding them altogether. That’s when we face that all-or-nothing. Make this journey your forever and let it guide you to become a better version of yourself.

5.Reward Yourself

Figure out what matters to you and reward yourself how you see fit. When we play the long game we enter a world of freedom and peace with the knowledge that we don’t have to feel guilty for the reward. Make sure your hard work doesn’t get forgotten about. 

To help remove yourself from an all-or-nothing approach, begin implementing these steps. If you’re unclear or need extra support, connect with me! Together we can move you to a place where you’re not always in or out, up or down.