Dealing With All or Nothing Thinking
Sprout Sweater Episode 19 : How We Can Get Better at Working On Our Goals
Join Dave Algeo aboard "Sprout 1" and take another journey into your inner world where mind, meaning and metaphor collide.
In this episode, Dave identifies 'all or nothing' thinking as a common unhelpful approach to achieving our goals. He explains what it is and provides tips to tackle it.
Dave Algeo is a writer, coach, trainer and speaker empowering others to live big, by identifying the small but significant things that can transform the life we are living. Join Dave on the good ship 'Sprout1' as we explore the inner galaxy of the human mind, and find the sprouts that make the biggest difference. These are the sprouts you are looking for.
Search for 'Sprout Sweater' in your favourite podcast feed. To find out more about the podcast, and episode show notes at Podcast — Stress(ed) Guru and more about his in person and online events at www.stressedguru.com. Drop Dave a line at dave@sproutsweater.com to ask questions, offer feedback or suggestions for future podcast content.
Episode 19 Show Notes
The following is a rough draft of the content (not a full transcript - more notes forming the basis of the podcast recording
That all or nothing story show’s up in so many different ways so stay alert.
Welcome aboard sprout one, I’m your host Dave Algeo, Chief sprout sweater. Make your way to your seat and strap in for another exhilarating journey into your inner space where we blast away the meteors of a muggy mindset and gain a clearer way forward towards a more focused and fulfilled future.
It’s episode 19 dealing with all or nothing.
As we lift off the pad and before you get into the episode don’t forget if you find the demands of life and the meaning of it all is leading you to sleepless nights, tossing and turning deep and not so deep questions rattling around your head, then hop on over to the sproutsweater.com and gain access to my free Operation Snooze Sleep Improvement audio programme. Start getting your head back and your shit together so that you can start getting life back on your terms, sproutsweater.com.
Are you all or nothing? I know I am or at least I can be if I don’t recognise it taking hold. But what do I mean by all or nothing? Well, first let’s hark back to previous episodes in particular episode 1 in which I introduce the idea of the stories we tell ourselves. The stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, about others, about the world around us. This is our minds' way of making sense of the world by creating these narratives and the stories in which we feature as a main character trying to navigate this sometimes confusing and challenging world. Those stories originate through our upbringing and life experiences, and they played a huge part in kind of, shaping who we are as do those experiences shape those stories. Their main goal is to help us get through life and that doesn’t necessarily mean to get through life happily. We can be made utterly miserable or laid low with anxiety in the process, yet those powerful narratives still do their job and seem to operate on a different set of priorities, I guess. I guess that might be the values or things that we hold, as dearly held, strongly held beliefs. Like ‘there’s no way they will see me cry or see me as weak or fail’ or ‘I just have to take it and get on with it’. These are stories that are moulded around a core set of beliefs that we have shaped through life and by the time we get to adulthood they can be pretty well ingrained. As I said check episodes 1 and 12 as well where I interview Dr Simon Raybould about the schemes and scripts concept of how we develop these stories and meta stories in life.
But today I want to focus in on that all or nothing thinking and how that can shape some of the more problematic stories some of us live by. All or nothing thinking in short is that tendency to approach life, a goal, a project, a task, or our day-to-day life in an extreme way. There is no middle ground or grey area here, you are either on or you’re off. The diet starts tomorrow and when tomorrow comes boy am I on it, full-on, fully engaged pushing back life to ensure I am fully committed until I’m not. And then, well then, I’m not. I’m not just a little bit on I’m, all off because what’s the point of doing a little bit anyway it makes no difference does it so I might as well. Fitness, back to it today off out for a five-mile run, hobble back and then I’m off. No half measures. No small daily rituals or habits. I’m either in - all in or out - all out. As you can see this is very much the antithesis of the sprout sweating philosophy isn’t it. The whole philosophy of sprout sweating is to break things down into small sprout sized chunks and sweat those small chunks consistently knowing that the results won’t come overnight. There won’t be a magical transformation, but the sprouts are small enough that I can do them anyway with minimal mind friction and get on with life in other respects. Trusting in the sprout. I guess this is where we come back to the question: are you all or nothing? It's actually surprisingly common so I wouldn’t be surprised that there’s not more than a few of you out there. For me, this pervaded all aspects of my life: fitness, eating, relationships, friendships, work, productivity, study you name it. It does have benefits. I've achieved a lot, good loads done and made progress however it just wasn’t sustainable, and it took me years to realise it. To realise it was a thing that I was doing that could be changed. I mean I didn’t even get that that was the case I just thought it was part of me. I didn’t even know it was a thing. The years of flogging hard and reaching or passing burnout then stopping, sometimes for days, sometimes for weeks, sometimes years or even forever that just seemed natural. I guess it’s a phrase that I’ve used before in previous podcasts but consistently inconsistent. That’s a phrase that I tended to use to describe that process. But despite the apparent benefits and the results often the nothing part of the ‘all or nothing’ would result in losing much if not all of what I’d gained especially in terms of fitness and health. Relationships on the whole, well, they were a bit more forgiving and in terms of productivity, I guess a tangible result like the all or nothing all-out effort to create 500 daily sprout videos. They are 1-minute-long videos which I created a few years back, check them out the link will be in the show notes. You can sign up to them, food for thought (forgive the pun). That was a tangible thing. So that all or nothing effort resulted in a tangible thing that is still there. It's not always that you end up going back.
But here’s the real choker. Over the years the psychological strain of that all-out effort of the all coupled with the despondency, hopelessness and even the self-cruelty that arose when I was into the nothing periods, was crushing. Yeah, on my spirit in particular but more noticeably on my motivation and willpower. I’m now 51. Back when I was 21 or even 31 all or nothing was natural, and it seemed to work for me. I could pick myself up, dust myself off, get back on with it with relatively little cost. But now I just don’t have it in the tanks anymore. I still fall into all or nothing. “Right next week it starts training 3 times a day, 3 yeah 3. Fasting and I’m going to meditate and do a prezzed time routine sleep relaxation every night”. Now in the past, I might have managed several weeks of that, now well 1 day if I’m lucky. Not only is what I’ve described completely ridiculous in terms of achievability but it's also self-evidently not sustainable. Now I’m saying that you couldn’t build up to that by a layering of small habits those sprout sized actions, embedding habits and building and building over time. And defining what I mean by workout you know does a workout include low-level easy stuff. But I’m not saying that’s not achievable, but I guess you would then after to ask yourself the question why would you do it, what’s the benefit, what’s the downside because that’s the other side of ‘all or nothing’ thinking that we can embark on something with a grand idea that this will solve everything or achieve something great. And actually why? Will it? What am I actually aiming for? So, I’ll revisit last week’s episode about the vision for your life. Anyway, park that side. The point is now as I’m into middle age I guess I don’t have the fuel in the tanks. The reserve. The emotional psychological or the physical fuel I once had. So that all or nothing story has become a major issue in a way I guess it's actually a good thing because it's not a healthy way of approaching life or achieving the huge things I want to achieve. And yes, I have big dreams and big goals. Not anti-big dreams or big goals just because I’m a sprout sweater and I will do an episode on that in due course. But what I’ve had to come to confront in this mindset is because I can’t ignore it, I’m now starting to talk to deal with it and realise that we can make far more progress, actually far more sustainable success by the small incremental efforts. I guess, just one point I guess, I’m talking as if it's in the present this was a realisation a couple of years ago and I’ve been working on it since. It doesn’t mean to say I get it perfect right now I do fall back into the habits and catch myself, which means I have to remain on my guard because I do still fall prey to it from time to time. I guess that’s why I mentioned the stories because we tell ourselves those stories and they are our inner narratives that can be shaped by that all or nothing mindset. Because one thing about these mindsets like the all or nothing mindset is it’s a devious little b… It dresses itself up in different clothes or I guess for the purposes of our analogy here in different stories.
It’s a bit like fiction novels or movies. Let’s be right there are hundreds of thousands if not millions aren’t there. Different character settings, challenges, relationships, setbacks, successes and so on. But at the core, there are only a handful of plots around which you know these character settings etc. are all woven. Now I don’t know how true this is, but I once read that there are only 7 plots around which all stories are woven. There may be more, but I think if you get the idea that the deeper you look into any fiction that you read for example you probably can see the same plot development with different characters wrapped around it. Terry Pratchett for example, the late great Terry Pratchett. I loved his Discworld stories I still do. I love those stories but let’s face it the plot they revolve around is generally the same. Different characters dispersed around different situations, an unlikely hero. There’s a foe and they’re all woven together and brought together in this final confrontation where the successful outcome for the hero. That’s kind of the formula if you like. Now I don’t mean to demean the writer or any writer. The art in genius is in actually disguising the plot within the wonderful variation of those moving parts. But that is, my friends, exactly what happens with our gnarly mindsets. They get in our way. They become more woven, more intricate and more sneaky once we start to become aware of them and they can trip us up in ever more devious ways. So that’s what I’m talking about with all or nothing thinking. Being aware of it, knowing that you do it is only the first step. It's not the only one because there’s all or nothing thinking. There is ‘who am I to think I am’ or ‘I see I told you so’, ‘don’t bother it never works for me’. These kinds of core beliefs then become stories that look for reinforcing evidence in our life, but they are powerful stories. Once we identify them, we need to be alert to them sneaking back upon us in different disguises or different stories. Fitness for example, ‘Dave man, you just need to get your act together and commit’ or ‘come on man a big push and we can get this done and set yourself a huge challenge like cycling lands’ end to John O’Groats, that’ll focus your mind’. That was a particularly savage one I’ve got to be honest and so on. Or diet ‘you just need to be strong’ or ‘just cut it out you didn’t have enough motivation last time, this time though you can do it man, just go for it’ and so on in all areas of life work, study, projects you name it. I guess the question here is if you recognise this what are yours? Start to recognise it, I’d be interested so drop me a line at dave@sproutsweater.com.
But what to do about it. Well, the first thing is to recognise that you don’t tackle ‘all or nothing’ with an ‘all or nothing’ plan of attack. It might sound obvious, but I know that’s the sneaky mindset that will try to get in on the solution, won’t it? So, here’s some tips:
Identify the mindset. Is this you? If so, recognise it and label it. Key thing: label it not you. You are not ‘all or nothing’. You do ‘all or nothing’. It's really important to separate that out.
Catch yourself in the act. Now, this can be easier said than done. And in the early days and perhaps a little bit easier than as the mindset gets a bit sneakier but look for the signs. You can often spot them arising. Look for the big neon signs, the obvious ones like the fitness plan that is grand and ‘I’m going to do shit loads of exercise. Or the diet, I’m going to stop eating all that shit and eat totally healthy and it's ‘all’. Or work, ‘just floor it, just get it done’. These big grand languages or the things that we plan are often big in scale. Well, they usually are, aren’t they? They are bigger than is sustainable.
Acknowledge this will be an ongoing process and not a one-off. You will find yourself knee-deep in ‘all or nothing’ before you know it a fair few times especially as the stories get sneakier. So self-compassion and a bit of forgiveness is the name of the game.
The key is to take regular time out to reflect. Not necessarily specifically to look for ‘all or nothing’ lurking in the background. It’s enough to know that you are prone to it but reflecting one or both of these following ways: Take 10 to 20 minutes each week to down tools. Grab your cabbage slicing sprout plan (see last weeks’ episodes) and just reflect on how you are doing. Is what you are doing (the sprout sweating), not only moving you towards the goal but is it sustainable. A dead giveaway to ‘all or nothing’ thinking is that you find yourself unable to sustain the habits and actions you’ve committed to. If you find yourself self-sabotaging by criticising yourself for being weak, lazy, or pathetic; look again maybe you have made the sprouts, the habits too big to sustain at an early stage of the habit formation. Remember we have got to start small, and we have got to let them embed and get stronger before we let them grow. Secondly, take time away daily to do nothing. Stare out the window, go for a walk, park the agenda and the to-do list and let your subconscious mind be free to surface the stuff it needs you to notice. That can be a game-changer actually in becoming more self-aware, but it can also surface that ‘all or nothing’ thinking in places that you may have not spotted before. And then rinse and repeat.
So as our craft the sprout 1 begins the landing process allowing you to return to your fellow humans, decide to take on your ‘all or nothing’ thinking with a sprout sweaters’ approach. Small victories over it. Breaking it down big actions and plans into ‘smaller than you think’ chunks, and practise sticking with the sustained sprout sweating, and get on with other things in life that give you a sense of enjoyment and fulfilment. Happy travels, take care.
I hope you’ve enjoyed your flight aboard sprout1. For show notes and information on how to get the podcast feed direct to your apple podcast, Spotify or other favourite podcast feed visit sproutsweater.com and touchdown!
Link to 1-minute videos
www.stressedguru.com/daily-sprout-video-m-w-f-sign-up
Episode 20 Teaser:
Episode 20 is a 'Big Sweat' episode and this month Dave is joined by fellow performance coach David Wilkinson who shares his insights into coaching men and corporate professionals to overcome self-limiting stories and achieve more fulfilment in life and work.