All or nothing thinking

Hello ladies, welcome to episode 26. We have been together and I have been podcasting for half a year; that is so much fun!

I am so happy that you are gaining from the podcast; I get messages often from people who are saying, “I listened to this episode and I found it really useful and I started using it in my life, and it really changed the way I thought about things.”

This is the reason why I offer you this podcast, so I would love to hear from you. I would love it if you could message me, but if you could really write me a review on your podcast app, that would be so useful, just so I can see how you're putting it into practice, how this is affecting you. This really helps me to see the effect it's having on you, so I would love to hear all about it. 

Today I had a coaching session with my life coach and I was talking about something that comes up for me a lot with my clients, and I wanted to share it with you because so many of you struggle with this too, and that is all or nothing thinking.

But before that, I'll tell you about my week as I always do. So this week I hired someone in my team and it's been so much fun. I hired a virtual assistant and it feels scary, but it also feels really exciting. Prior to this, I used to believe I wouldn't be able to manage people, and I'm a people pleaser, and I struggled to say the hard things. But coaching has really helped me to say the things that I need to say, but in a calm way, and I don't need to go into that drama. So this week I had this moment, like, “I can't believe this is my life.”

Me hiring my virtual assistant will really help me help all of you more because I'll now have the brain space to come up with podcast episodes that you'll want to listen to again and again, and I'll have the time to put together really useful videos and trainings and emails so that I can actually help you with your struggles better.

So this was a really big deal for me and I wanted to share. 

Okay, so now getting into the podcast for this week. What is all or nothing thinking? All or nothing thinking is thinking that it's either A or B, it's either black or white. Thinking that there isn't anything in between, but there's two options.

So it's a very rigid way of thinking, and this often is where our brains want to go. An example of this is “I've either stuck to my protocol which means success, or I've eaten off my protocol which means failure.” Do you do anything like this? I'm sure you can relate because the vast majority of my clients do this. In fact, I would say all of my clients do. 

In our group recently, I think it was on the last call, one of my clients said to me that “I've been eating off the rails.” They often say things like, “oh, I've been eating really bad foods” and when they do that, then they are in this all or nothing thinking. So in our group, my clients send me their food protocols so that I can make tweaks to their food if they need to, but also so that they can get good at planning.

And so when they say things like “I've been off the rails” or “I've eaten bad foods”, I get them to question their brain. We ask things like, what is going off the rails? What are bad foods? Are there any bad foods? Is this really true? So when you are doing that, you're questioning the thoughts that come automatically to you.

These thoughts are offered by that primitive brain of yours, and remember your primitive brain is the animal part of your brain that wants you to seek pleasure, avoid pain and stay how you are. So it's that habit part of your brain trying to ensure your survival. So of course, it's going to go into the all or nothing thinking because that's where it's gone before and that's where you have survived in the past. So even if it's not useful for you, it will carry on doing that because it has enabled you to survive previously. 

Another thing that may come up with the all or nothing thinking is “I didn't plan”. So they either think that I planned or I didn't plan. A question, if this comes up for you, is, did you really plan? Is there anything that you did plan? What could you have planned that you aren't giving yourself credit for? It often really helps me to look for where in my life am I actually planning? We often ask that question, so that could be something that you ask yourself as well. 

Another one is feeling urges. My clients often say things like I didn't feel urges and I overeat. And remember an urge is that feeling of over-desire and often with my clients it's related to food or alcohol. So when you're wanting to eat something that you haven't planned for, this is very normal because we have that primitive brain that wants us to seek pleasure, avoid pain, and stay how we are. And it's very pleasurable for our brain to eat things that will give us a big dopamine hit, that feel-good hormone in our brain.

So I often ask things like, did you give into all your urges? What urges did you feel? I'll give you an example. when I get up in the morning and do my thought download, I often have thoughts before that, like, “oh, it's too cold. It's dark. I don't want to do it”, but now because I've done it so often I process that urge quite quickly and I still do it.

If I didn't allow my brain to pick up on that, then I may still be in the all or nothing thinking when I've eaten off protocol. And I may be like, “yeah, I gave into all my urges”. So whenever you have the words of all and every when you're describing things, I just want you to question your brain and say, is that really true?

Did I really give into all my urges? Did I really go off protocol every time? Because it's often not true. It's often not black or white, and there's loads of shades of grey in between. So I remind my brain I actually can process urges when I woke up and it was cold and dark, and I still went into my thought download. That was me processing an urge. I know how to do it, and now I get to be aware of situations when I don't do it when I'm eating off protocol. That isn't a bad thing because I get to find out a bit more about myself, right? And you can choose to think of it that way as well.

 Another example is my time schedule. So I often do this, I often over-plan and this is something that I'm working on with my life coach. I say things like “I'll plan and record two podcast episodes in two hours”, and then the two hours are up and I've only recorded one and the way I'm describing it is as if it's bad, like I should be getting more done. Like I've done something wrong because my brain is thinking of it as either success or failure. 

But what if I could think of it like it's success and failure? What if the failure is just there so that I can learn the things that will get me closer to my success? I could actually look at, what are the facts here?

So the facts are, a podcast episode two months ago used to take me three to four hours to do, and now it takes me two hours. I could choose to think of it like I trust in my knowledge, and I trust that you ladies want to hear what I have to say. I can decide to believe that I don't need to spend as much time researching what other people say, because I can trust in what I have to say, and knowing that I talk about this day in, day out, I coach my clients on this day in, day out, and I'm more than qualified to teach this on the podcast and allow you to take even one bit of the podcast and allow that to change your life. 

I can look at it like, oh my goodness, I get to learn more about me, and for me, that is so fun. Knowing that every time I fail at something, I get to figure out a bit more about myself. I get to get into the depths of my brain and be like, “ooh, I didn't know that was a big thing for you.” Now I know that one more thing about me and now I'm more aware of it, and only when I'm aware of it can I do something about it.

So now that I'm aware of this all or nothing thinking it doesn't have to be a bad thing. It doesn't have to be a blame and shame game. It can be. “wow, I didn't know that was an issue for me.” Now I know, now I can do something about it if I want to do something about. Now I am able to take action on it if I want to, and that feels like a much more empowering place to be for myself. 

I'm a learner, I love learning, so I always take my failure as a I'm either winning or I'm learning. When I'm thinking of failure, I don't think of it as a bad thing anymore. I think of it like, “oh, I get learn.” 

Now my primitive brain often wants to take me to “you're failing, that's bad, you shouldn't be doing this”, but I have to remind myself, what can I learn from this? What actually is perfect about this? How can I use this to drive me closer towards my goal, closer towards the success that I want to achieve. And that really helps to ground me and be like, “okay, if I'm learning from this, then it's not a failure.”

Another example is I use my all or nothing thinking with my parenting. I think about being a good mum or not being a good mum, and that's where my all or nothing thinking often comes up.  I'll give you an example. Vivan gets spelling tests every week and the teachers normally leave a list of spellings in his book bag.

That normally comes on a Friday, and normally we tend to relax on a Friday. They can stay up a little bit late because they don't have to wake up early the next day, we may have a movie night or they may have a bubble bath or, you know, things like that, that we don't do on a normal day.

So, what tends to happen is we get all of his other homework done, and there's also some reading twice a week that we do. So I write in the book that he's done his reading and we got on top of all the other things. And then what tends to happen is on a Sunday, when I'm packing his bag for the Monday, I look in his book bag and I see the spellings and I automatically think “you're such a bad Mum, you can't even get this right. You should be learning from last week. Why has this happened again?”

I have a lot of self-deprecating thoughts about myself as a mum, but the difference from one year ago is that I expect them a bit now. I don't believe every single thought that comes up. I often tell myself I'm human, and I'm still working on this, but at least now I'm more aware of those thoughts and I'm questioning them. I'm not believing every single thought that comes up because initially my thought would be, “you're such a bad mum because you've not done the spellings and now your child is going to suffer because of your, not being on top of things.”

But I now expect those thoughts to come up and I don't give them as much air time. I expect them, and I asked myself, “what are three other ways of describing this?” It doesn't have to be, I'm either a good mum or a bad mum. It could be other things in between as well. And what could those be? So it could be, I'm an excellent mum who forgets the spellings occasionally because I'm human.

And that for me, feels so much better because when I'm thinking I'm a bad mum I feel crushed from the inside, because one of my main goals in life is to be the best mum that I can be. So instead of interpreting the facts as I'm a bad mum, I could choose to think of it as I'm an excellent mum who forgets the spellings occasionally because I'm human and that makes me feel more accepted.

And what I'm feeling accepted I'm more likely to show up as the mum that I want to show up as. I'm more likely to be patient with Vivan and sit with him and do his spellings and more likely to plan when am I going to do the spending's next time? And that is the exact thing that happened. So this week when he got his spellings, we did them as soon as he got them.

They came on a Thursday this week and we actually went through the spellings and looked through them a little bit, so now over the weekend, if we don't  do them five times or whatever, at least I know that he's already looked at them and he's been aware of the spellings for this week. So now it's not as much of a big deal.

Another way of thinking about that situation could be, I'm not aiming to be perfect as there's no such thing, and my imperfection makes me the perfect mum for Vivan because I am that mum to him. Whenever we are fighting against reality, we are always going to lose. We're going to lose 100% of the time.

So how can we accept our reality and then decide how we want to interpret it? And I like to interpret it as “my imperfections make me the perfect mum for Vivan.”

I like to see the humour of it because I'm a rule follower, I love to stick to the rules. I love the safety that I feel from doing that, and so sometimes when I’m rebellious I get that little dopamine hit like, “Ooh, I'm being rebellious”. I know this is just a small thing, but I see the humour of it that there's what my brain is doing, that I like to be a little bit rebellious only in these very small controlled ways because otherwise I like to follow the rules. So that I actually like that part of me occasionally, that little rebellious girl inside me and giving her some space.

So when you are in this all or nothing, thinking, there are certain things that you can do to be aware of it. So first thing is looking at, how can I question this? Is this really true? That could be the first question that you ask. Another question could be, what else could be true? How else could I describe it? If my friend was going through this, how would I describe it to her? How would I give her that alternative point of view that would be more useful? 

Another way that I think about it is how can I quantify it? For example, if you've been on your protocol 95%, but 5% you've eaten off protocol, how can you look at it in a way that's actually going to serve you? If I've got 95% in an exam, or my child's got 95% in an exam, I would celebrate that. I'd be like “yes, well done, that's amazing. Keep going and keep looking for ways you can improve”,  not in a way, like “why did you not get the 5% in that exam”,  that wouldn't even come into my head.

I like to think, how can I think of this in a way that will get me back on protocol? How can I think of this in a way that will actually serve me, that will actually help me to get to where I want to instead of judging myself and criticising myself, which will just keep me stuck and not allow me to get to where I want.

This is an episode you will probably want to come back and listen to again and again, because all or nothing thinking presents in so many areas of our life and why coaching is so beneficial is when my clients deal with the all or nothing thinking they have with regards to their food and their protocol, then they start applying that to all the other areas of their lives.

They start applying it to their relationships. It doesn't have to mean that their partner is great or that they are terrible, they can be loads of shades of grey in between. It doesn't have to be that they are excellent at their job or they're rubbish at their job, there's so many shades of grey in between. They don't have to believe every all or nothing thought that comes into their brain. They don't have to think that they're amazing at business or rubbish at business. They get to think, what other things are true as well?

That's why when you work on the underlying reason why you've got this all or nothing thinking - your brain - that's where you can not only lose weight and keep it off permanently, but you can use these tools in all other areas of your life, your relationships, your time management, your making money, starting a business, your relationship with yourself (the most important!) 

When you do that, ladies, when you do this work, which may feel uncomfortable and maybe going against the grain, maybe doing things that you've not done before, when you are willing to embrace that discomfort of change, then there's so much growth on the other side of it.

So I urge you to grow. I urge you to challenge some of this all or nothing thinking, and look for the shades of grey in between the black. It doesn't just have to be black or white. There's so many shades of grey. And with that, ladies, if you found this episode useful, please write me a review and please send it to someone you think will benefit from it because it's completely free.

And I know that even if you just put in a few of the bits that I have recommended on any of these podcast episodes, you will drastically change your life. And that is my gift to you. 

Okay, ladies, I will see you again next week. Take care. Bye-bye.