The All Or Nothing Mindset – Are You Falling Victim To It? (Do This Instead To Get More Done)

Posted on by Molly Clover

How is dichotomous thinking holding you back? Don’t let the all or nothing mindset get in your way of achieving your dreams.

For years I struggled with All or Nothing Mindset. Either something was good or it was bad, either I’m eating healthy and exercising or I’m not. Either I’m being creative daily or I’m doing nothing.

So many of us do it, we start off the year with such good intentions. We have the new running shoes, Spotify gym playlist at the ready, we hit the gym 2 or 3 times a week, for approximately 5 weeks. Salad for lunch and no alcohol on a weekday.

♛ You. Feel. Super. ♛

By the sixth week you’ve caught a cold, or your meeting at the end of the day ran over so gym sesh didn’t happen. Next thing you know, the elliptical in your room is a clothes rack and you’re sat on the couch with a glass of wine in one hand and a share-bag of M&Ms in the other.

You ruined the perfect streak, so stuff it.

Enter: the all or nothing mindset. I ruined the perfection therefore it doesn’t matter anymore.

Examples of all or nothing mindset

If a friend told us they’d not had a drop of alcohol for 3 months but fell off the wagon one night, what would your advice be?

It wouldn’t be to give up and go back to their old ways, would it?

You’d say something like “you’ve come so far, it’s just a slip up, you can try again“.

So why don’t we do the same for ourselves?

Save me for later ☘︎

The all or nothing way of thinking is sometimes called ‘black or white thinking’, ‘dichotomous thinking’ or ‘binary thinking’ . It might surprise you to find that it’s usually a symptom of perfectionism.

One of the biggest hurdles that I had was being all-or-nothing with the time that I had.

If I had a spare 20 minutes at work and 30 papers to mark, I would think to myself: “There’s no point starting now. I won’t get it done.” Whereas a sensible thing would be to spend the 20 minutes actually marking some papers. Then I wouldn’t have so much to do when I brought it home that evening.

Another example of all or nothing mindset is when someone forgets to text you back. Instead of thinking “it’s a workday, they’re probably busy” you jump straight to: “They’re just pretending to like me. They don’t actually care, I’m just bothering them“.

Or maybe you said you’d create a journaling habit, you started well but then you missed a day because you got up late. You immediately berate yourself and say something like “God, I’m so rubbish I can’t even stick to one stupid habit. What’s the point I’ll just mess it up anyway“.

Sound familiar?

First of all, before we get into how to overcome your all or nothing mindset, stop talking to yourself like that!

Mo Gawdat said it best when he said:

No event ever had the power to make you unhappy, until you turned it into a thought, a story that you told yourself, and turned it into your head, over and over to make yourself miserable.

Mo Gawdat, That Little Voice In Your Head: Adjust the code that runs your brain

The one thing that has changed my mind when it comes to how I stop this perfectionist loop is remembering this one thing:

Mistakes don’t cancel out the progress you already made or the lessons you learned.

How to overcome all or nothing thinking

Right, we’ve accepted it’s happening, we know it’s not great, we want to find ways that helps us not give up at the first hurdle. Here’s a few simple ways that we can push back against black and white thinking, to embrace the nuance and grey areas in life. Above all, we want to get more done and make progress towards a happier you.

Understand that two things can be true at the same time

Well obviously, I hear you say. This problem is more common than you think.

One of the greatest suggestions I’ve ever heard to deal with self compassion was to try to hold two truths in your mind at the same time. here’s the two truths I need to hold whilst trying to lose weight:

✎ I love my body and how it grew two perfect little humans.

✎ I also am working to lose some weight left over from the pregnancies so I can feel more comfortable.

Both are positive statements, and both can be true. Let’s see another example.

✎ I have to stay in my current position at work because I need the financial stability and cannot afford to study right now.

✎ I can find time in the evening or weekend to self-study or create my own path so that eventually I can break free from my current situation.

Holding two truths at the same time means you can accept your current situation. You can find the content with here and now as well as look for ways to improve your lifestyle or choices. This means you are embracing the grey areas in your life. The nuances will counteract your all or nothing mindset.

Forgiveness is key

If you’re struggling with perfectionist tendencies, this one is for you. Whether you’re learning a language, following a diet or exercise plan, pursuing a creative hobby, forming a new habit or breaking an old one; keeping a streak is motivating.

There’s something really self-affirming about maintaining a streak, it’s like a physical proof of your hard work and commitment.

The only problem is when that streak gets tied up with your worthiness. If we ruin a streak of good behaviours we have a tendency to admonish ourselves.

This unkindness can make us feel like giving up.

Forgiveness is how we will overcome the all or nothing mindset. Having self compassion will allow you to move on and pick up from where you left off.

As mentioned before, I’ll say it again:

Mistakes don’t cancel out the progress you already made or the lessons you learned.

Break your goals up

Another way to overcome all or nothing thinking, is to sit down with your goals and break them up into smaller pieces.

Then instead of saying “I’ve failed to write 3000 words for my essay” you can see what you did do. You’ve actually ticked off the research papers that you’ve read, the outline and summary that you’ve written, and picked out the quotes you want to use.

Instead of seeing it as a flat ‘failure’, you can see the nuance. That you’ve made progress toward your goal so it’s not hopeless after all.

Small habits compound over time

When you forget to see the grey areas, life can seem a little daunting. I mean why try improve anything unless you can give 110%?

Compound interest is why!

The below graph shows how if you improve just 1% each day over the course of a year you’ll end up 37 times better than when you started.

Daily 1% Tiny Gains over a year – taken from James Clear’s article

Now let’s just say you missed a day 1.01364= 37.41.

For arguments sake, let’s say you had a whole month off. 1.01334=27.75.

You will still be over 27 times better than you started.

Another way compounding can be utilised here is like with my marking example above. If I have a spare 20 minutes at work now, I’ll at least get started with marking papers. Or if I have a quiet 10 minutes while at home before I need to do anything else (between preparing snacks for the toddlers) I’ll open up my laptop and get some writing done.

Reframe what happened

Turn your words around, to give yourself a breather from the negativity. You’ll feel happier and it’s a great exercise in self acceptance and compassion. You’ll set yourself up better for getting started again on your good intentions.

Here’s a few examples of reframing your thoughts:

Negative thoughtReframed to see the positive
I don’t have time to write a book so there’s no point trying.I could try writing a few sentences while I’m waiting for the train, or in between meetings.
I ate a cookie, I may as well give up on the diet and eat 10 more.I ate a cookie when it’s not part of my diet plan, I must really need some energy or comfort right now. What can I do instead to make myself feel better?
There’s no point in studying for the test, I’ll probably fail it anyway.I didn’t do well on the last exam, so this time I’m going to focus on one skill/ topic and make that one better.
I missed a week of Duolingo while on holiday, I guess I’ll never really speak another language.I think I burned myself out trying to earn as much XP as possible per day, I should adjust my learning goal so I have time for other hobbies too.
I’m a rubbish colleague because I’m taking too long writing these reports. People must think I’m stupid.Why is it taking me longer to write these reports? I should ask for advice on how to speed up my process.

Changing my mindset from all or nothing to little and often

When I think about my childhood, the all or nothing mindset more or less controlled many of my decisions. Either I was good at something or I found it hard so ‘its not for me’. Whereas the ability to let go of this black and white thinking opens up new experiences. I feel more organised and like I’m making good use of my time.

Here’s a few ways that changing my mindset has helped me overcome some problems.

☘︎ I started to write this blog. Squishing in 5 minutes here and 10 minutes there to research new topics or write a paragraph has been a game changer. Suddenly I’ve freed up all this time for myself that I would have otherwise wasted.

☘︎ I’m being kinder to myself when I make a mistake. At the time of writing this I’ve been doing 16:8 intermittent fasting for about 4 weeks now. I’m supposed to eat between midday and 8pm. I’ve ‘broken’ the streak a couple times in these weeks but I’m not going into a cycle of negative thoughts over it. Instead I choose to forgive myself and start again the following day. One failed day doesn’t cancel out the good behaviours I’ve already done for the previous week and a half.

The All or Nothing Mindset – Top Takeaways

Here’s our key strategies for dealing with black and white thinking:

  • Forgive yourself when you make a mistake
  • Understand you can accept your current state whilst also striving for more
  • Break your goals up and celebrate the smaller wins
  • Use compounding to see big results over time
  • Reframe mistakes with positive thoughts or ask yourself why it might have happened
  • Mistakes don’t cancel out the progress you already made or the lessons you learned.

Thanks for being here today! You reading my blog makes me happier than puppy cuddles, and that’s saying something 🙂

If you liked what you read, please consider sharing with friends and family to spread the message.