Chief Complaint: “I Suffer From Constant All-Or-None Thinking.”

Today’s post is about a chief complaint that is near and dear to my heart: “My all-or-none thinking is out of control.” All-or-none thinking is a thought distortion that perfectionists tend to experience which tells us that we always have to be either all in or all out. 

Here are a couple of examples.

• You decide to step up your exercise a little bit. You want to get strong and toned and you’re going to go all in. So you make an exercise plan: you’re going to work out every day, get your cardio in, your weight training in, and even go on family walks. You’re so excited the night before but then Monday rolls around… You were supposed to get up at 6 AM but you were really tired and you didn’t. So you think, “Well, I didn’t get the workout in at 6 AM and it’s not worth it to do later in the day, so I’m just not going to do it at all.

• You’re doing a summer fitness challenge. Your exercise is tuned in, you have your eating plan ready to go. Monday comes. You stick to your plan at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. But then some really special brownies from a famous bakery show up on your countertop. You just have to have one. But your plan was not to have dessert today. Well, the plan is ruined now, so you might as well eat the entire pan of brownies because you’ve already ruined your diet.

What’s happening here is that we throw our whole day out the window because we believe that we’ve already ruined everything, including the possibility of making improvements to our health. We let ourselves down.

All-or-none thinking comes up in every realm of life, not just food and exercise. It can come up with work, relationships, parenting… And if you’re a high achiever, it’s probably served you pretty well in the past. As a physician, you’ve probably had to accomplish some really hard things to get where you are, and you’ve maybe had to go all-in on them. And when you do that, and succeed, your brain remembers that pattern, so we think that to succeed in anything we have to go all in. 

The Grey Zone

But the good thing is that there is a magical grey zone. We don’t talk about it all the time, but it exists. The challenge is finding it. Because that grey zone can feel very uncomfortable. When you’re in it, you’re being asked to slow down. Not go full speed ahead, not completely stop, but stay in that grey zone rhythm.

On the one end of the spectrum, there are fast feelings like motivation, excitement, movement, and momentum. For overachievers, those are the norm, and that’s where we want to stay.

On the other side, there’s the “none” end. It’s one we’ve practiced many times, and our brains like it because it’s familiar. 

But the grey zone does exist, it’s just a matter of slowing down and getting there. To do that, you have to be very aware: of your surroundings, your body, and pretty much everything. 

The grey zone is all about intuition and mindfulness. It’s about feeling and reflecting upon thoughts and feelings you’re maybe not used to confronting. 

So think about a situation in your life in which you tend to go extreme. And ask yourself what it would feel like to pull back a little. Take the pressure off yourself and change the thought to, “I can do my best in this moment.”

How does that feel? It changes things a little, right? Instead of fast and aggressive it feels slower and more reasonably-paced. 

Perfectionism

Typically, when you miss your 6 AM workout, an all-or-none thinker would throw the whole day away and start again tomorrow. Because tomorrow is a fresh start, a clean slate, and a chance to be perfect. 

But being perfect is not real. “Perfect” is just a thought we define in our heads. Perfectionism is striving for something that doesn't exist. And it leads to us spinning our wheels, dealing with a lot of negative emotions and disappointment in pursuit of something that isn’t even real.

But, instead, you can choose to live in the grey zone. If things don’t go according to plan, use it as a chance to reflect. Figure out how to turn the day around so it can still be what you wanted it to be. Have a plan B. Maybe it’s just a simple ten-minute walk. Doing that is not only beneficial to your health, but even more so to your mind. It retrains you to say, “no big deal. We don’t have to be ‘all’. We can live grey today.”

One of the most common limiting beliefs that comes up when people face the grey zone is the idea that, “If I’m a grey thinker, I’m not going to achieve anything. It’s throwing in the towel.” But that’s just programming. It’s because we’ve had so much success pushing so hard that we don’t know what it’s like to find success without that push. But it exists and doing so will leave you with even more energy to potentially achieve more and be more present in what you’re achieving. 

The Journey

The truth is that when you have goals, you need to focus on the journey. If you’re present in it and allow yourself to enjoy it, you create space for your goals to change. By being aware of the process, you can find what you actually want. You slow down your momentum. Pause, reevaluate. Stop and ask yourself if this is what you want, if you’re enjoying this. Because the end product means nothing if you’re not enjoying the journey. Finding enjoyment in the journey will create the result you want in the end. 

If your goals don’t match your lifestyle, it won’t work out. Along the journey toward your goals, you have to check in with yourself. Ask yourself if you’re enjoying the journey. If not, you’re not going to want to do it for very long.

My approach is all about being in tune with your body. Hone in on true hunger. Know about balanced nutrition. Put the exercise piece in. From there, you can just let it flow. If you’re buying in, enjoying the process, motivated along the way, you’re going to arrive at the final destination you want to be at. 

Throughout the journey, a lot of things will come up. You’ll have days when you’ll be disappointed. If you are, it’s most likely because you’re pulling the perfectionist card, at the “all” end of all-or-none thinking. If you’re falling off the bandwagon, you might be on the other side, the “none” end. The magic is in the grey zone.