All Or Nothing Thinking

Good morning. Good afternoon. Hi, everybody. It's coach Dan. Hello, Cadre family. And happy January 3. When I thought about the topic of this live, it seemed so perfect for this time of year. Sorry, my table's jittery. And just before I started, I realized I have ice cream stand on my shirt from last night. So this is really interesting. Let's talk about all or nothing thinking. And before we do, I just want to share a couple. A couple personal things that just happened, preparing for this life that kind of fall in line with all or nothing black and white thinking.

So I was getting ready, and I started the camera, and it was all blurry, and I couldn't tell. Tell if it was my eyes still waking up or whether it was a smudge on the camera or something. But I knew, like, wait. I can't start alive like this. This was at about, I don't know, three minutes to the hour, and I couldn't figure it out. I wiped the screen clean, and it just looked blurry, like there was a film over it. And so I decided, I'm gonna shut the phone down, and I'll restart it, and we'll see what it looks like.

And it took a minute to do that, but it worked. Okay. So black and white. In my mind, as I'm getting ready to start this, I thought, you know, rats. Like, this is just. Ugh. This is not going how I wanted it. I wanted to start right at the hour. 12:00 exactly. And I'm fumbling with the phone, and I'm. I can feel myself getting anxious. And it was a perfect example of how all or nothing thinking can get us in a spot that's not desirable. And I felt it. I felt like, can I just screw it? Maybe nobody will notice.

Nobody will take note if I care. And then as we start, I look down, and I see that I have a big chocolate stain in my shirt. So I'm thinking, you know, this isn't really going how I wanted it to go today. And I could just throw on the towel. I could have. Right? And then, you know, then there would have been repercussions for that. So I thought, you know, this is really an example of how you could just throw in the towel because things aren't happening perfectly, or you could just ride it out and let it be what it will be, which is what brought us here to me talking to you.

So happy January 3. I wanted to talk about black and white thinking and how it affects so many of us, especially in January. New year comes around. I still you know, I'm not really sure how I feel about the whole new year thing. You know, in life it was so over exaggerated and expectations were rarely met. And I can look back and see a few new year celebrations that were fantastic. The majority of them were just okay. And when I really think about it, the times that I spent home comfortable with the people I love, they were the best.

And that's what this new year was like for me. I'm not huge on resolutions and I'm not huge on them because so many times using black and white, all or nothing thinking hasn't gotten me anywhere with, with resolutions. So, God, I look back and I think how many times I've derailed just because of one slip up with this all or nothing thinking. So I dove into it a little bit and I, and I, and I did a little bit of research and there's some things that I want to share with you around this all or nothing thinking and there are a few things that, that stood out and so I wanted to go over them with you.

And one of them is these are indicators that your thinking can be all or nothing in getting in the way of actualizing all the possibilities that you have. So using superlatives like always and never, that can be an indication that, you know, there's some, there's some all or nothing thinking. Always, never. I'm always screwing up. I'm never, I'm never happy. The reality of statements like that are never really factual. It's so hard for something to always be one thing or always be another thing.

So using superlatives, here's an indication, right, like always, never another indicator is giving up easily. If you set a resolution, you're going to not eat any sugar for a month and you're going to reset your body and you have one bite of ice cream that somebody offered you and you just throw the whole thing out because you made that one slip, giving up easily, throwing everything, throwing the baby out with the bath water like they say, that's indicative of some black and white all or nothing thinking.

There is gray area, right? You could just say, hey, I slipped, I'm going to move on and continue. I have a chocolate stain on my shirt I keep looking at but I don't care. I'm going to keep rolling or cross my arms. So low self esteem is another indicator that there's some black and white thinking going on, some all or nothing thinking. If you're always looking at yourself as an expert or a loser, I know everything. I know nothing. The reality is you probably lay somewhere in the center there and nobody is an expert at everything.

So we all are good at some things. I love that I'm just keeping the word gray in my mind has always been really good for me. There's black, there's white, and there's that whole gray spot, the in between that I love so much. So, yeah, your low self esteem is an indicator. Anxiety is another one. Just setting unrealistic expectations and worrying about just making one tiny screw up and having to toss the whole situation out. So anxiety can come up a lot with all or nothing thinking. Procrastination is another thing, like, why start this if I'm just gonna screw up?

And I think a lot of times where I could have set realistic goals for any time of year, but for the new year, if I'm setting a realistic goal, give myself permission to screw up, to be human and plan ahead, to jump back on track. So procrastination will definitely rear its ugly head when black and white, all or nothing thinking is in activation mode. And also, you know, when we have the inability to see what we do have to be grateful for what we do have in very, very dark times is also another indicator that it's all or nothing.

If you are in a depressed state and everything is the cause, right, there's nothing in your life that's going right. I think everyone can honestly relate to the fact that we all have at least one thing to be grateful for. One thing, when you get into that dark struggling time and all you can see is dark might be an indication that you're struggling with the all or nothing. So here's some things, here's some things that you can do, right? If you feel like, yeah, I think I'm all or nothing, I think I'm like black and white, and I think it's a problem.

And we've talked about the reasons that it could be a problem. And so here's some things you can do. First, you can take note, right? I always say that the awareness is key, always, right. Sometimes awareness even solves the problem. Sometimes just being aware of a situation alone makes the struggle so much easier. So just take notice of when you're saying things like, oh, I always do this, or, you know, this happens every time I blah, blah, blah, excuse me. Take notice and start practicing that awareness.

You'll get better and better with it at every time you become aware of words like always, never. It'll get easier and easier to spot yourself and catch yourself when you're in that state of mind. Replace words with, you know, like, replace never in all ways, you know, black or white. Replace or with. And right. Things can be black and white, and you blend them together and they're gray. Nothing is all this or all that. So replace the word or with. And that's kind of a simple little tidbit. I like it.

Identify your emotions, right? Check in. When you are, it's usually a pretty negative state. If you're in this all or nothing black and white dramatic, like all this or all that, check in because you've taken, you've gained the awareness, right? You're practicing, so you're noticing this stuff quicker. And take that step a little bit further and dive into the emotions that you're feeling. Are you afraid? Are you anxious? What are you upset about? And take a look at what is really happening in your body and pull out of that all or nothing.

Take a gray bath and just sink into the middle and dive into your emotions and see if there's any pattern. Right. Like when you take notice that you're all or nothing, you're black and white. This emotion seems to be a common thread. Take note of that. It'd be really interesting. Another great exercise to combat all or nothing thinking is to write down your strengths and your weakness, right? We're all really, really good at one thing, and we all struggle with others. I think it what's, it's what makes us all come together so well and pick up each other's slack.

I'm getting a little emotional because I'm thinking about my relationship with my husband Brian, and how so many people comment on how we make such a great couple because where one lacks a little bit, the other picks up the slack. And, man, I'm so grateful for him and what he teaches me every day. Not only about black and white thinking, but about how we, how we all have strengths and weaknesses and how, you know, I can take care of this, that, and the other because I'm good at it. And why don't you do this?

Because you're good at that. So write down your strengths and your weaknesses and really take a realistic look at, you know, the true picture instead of having these thoughts in your head like you're, you know, you're always awful at blah, blah. You know, sometimes maybe you're not always awful at it. And if you are, well, hey, that's a weakness, right? We all have them. Also embrace mistakes. I learn so much from my mistakes. A lot of times in life, it took me a couple, you know, a couple of the same mistakes over and over to get the picture, but embracing our mistakes, realizing that we're human.

Give yourself permission to screw up, to take inventory at the end of the day and go, wow, that was a train wreck, right? Like, on the whole, this day was just bad, but was it all bad? Probably not. There are probably a few moments in the day that. That were pretty okay. Embrace your mistakes. Give yourself permission. And just because we screw up, it doesn't mean the whole day is wasted in treatment for depression and anxiety. I remember I realized this one thing, and I remembered it, that you don't have to have a bad day, right?

You can just have a bad minute and say, all right, that was not the best, but I can change this right now. Embrace your mistakes and give yourself permission to just say, hey, that was a s***** moment, but maybe the next will be better. And then this is a great exercise, too. So you list the facts, right? You take a situation, and you identify what's factual, then identify what you, assume, what you think will or won't happen, and then remove all of those assumptions. Enlist possibilities and what you're left with.

With the facts and the possibilities, with all your assumptions, all your head stuff and your, oh, it's going to be a waste. I'm going to screw up. Let's not even try. This will never work because a, B, C, d, through all the assumptions, enlist the possibilities and then see what happens. Don't get hung up in this all black and white. I know a bunch of you have set resolutions that you're on a path to change, and I think it's fantastic. But I want us all to be kinder to ourselves, to give yourself permission to jump off track every now and then because you will, I think nobody achieves these goals 100% perfectly.

And if you give yourself the love, the compassion, the understanding, the permission to just be human and get back on track as quickly as you can, I think you'll have a better time, and you'll probably achieve a lot more. All in all, just take a look at all or nothing, black and white thinking. Does it apply to you? Maybe it doesn't. But if it does, I hope some of this stuff helped, and I hope that your goals will be better achieved. All in all, big picture. When you live in the gray, when you give yourself permission to screw up where you realize you're not all or nothing, you're not 100% this or 0% that.

Live in the gray. Have a great day like this. Interact with it. Look for more of me on Cadre. I love you, Cadre family. Thanks for checking in. Make it a great day. Bye. It.