“Some” vs “All-or-None” Thinking

Transcript

Hi. In today’s conversation, I want to talk to you about avoiding the pendulum swings of all-or-nothing thinking and all-or-nothing behaviors. It’s the new year, and this is the time of year where I hear lots of people making commitments to: “I’m gonna stop eating all sugar.” “I’m gonna start working out every single day.” “I’m gonna work out for 40 minutes every day.” “I’m gonna begin a meditation practice.” “I’m gonna meditate every day for 30 minutes.” And it’s always good—of course—to want things for yourself—to either start something new that is going to be helpful, or to stop something that hasn’t been working for you—but I invite you to practice moderation, and being easy and graceful with yourself, and staying away from that black-or-white, all-or-nothing thinking and behavior.

Some simple practices that you can do every day are:

• If you don’t have time for a full workout try the seven-minute workout. I’ve included a link here below at the bottom for you to try, and doing something is better than doing nothing.
• Allow yourself to have an eating treat outside of your normal eating program. I also hear lots of people say things like, “Oh if I went off plan, you know by noon, why might as well throw away the rest of the day.” And so they do a lot of damage to their system as they just allow themselves to eat with reckless abandon for the rest of the day. Consider that if you’ve eaten something not-so-healthy to just begin again in that moment and not do all-or-nothing, even within a given day
• Another practice would be drink a half a cup of coffee. Don’t finish it. Have some caffeine, as opposed to drinking a whole cup.
• Try not cleaning your plate entirely while paying attention to how you feel, and stopping and being willing to dispose of food as opposed to disposing of it on your body, which is what happens if you eat to the point of being full.
• Also, I encourage you to try a three-minute meditation. You know, nobody says that the hard & fast rules are that you have to meditate for twenty minutes a day every day. Try three minutes. There’s proof out there that three minutes is very effective and very good for balancing your brain chemistry.

So consider looking through your life, noticing where are you practicing all-or-nothing thinking, and be willing to allow yourself some. Some is oftentimes better than nothing, and some is oftentimes better than EVERYTHING.