The ‘How Our Brains Trip Us Up’ blog series is pulled together from content written for but not ultimately included in my book, Why You Skipped Your Workout. If you’d like to read more and do the exercises associated with this content, they are included in Chapter 8 - Your Self Talk is Biased Too.

No matter what we try to do, we will come up against unhelpful thoughts and inbuilt biases at some point. This is not only normal, but a sign that you have a healthy, problem solving brain - congratulations!

Our brains cannot objectively analyse every single bit of information we come across, so they create these short-cuts and repeatable patterns to help us keep moving forward. This is an energy saving and effective strategy most of the time - there are countless times that these ‘short cuts’ are helpful and serve us well.

But sometimes they can work against us.

In these instances, we can call them ‘thinking errors’. By understanding and addressing these unhelpful patterns, we can improve our self-talk, our outlook, and our success when pursuing our biggest and most important business goals!

Thinking Error #1

All or Nothing Thinking

Let’s start with some examples…

“I have to do it all or there is no point.”

“If I don’t do it perfectly I may as well not do it.”

“I’ve missed one day, so I’ve failed and won’t start again.” - admittedly, this one is rarely as succinct as this but you get the idea!

You may have experienced this in more or less words. It’s the pass/fail exam of our thoughts where the pass mark is 99.9% and anything lower just isn’t worth the effort. This is common in ‘fitness kicks’, launching new products or services, or in sharing what we know - if we don’t do or know it all, why do it at all?

So, what can you do if you’re prone to all or nothing thinking?

Managing All or Nothing Thinking

The most straightforward way to manage all or nothing thinking is to change what we think of as ‘good’ or ‘finished’ or ‘enough’. These standards and expectations are within your control, and while it may be uncomfortable to start, relaxing exacting standards can be a wonderful breath of fresh air!

If you find yourself setting impossibly high expectations, aiming for perfection, or any other binary metrics of success it’s time to deliberately build in a buffer or wiggle room. For example,

Confession Time: How All Or Nothing Thinking Shows Up for Me

I’m a big fan of sharing the messy middle and the behind the scenes, so for each thinking error I’ll share how it shows up for me.

Hilariously, all or nothing thinking showed up for me when I started this blog series - I wanted to adapt and finish all 10 blogs in one day, as well as doing my client work. A few years ago, I would have tried to complete that plan, fortunately, writing this blog was the perfect reminder that creating one blog today is still moving the needle.

• Have a plan A and a plan B: I will aim to do Plan A today, but before I begin each task I will check in with myself and alter to do Plan B if Plan A is no longer attainable with my time/energy/executive function budget.

• Value your efforts as well as your results: I didn’t reach my target, but I did a great job of moving towards it and am going to celebrate my efforts.

• Set kind targets: I will aim to engage with potential clients every working day, but will give myself grace and consider the week a success if I manage to do 3 out of 5 days (60% pass mark).

When it comes to reaching long term or complex goals, something is better than nothing.

No one else knows about your internal standards - they will only see what you do. If your internal standards stop you doing what you want or need to do, then they won’t see anything. Allow yourself the wiggle room to go out and do!

When are you prone to all or nothing thinking?

And if you’d like to read more, here are some books that cover thinking errors in interesting ways:

Why You Skipped Your Workout
The Little CBT Workbook
Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before)