It’s that time of year again! Tis the season for reinventing ourselves, setting goals, resolutions and intentions to become all that we want to be. We might have new ones this year or recycled ones from last year, but we’re determined to make them happen this year. We can’t possibly fail this time, right?! But, if we are stuck in the “all or nothing” mindset, that’s most likely exactly what will happen.
Did you know that 43% of people that make resolutions give up on them by the end of January? Only about 9% follow through with their resolutions completely. That doesn’t seem too promising if you ask me. However, I don’t think that these statistics are an indicator of people not being able to make changes in their lives or not having the willpower to sustain their achievements. I think there are factors that have a big impact on success versus failure. One of the biggest factors is breaking through the “all or nothing” mentality.
Want to know why that is, keep reading!
Why “ALL or Nothing” Hinders Success
Burnout and Sustainability
When we adopt an extreme mindset around something it can be really difficult to maintain that mindset, focus and effort. Sure, in the beginning it can be exciting and motivating, but as life unfolds around us we’ll always have other things that will need our focus as well. These may even cause opposition to the new goal we’re working toward.
Let’s say you have the goal to get more sleep consistently for the next month. You start off doing great! You’ve gotten 8 hours each night for a whole week. But then, one of your kids gets sick and keeps you up late or wakes you throughout the night. You didn’t get the sleep you had planned on, but did you fail? Technically, yes. But, in reality, no! Life happens! We have to work around things we can’t control and remember that not being perfect doesn’t mean we failed. If we go along with the “all or nothing” thinking, we’d be done at this point. We’d consider ourselves failures and give up.
Setting Large Goals
Sure, it’s fine to have big dreams and great things you want to accomplish, but that doesn’t mean that you have to wait until you reach them to feel successful. Just because you haven’t crossed the finish line doesn’t mean you’ve done nothing. If we don’t break our goals down into smaller goals along the way to the big goal, we’re more likely to feel like it will never happen, that it’s too far out of reach. When we celebrate the wins we have throughout the journey, it keeps us motivated and moving forward. Acknowledging progress, even the little things, feels good!
Striking a Balance
If we stick with the “all or nothing” mentality, we believe we need to constantly be focused and making progress toward the goal we’ve set for ourselves. As mentioned above, we’re human and things happen. It’s pretty much impossible to maintain that. We need to allow for things to not always work out exactly how we planned. We need to allow ourselves flexibility. Have a plan B or take a break when needed. Progress is still progress, even when we don’t take perfect actions.
Rigid Rules
Rigid rules are made to be broken. They are unsustainable! They don’t help us get where we want to be, they just stress us out and make us feel like we failed when we can’t follow them completely and consistently. We’re much more likely to succeed if we don’t create extra stress and frustration. Instead of creating strict rules, how about creating general guidelines instead. Guidance is always more helpful than demands, whether they come from ourselves or someone else. Demands tend to bring out the rebel in us, even when they’re self imposed. Flexible guidelines allow us to hold on to our self-esteem while we work towards what we want.
Perspective
When we are working on a goal that has to do with improving our health, we need to keep the big picture in mind. Of course you have ideas about what success looks like for you and you’ll know when you reach those milestones. However, when we improve our health we shouldn’t just focus on those particular things and nothing else. Lots of people have goals of eating healthier, losing some excess fat, or feeling more comfortable doing the things they enjoy. They might celebrate eating a salad every day or feeling their clothes become looser. Those can be great things to celebrate as long as you’re feeling good in the process. The journey to better health shouldn’t feel like a torturous endeavor that you’ve been made to suffer through. It should feel like a journey of healing and learning. It’s self improvement, not punishment, after all.
Letting Go of The “All or Nothing” Trap
I call the “all or nothing” mentality a a trap because that’s what it is. It’s enticing because it seems like a plan, something to follow as your roadmap to success. It motivating in the beginning. But then, we quickly realize that putting pressure on ourselves to act perfectly, to make it work at all costs isn’t the way to get where we want to go. It’s stressful, unsustainable, makes us feel like a failure and leads us to believe that improving our health is either impossible or has to feel like torture to work.
Letting go of the “all or nothing” mindset let’s us create a journey towards success that’s doable and enjoyable. We learn that progress over time is what’s truly important, as well as learning what works for us as individuals. We are not failures, we are imperfect humans. Our mindset and beliefs can set us up to feel like failures or feel like we are learning an growing as we reach toward our dreams and aspirations.
I’d love to know, have you been able to let go of the “all or nothing” way of thinking?
