What causes All-or-Nothing thinking? E103

July 25, 2023

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I was asked recently to talk about the All-or-Nothing mentality. Why do we have it? How does it get created? And what can we do if we keep finding ourselves in this black-or-white thinking? Find all of the answers to these questions in this episode. Let’s go!

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Do you struggle with an All-or-Nothing kind of mentality or do you know someone close to you who does? Then you and they are not alone. I believe that at some point in our everyday life, we can all get into All-or-Nothing thinking.

So don’t feel that there is something wrong with you. See it as more of a symptom. And if you are in a phase in your life where you overuse it, then take it as a sign to dig deeper into where it’s coming from.

The All-or-Nothing mentality is a symptom

That’s how I see this kind of mentality. It’s a sign and a symptom. It’s trying to tell you to look closer. And obviously, if you are listening to me right now and feel touched by this, then you are already looking closer. You already become aware of it and now are looking for answers to your questions: Why? What is it? And how can I overcome it?

I’m going to share with you what I have experienced when I observe the All-or-Nothing thinking in myself and what I know about the brain and the body to make sense of this kind of mentality for you.

If a symptom gets untreated, it gets worse

Like with any other symptom, if untreated it usually gets worse. We are pretty good at reading symptoms of sickness like the flu, an allergy or a pulled muscle. But we are not yet that good at seeing symptoms in our mental health and then understanding them so we know what we can do about it.

That’s what I like to concentrate on in this episode. For you to understand what this All-or-Nothing thinking might be trying to tell you and why it happens in the first place.

By understanding what it is and how it gets created, you can see it more objectively and take action. It’s very hard to see it for what it is when you are in the middle of an All-or-Nothing thinking pattern. And I will tell you soon why that is.

All-or-Nothing Thinking Examples

So let’s look at the symptom in itself first. How does the All-or-Nothing mentality show up in our lives? Here are some examples:

Example #1

Angela has been asked to a meeting with her boss on the next day. She is not clear on what it’s about so she is ruminating on possible reasons for this meeting. Angela is a good employee, always giving her best – but a month ago she made a mistake that got one client to be upset.

In her mind, she is going to the All-or-Nothing thinking: “This is about this incident. The client probably called my boss and told him how upset he is. Maybe I even get fired over it? If I can get one client upset, who knows if I might get them all upset? It’s all my fault that I won’t have a job anymore.”

This is a typical thinking pattern going down a rabbit hole. Angela found out the next day, that her boss was happy with how she handled that disgruntled client the other week and asked her to mentor someone in her team who was struggling with that skill. So all her worrying was for nothing.

Example #2

Tony has been raised in a very structured home where it was important to be on time and do all your chores when you were supposed to. Now he has 3 children and him and his partner are working full time.

His reality looks a lot more chaotic than what he experienced and was told in his childhood and when he gets very stressed, he goes to the All-or-Nothing thinking of:” I am useless in managing my life. I am not cut out to be a parent. We are never really on time which is so embarrassing. What is wrong with me?”

Different Levels of All-or-Nothing Thinking

Do you find yourself beating yourself up over a small mistake? Or throw the towel on a new habit just because you did not follow through for one day? Or you don’t really “belief” positive feedback and can only think about this one comment that a colleague made?

These are all kinds of All-or-Nothing thinking. There are lots of different levels of how negative it can get but I hope you understand the general concept of this mentality now.

I want to talk today about 2 important understandings of what happens during this mindset. And these are: Triggers and the resulting stress response

Triggers Causing the All-or-Nothing Mentality

Usually, we get triggered by something or someone and because of this trigger, we can respond with the All-or-Nothing thinking. And those triggers would have been created due to past events, either at any point in your life when you experienced a high-emotional state, but predominantly these triggers get created during our childhood when we are still more suggestable to information.

Look at the example from Angela. Just because her boss asked for a meeting, she did not need to think the worst would happen. Lots of other people would stay neutral or might think of something positive when asked to such a meeting.

But Angela was triggered. A memory or a belief, something that happened to her before, made her get stressed and worried. She assumed the worst – and either she experienced something similar before where she did get a bad message from a boss or someone told her that bad things happen when your boss asks you for a meeting and does not tell you the reason.

Due to her having this information or experience in her inner world, she was triggered and her stress response spiralled her into the All-or-Nothing way of thinking.

My own example of being heavily triggered

Let me give you a recent example of when I was heavily triggered. It was when I drove last month to Austria and it was a 6-hour drive plus time for breaks. After 4 hours and a quick break, I put in again my destination into the GPS and started driving. The directions suddenly took me cross country instead of the motorway but I thought it might be because of traffic on the motorway.

After 30 minutes of driving, I realized that I was going the wrong way. My GPS just decided to suggest a different destination with the same name as my apartment hotel but closer to my home town, and I did not realize that when I clicked on it. In the end, I had to drive all the way back and lost an hour of my time.

When I realized what had happened, I was triggered so deeply. I did not know exactly what it was and still don’t pinpoint it to a particular memory, but I suddenly had thoughts:” Why would something like that happen to me? OMG, I trusted this GPS and it send me in the wrong way and make me waste an hour of my time. I am so useless and how can I be so fooled and not check earlier if there was something wrong with the directions? I am so stupid.”

Being aware of my All-or-Nothing Thinking

Wow. I know. Complete overreaction to the situation – given that I had no specific time when I needed to arrive. But I knew what was happening at that moment and thankfully I know how to process and manage this kind of outbreak of emotion and stress.

But that is what happens: Some buried and unprocessed memory or belief gets triggered and off you go with the All-or-Nothing doomsday thinking.

There is All-or-Nothing thinking when you are not under stress

The second factor that plays a huge role in All-or-Nothing thinking is your innate stress response. The trigger might not even be that impactful but when you are already in a stressed state of being, the impact of this trigger is amplified.

If you would be in a calm and peaceful state, the same situation would not trigger you. You would be able to brush it off or would not even realize that anything bad happened. But when you are already in a stressed state, this situation suddenly triggers you big time and it was just the last straw for you to go into All-or-Nothing thinking. Does this make sense to you?

Apply the knowledge about the All-or-Nothing thinking to your life

So looping this now back to what I said at the beginning that the All-or-Nothing mentality is a symptom means that you either got heavily triggered and there is something to look closer at – or that you are already in a prolonged state of stress and it does not take a lot for you to go to this kind of thinking.

Next time you catch yourself having one of these All-or-Nothing thoughts and you become aware of it, ask yourself:

Was I just triggered and was this reaction warranted or might there be a reason inside of me that made me react that strongly?
Am I stressed out already for quite a while and this was just another thing that took me over the edge to fall into this All-or-Nothing thinking?

If it’s a trigger that you come across and with a bit of distance you can see that someone else might have reacted less strongly or not at all, you want to look closer and see what this is telling you. Usually triggers mean that you are ready to let something go or resolve something because it does not serve you anymore. And being triggered is a sign from the subconscious mind that you are ready to work through this now.

More resources for you to step the All-or-Nothing Thinking habit

If you want to learn more about triggers, watch episode 66 “How do I stop myself from being triggered?”

And if it’s your stress that made you think that way, then use tools like breathing, meditation, tapping, or any other tool to release that stress in your life. And if you think the stress is constant in your life and you don’t really have the tools to deal with it, I will link to another few episodes that will help you with that:

Are you living in survival or creation? Find out! Episode 92

Stop the Push, Push, Push way of living and create balance Episode 74

I hope this episode has helped you to get more clarity about the All-or-Nothing way of thinking. Now that you understand what is happening when it happens, you have now the distance to check in with yourself and see where it came from. And all it then needs is your willingness to do something about it. As I said, any symptom untreated gets worse over time.

Two easy ways to show your appreciation!

If you found value in today’s episode, here’s what you can do to show your support:

First, consider making a donation to the podcast. Every little bit helps to cover the costs of producing and hosting the show. And ensures that I can continue to bring you the latest insights and opinions on the topic of energy and improving your life.

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So whether you choose to donate, leave a rating and review, or both, know that you’re an integral part of my vision. You are helping everyone who struggles with burnout or high-stress levels to experience how awesome their life can be. So, thank you for your support!

Say goodbye to your negative thoughts Episode 84
How to mentally rehearse yourself a new life? Episode 75
Stop being triggered all the time Episode 66

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