All or Nothing Thinking

Leanna Laskey McGrath  0:08  

Welcome to the executive coach for moms podcast where we support women who are attempting to find balance and joy, while simultaneously leading people at work and at home. I'm your host Leanna Laskey, McGrath, former tech exec turned full time mom, recovering perfectionist and workaholic, and certified executive coach. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  0:30  

Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the show. Thanks for joining me today. So last week, I talked about thoughts. If you haven't had a chance to listen to that episode, I would highly recommend it. Because today, I want to talk about a specific thought pattern that is so common for us humans, and especially us women. After I recorded that I was actually recording as a guest on the worthy mother podcast, which is coming soon. So you get to hear me on that I'll share that on social media whenever that goes live. But Emily asked for my advice for self care. And the thing that came to me was just that self care doesn't have to be all or nothing, it doesn't have to be that like we're doing it or we're not doing it. I think so often, we get into a mindset of, I'm either doing something or I'm not. And there's kind of not much room in between. And so we have a tendency to do that with working out with eating healthy, right? It's like, oh, I just had ice cream at lunch. So the whole day is gone. I'm just going to eat whatever I want, instead of just finding some kind of middle ground. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  1:49  

And so it's so funny how our brains work because it's like, well, if I'm not going to do something all the way, I may as well not do it at all. I don't know if your brain has ever offered you that thought. But mine definitely loves to think that way. And this is what I like to call all or nothing thinking. Some coaches call it black and white thinking. But the idea is that there are two options. And it's one extreme or the other. And it seems like those are our only options. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  2:22  

I believe that this way of thinking can often hold us back and make things harder for us. I think that it's one of the things that makes the transition to motherhood so hard for high achievers, because it's like, in my mind, I am an amazing professional. And so how do I reconcile being a parent with that? How do I continue to give 100% In my professional world, and have anything to give to my parenting world? And how do I be a good mom if I'm not giving 100% in parenting? And so then we kind of try and do both at 100%. And we either drive ourselves into the ground trying to do that. And we never feel like we are doing enough. We constantly feel like we're falling short. This also shows up in how we judge things. I was actually just coaching someone who told me she had a presentation and it didn't go well. And I said okay, well, let's break that down. What does that mean? Tell me what metrics you're using to decide that the presentation didn't go well. And she said there were seven people in the room. And she asked a question, and only three people responded. So in last week's episode, I talked about circumstances versus thoughts. So in that example, the circumstance is that three people verbally responded to a question. And so I asked her, what would it need to be in order for you to say this presentation went well? And she thought about it for a minute. And she said seven, seven out of seven? Need to respond to the question in order for me to believe that my presentation went well. So just notice there's this kind of all or nothing, either everybody has to participate, or it's wrong, right? It didn't go well. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  4:29  

This all or nothing thinking's right up there with perfectionism. And also, right now as I'm talking about this, the quote from Ricky Bobby keeps coming up in my head of if you ain't first, you're last and it's just kind of that mindset of either you win and you go all the way or it's terrible, nothing went well. And I see it all the time in my coaching. I see it in myself. And so I know that certainly some or all of my listeners have these all or nothing thoughts, so I wanted to kind of bring attention to it today. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  5:05  

Another prime example of all or nothing thinking happens a lot in parenthood, it's like I'm either a good parent or a bad parent. And these labels are so absolute. And they mean like, all the time, right? It's hard whenever we want to apply these labels to things and to people and situations, because they're so all or nothing, they're so absolute. They're so black and white. And they don't really take into account the middle ground. I mean, the reality is that, sometimes I'm a great parent, sometimes I'm not a great parent. And sometimes, most of the time, I'm somewhere in the middle. And I think about kind of that everything exists on a scale. So amazing is at one end of the scale, and absolutely terrible is at the other end of the scale. And there's so much in between, but our brains only want to go to one or the other because our brains like simplicity. And our brains don't love to think about all the gray area in between. But the reality is, is that that is really where so much goodness exists. And there's so much more for us to look at than just those two options of absolutely amazing and absolutely terrible. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  6:30  

So when I started to write this episode, because it's been coming up a lot lately, this all or nothing pattern of thinking, I thought, oh my gosh, wait, have I done this before? Because I feel like I talk about it a lot. And so I went back and searched all my transcripts for my first 30 episodes, and it has shown up a lot. And so I thought it might be helpful, just to share some of the examples in some of the different ways that this way of thinking manifests within us. Because it really is applicable to so many different situations, and so many different ways of looking at things. So back in my very first episode I talked about it was called why working moms feel like we're failing at everything. And I shared multiple reasons. And one of the reasons was because of our all or nothing thinking we think like I said before, we're either an amazing professional, or we're an amazing parent, we expect ourselves to be both. But you know, it's very hard to try and balance that and reconcile that and feel like we're doing a good job at both at the same time. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  7:47  

In Episode Two, I talked about conscious decision making. And the idea that a lot of times our brains want to choose one of two options. But there are so many options in between so many other ways of looking at something than just the two options that our brain initially offers. So a lot of times we have to spend some time slowing down and maybe brainstorming, writing to consider all the other options in between, rather than just accepting the first two options that our brain offers us. In episodes four through six, I talked about my story. And I talked about my all or nothing thinking before I came a parent and about my identity and how I believed that I was an executive. In episode six, I talked about the transition to working full time mom, it was just so hard to reconcile my identity because how was I a great executive like I had been before when I was working 60 70 80 hours a week. And then I couldn't do that anymore with my new role of being a parent. And so then it was like, well, if I'm not that, that I must be a bad employee or a not as good executive as I possibly could be. And so again, kind of that all or nothing thinking showed up there for me. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  9:19  

In episode 14 with Emily-Rose Barry, we talked about impostor syndrome, and one of the things that we were discussing was just how we in our brains think like everybody's either gonna love us or hate us like if we put an idea out there we might feel kind of intimidated to do so because of imposter syndrome showing up. And we have this belief that if we put this out there like everybody's gonna either love this idea or hate it and think we're stupid. When in reality, some people are probably gonna love it. Some people are not and really, most of its going to be in the middle, where people are going to think, Oh, that's a good idea, maybe we can work off of that, or, Oh, I like that, like that's a good starting place or that idea needs some work. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  10:12  

In Episode 19, with Emily Siegel, we talked about it from a friendship perspective. And I actually still think about this a lot how Emily talked about our ride or die friends, and how whenever we meet new people, or we are starting a new relationship with a friend, that we assume that they have to fall into the ride or die category in order to be our friends. And so it's like, we maybe shut down friendships, because they're not going to be that in that ride or die category. And we're like, oh, I don't have time for that. I only want that all the way, friend. When in reality, we can have friends all along that scale, we're going to have friends in that right or die category, we're going to have on the opposite side of that enemies or non friends. And then in between, we can have all different kinds of relationships with all different levels of engagement and depth. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  11:12  

In Episode 21, I talked with Emily Hardy about holiday traditions. And we talked about the idea that if we don't do one of our traditions this year, then, you know, like in our brains, it's like, oh, that's no longer a tradition. What are we going to do in the future, because, you know, we ended this tradition. But again, the reality is, is that maybe we have traditions that we do some years and not others. And we have different options there. But our brains really kind of want to generally think about traditions as something that have to happen the same way at the same time, every time that thing comes around.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  11:51  

And then in Episode 22, Jess Kitt, and I talked about her kind of way of looking at things at the time, when she was struggling in an environment that was not aligned with her values. And she had a boss that she didn't always see eye to eye with. And so she got in this mindset of if one person believes that I'm wrong, or my ideas wrong than everybody else must believe that too kind of similar to what we talked about with Emily-Rose with imposter syndrome. But it's just like our brain wants to offer that if one person holds a negative opinion of us, then we apply that all or nothing thinking and assume that everybody must hold that.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  12:41  

In episode 26. I talked about it in regards to goal setting for the new year. And kind of the idea that our New Year's resolutions, doing air quotes, we often approach them with an all or nothing way of thinking like we're either doing them or we're not. And we have to do them all the way in perfectly. Or else we failed. And we can no longer hold that goal for ourselves. Because, you know, we look at ourselves as a failure whenever we don't need it. And we don't live up to our often unrealistic expectations of ourselves.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  13:16  

And then in Episode 29, I talked about asking for help. And I talked about the idea that we're either totally independent, and self sufficient, or we're failures, there's often no in between. So like, if we ask for help, then maybe it means that we're not actually independent or self sufficient, it means that we need help, and that we make that mean something about ourselves. And suddenly we look at ourselves as mooches or failures or people who can't do anything by ourselves.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  13:49  

So those are just a few examples. And that is in just 30 episodes. So my goal for today is really just to call attention to this way of thinking this all or nothing thinking and shed some light on it. And just to share and open up your mind to the idea that there are other options that maybe things don't have to be all one way or not at all. You can still be a great parent, even when you're not giving 100% You can still be an extremely valuable employee when you only have 80 or 70% to give that day. You don't have to be perfect to be really, really great. That's what I'm believing these days. So I'm just curious, what are you choosing to believe? And is it serving you? Some food for thought. Thanks so much for listening. We'll see you next week.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  14:50  

Thanks so much for tuning in to the executive coach for moms podcast. Please like subscribe or follow the show so you'll be notified when the next episode is available. I hope you'll join me again next time. Take care.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai