All or Nothing Thinking

Also known as “Black or White Thinking,” All or Nothing Thinking is barely existent in young children, absurdly virulent in teenagers, and oddly unacknowledged in adults. When was the last time you saw an eight-year-old critique their Taekwondo practice? Never! It doesn’t matter how well or how poorly an experience went, they’re in the moment. When a new moment arises, then their attention goes to that moment.

Curious how young kids are actually the best at living in the present, and now there is an industry of educators, therapists, and programs attempting to help adolescents and adults relearn what they were born with: an inherent ability to enjoy their moments without judgment.

I’ve coached thousands of young people in lacrosse and martial arts. They all started off the same way. Maybe a little frightened, but after some movement under the eyes of a coach that cares, you see their concern evaporate. They’re not worried about how they look, what they sound like, or their future in the sport. On Day 1 they’re just experiencing. Honestly answer this question for yourself: When was the last time you embarked on something new in the presence of others without critiquing yourself every second for not being as good or as knowledgable as the people around you? I’ll safely wager that by middle school you were analyzing just how absurd you appeared attempting to learn a new skill, and your enjoyment of that activity suffered.

All or Nothing Thinking is a massive piece of perfectionism. It’s an insidious idea that crawls into young minds according to the words of well-meaning adults.

(Marty Reichenthal, AP)

Consider the following story by Kurt Vonnegut, and how one adult flipped the usual script:

“When I was 15, I spent a month working on an archeological dig. I was talking to one of the archeologists one day during our lunch break and he asked those kinds of “getting to know you” questions you ask young people: Do you play sports? What’s your favorite subject? And I told him, no I don’t play any sports. I do theater, I’m in choir, I play the violin and piano, I used to take art classes. And he went WOW. That’s amazing! And I said, “Oh no, but I’m not any good at ANY of them.” And he said something then that I will never forget and which absolutely blew my mind because no one had ever said anything like it to me before: “I don’t think being good at things is the point of doing them. I think you’ve got all these wonderful experiences with different skills, and that all teaches you things and makes you an interesting person, no matter how well you do them.” And that honestly changed my life. Because I went from a failure, someone who hadn’t been talented enough at anything to excel, to someone who did things because I enjoyed them. I had been raised in such an achievement-oriented environment, so inundated with the myth of Talent, that I thought it was only worth doing things if you could “Win” at them.”

Since starting my new career in the utility industry I battle the All or Nothing cognitive distortion. Part of my mind constantly runs a sub-routine that analyses my actions on the job and compares them to a ridiculous standard that is inappropriate for someone two months on the job. Then it lofts an insult grenade and I have to waste mental energy to snatch that grenade and put the pin back before my confidence explodes like a car in a Michael Bay movie.

My teens and twenties were dominated by thoughts like:

• If I’m not perfect I have failed.

• Either I do it right or not at all.

Now, I repeat the following mantra on a near-daily basis:

• I’m not the first to make this mistake.

This sentence helps remind me that I’m still new, and that the world doesn’t revolve around my performance. I might get yelled at. I might break something. I might even run a trailer through a chain-link gate by accident.

But I’m not the first.

That reminder is my antidote to All or Nothing Thinking. When paired with an awareness of what my mind is doing, I’m easily able to shrug off my inner-critique and get back into enjoying whatever it is I’m doing. That is a massive help to my continued work of reinforcing that my career change was a correct decision. If I spent every moment of every day second-guessing and berating myself for not knowing things I don’t yet know then I’d have quit weeks ago! Instead, I remember that the term “apprentice” comes from the Latin “apprehendere,” meaning “to take hold of or grasp,” and the Old French “apprendre,” meaning “to learn”. No baby ever questioned how it grasped a toy. They just did. As a man today, I’m trying to relearn what I knew way back when.