Stuck in All or Nothing Thinking - Ep 142

It's easy to feel stuck in life and in business. I've been in a season where I was definitely feeling stuck trying to make decisions and discern where the Lord was leading. That led me to reflect and record this week's podcast: Stuck in All-or-Nothing Thinking. 

As I was reflecting on that this morning, I realized that one of the reasons that we get stuck is all-or-nothing thinking. I saw that in the past few months, and even just in the last couple of weeks, again, I see that I was doing that. 

This summer when I was preparing to do a workshop on getting unstuck with God it was not coming together the way that I wanted it to. I very quickly went from, "I should reschedule," to, "I need to quit everything." Fortunately, I was working with a coach that was able to call me out on that. Looking back at it from the outside, it's almost comical, like how fast I went from zero to 60. 

Then I realized I was doing that again. I wanted to continue working with the coach, actually increase my work with the coach and do not have peace about doing that right now as much as I want to do that right now. I found myself thinking, "Well, if I can't do it this way, if I can't do everything that I want, then I should just quit altogether."When you recognize the all-or-nothing thinking, you can see that there are often other options. You can get some clarity and choose something in between. 

It's more helpful to go deeper and ask, "What are the thoughts and the feelings that are going with it has to be one or the other?"There could be thoughts like: 

• It needs to be perfect. 
• It needs to be without mistakes. 
• It needs to be just everything exactly according to plan. 
• A lack of trust that God is gonna come through. 
• Fear of looking bad. 
• If you quit, you're just a failure. 
• You're pathetic. 
• You're disappointing God. 

When you see it's not just a matter of choosing between all or nothing, or even a matter of choosing where in that continuum between all and nothing you need to land. There are fears or wrong ways of thinking that need to be dealt with to help you see clearly where in that continuum you need to land. 

God wants to use your business to make you more like Jesus. He wants to minister to you. He wants you to get to know Him better, to learn that He is trustworthy. 

Listen to this week's podcast: Stuck in All-or-Nothing Thinking.

When you're ready for my 1:1 support, schedule a call at mukkove.link/schedule

Learn how God communicates with you in Transformational Quiet Times

Transcript

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Why Feeling Stuck Happens

0:15

It's easy to feel stuck in life and in business. I've been in the season where I was definitely feeling stuck trying to make decisions, trying to discern where the Lord was leading. And as I was reflecting on that this morning, I realized that one of the reasons that we get stuck is all or nothing thinking. And I recognize this because I saw that in the past few months, and even just in the last couple of weeks, again, I see that I was doing that This summer I was wanting to do a workshop on getting unstuck with God and my schedule and just mental capacity and whatever was not coming together the way that I wanted it to. And I very quickly went from, "Well, maybe I should reschedule," to, "I need to quit everything." And fortunately, I was working with a coach that was able to kind of call me out on that. And looking back at it from the outside, it's almost comical, like how fast I went from zero to 60 And then I was realizing I was doing that again. I wanted to continue working with the coach, actually increase my working with the coach and just not having peace about doing that right now as much as I wanted to do that right now. And I found myself again going like, "Well, if I can't do it this way, if I can't do everything that I want, then I should just quit altogether." And being a little bit confused by that, but just wanting to share from the perspective of, I don't know, kind of from the inside so that you know you're not alone if you struggle with this all or nothing thinking.

The Workshop That Triggered Quitting

2:21

So like my all in in the webinar or the workshop situation was, you know, being able to have all the emails done or being able to run ads, do the promotion, whatever, in the original timeframe that I had planned, and that wasn't gonna work. So then I was like, "Well, I should just quit." Like one extreme to the other. And again, with the coaching, like if I can't do the coaching and run the ads and do all the things that I wanna do, then maybe I'm just not cut out for this and I should just quit altogether Sometimes that may be the case. But what I'm seeing in myself, and imagine that you would, might see in yourself, is this all or n- nothing thinking. That from the outside it's like, well, there's other options. It's not just one or the other But taking the time to realize like, "Oh, that's what I'm thinking," and to look at, okay, so if I'm saying the all is I need to have the coaching and the ads, and I need to be on all the platforms and doing all the things Or I'm like, "Well, if I can't do all that, I'm just gonna quit." And feeling like God's not saying I c- should quit, but I can't do it all, so I'm stuck one of my thoughts on this was realizing that if you go to someone for advice or coaching and you present the all or nothing, like they can help you see there are a million choices in between the all or nothing. You know, scaling back or adjusting schedules or the different things, and that could be helpful, probably would be helpful. Um, like I guess I could say that for my workshop experience that like had the coach to be like, "Well, what if you just delayed this part of it? What if you modified it this way?" And be like, "Oh, right. I don't need to go from zero to sixty or sixty to zero in this, like from everything to nothing." There's steps along the way. So it is helpful.

What Drives All Or Nothing

4:38

But realizing it's more helpful to go deeper to say, "What are the thoughts and the feelings that are going with it has to be one or the other?" So some of the things could be that feeling of like, I need to do it right. It needs to be perfect. It needs to be without mistakes. It needs to be just everything exactly according to plan There could also be like that fear of missing something. If I'm not in this group or I'm not on this platform, then I'm gonna be missing clients or missing revenue There could be a lack of trust that God is gonna come through. If I scale back and I'm not showing up all the places, is God still gonna bring me clients? Am I still gonna be able to cover my bills? There could be comparison, looking at how someone else is running their business and going, "Well, they're doing all these things, so I need to be doing all these things." There could be a fear of looking bad. Like, "I've been telling everybody I was gonna have this business and I was gonna do these things, and now if I change my mind or if I don't meet the schedule or all these different things, then, like, what are people gonna think of me? They're gonna think I'm a flake," and all of that. So looking at those thoughts and some of the emotions that go with the all Or the nothing of saying like if you quit you're just a failure and you're pathetic and you're disappointing God or you know who knows what things you might be thinking and feeling and that the enemy might be telling you if you like this is what it's going to be if you quit besides like your own hopes and dreams that you would have to grieve and all of that. So when you see like, okay, it's not just a matter of choosing between all or nothing, or even a matter of choosing where in that continuum between all and nothing you need to land But there's actually these fears or wrong ways of thinking that need to be dealt with to help you see clearly where in that continuum you need to land.

Questioning The Thoughts Behind It

7:07

Because God will use your business to make you more like Jesus. And so if you're looking at it and see like, "Oh, I do have that fear that God's not gonna come through for me, so I need to be all the places doing all the things because I'm afraid God's not gonna come through That's a place He wants to minister to you, where He wants you to get to know Him better, to learn that He is trustworthy It's very helpful to be able to take those thoughts and be curious about where they came from, about if they're actually true So for, you know, I need to do it right. Well, who told you that? And what happens if you don't do it right? Which like is code for perfect. And like, is that really true that you have to do it as perfect as the standard or expectation you've put in your mind? You know, the fear that you're missing something if you're not in all the places. Again, like who told you that? Or what happens if you're not in all the places? You don't actually know. Could be that showing up less places actually gives you the energy to show up better and more thoroughly, and you attract more people than when you're showing up scattered in all the places. And asking, you know, like are these things really true? Or do they really matter? If you look bad and people think you're flaky, does it really matter? Because people who are gonna be your right people are gonna be okay with your humanness. That sometimes emails get sent without proper subject lines, or they get sent without the link, or that you don't post or have everything done like a machine. Or like sometimes when we're comparing and we see these other people in business and like, "Oh, well, look at what they're doing," we don't stop to go, "Oh, they have a team that's doing that for them." Like they're not a one-man show like you might be or whatever that is that, you know, comparison is the thief of joy, and it's usually a liar because you're comparing their highlight reel, what they're curating and choosing to share with you, with all the things that you're probably choosing not to share with anyone.

Bringing The Spiral To God

9:46

So it's not a fair comparison So if you recognize that sometimes why you're feeling stuck in your business or in life is because you have this all or nothing thinking, either it needs to go perfectly, I need to do it right, or I should just quit altogether, and that that swinging back and forth, if you recognize that, you know how exhausting and discouraging that is And I'm sharing from a place of, like I said, I've been there And the enemy likes to show up and be like, "You're still there, so who are you to talk, and who are you to say that you can help anyone?" And I have to remind myself and remind him that because I'm still in the middle of it, I'm a great person to talk to people about it because I can say, "This is what I've done. This is what is helping me." So like I gave the example with the workshop, I had a coach with that outside perspective to say, "We could just adjust this here and there. There's no reason to throw in the towel and abandon everything." And in this current round, just being able to take it back to the Lord and go, "What are you saying? How do you see me? Do you still have something for me here? And if you do, help me see how to adjust it. Help me see myself the way that you see me. Remind me again that it's okay to share even though I still struggle, because the struggles don't define me." Struggles are just events. They're just things that are happening, and how I respond to them is what matters. And honestly, there's times where I don't respond very well. I'm very discouraged, depressed, like I said, swung over to the like I should just quit it all because it doesn't matter. And then I'm able to sit with the Lord and see I don't feel that it's him saying I need to quit. So then why would the feelings be so overwhelmingly strong that like, no, you should quit?

Write It Down And Name The Accusations

12:11

And it's a part of why I really encourage you to share the thoughts with someone else or to write them down. Because when you write them down, there will probably be a lot of accusations in there. The you statements of like, you should quit. You don't know what you're doing. You can't handle this. Who are you to share? Those kinds of things. And you recognize like, well, if the enemy is trying to discourage me from this, there's clearly value in what I'm doing. And yes, the Lord may want to adjust or say, you need to change your expectations. You need to change your time commitment, your investments in the season. And it may be to cut back and it may be to scale up and step out even bolder.

Coaching Help And Next Steps

13:01

So if you recognize that you struggle with that all or nothing thinking and you would like the help to like unpack that and rewire that so that you can choose from the multiple options in between and stop s- the pendulum swinging back and forth, um, you can reach out to me for a one-on-one session I also will do up this idea of all or nothing in a heart doodling lesson so that if you want to work through that, I will have the link in the description. If it's not there right now, I'll come back and add it when it's ready. So that you can walk through the process of actually sitting with what am I looking at as my all or nothing? Like what are the things I'm swinging between? And what are the thoughts and feelings that go with that? And then being able to go that layer deeper to be like, "Well, why... What are the thoughts and feelings that go with that?" And I guess even another layer deeper of where did those come from, and then how do I bring those to the Lord to move beyond that? How is he wanting to use this to make me look more like Jesus?

Final Encouragement And Closing

14:21

Um, I'll put that in a lesson, but that's also like what I do in my one-on-one coaching, is walk you through all of that Well, I trust that this has been helpful, and I will see you next time