Why You're Either All In Or All Out — And Where That Actually Comes From

If you've ever demolished a packet of biscuits because you already had one, written off the whole week because Monday's workout didn't happen, or set yourself a perfect plan and abandoned it the moment something went wrong — this episode is for you. 

All or nothing thinking is one of the most common patterns I see in the women I work with. And it has very little to do with willpower or discipline. In this episode I get into what it is, how it shows up, and — most importantly — where it actually comes from. Because once you understand that, everything starts to look a little different. What would she do? She'd get curious instead of critical.

Find me on Instagram @worklife_health or drop me an email at jennie@worklifehealth.co.uk — I'd love to know what landed.

Instagram: @worklife_health 

Email: jennie@worklifehealth.co.uk

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to What Would She Do? I'm Jenny Reynolds, nutritionist, health coach, and someone who has spent years learning to hear what people aren't saying. Sometimes it's just me, other times it's conversations with women whose stories will make you think a little differently about your own. So, it's time to ask yourself, what would she do? Hello, welcome back to What Would She Do? Hope everybody's good. Um, summer holidays are in full swing over here for me. I don't know if that's the same for all of you. Um, at the time of recording, we were still very much in World Cup fever. I personally don't really care that much about football, I hate to say it, um, but I can see how happy it makes everybody else. So obviously, I hope that England do well. I am getting much more enjoyment out of watching rugby these days, and that's not something that I've always felt like, I have to say. I actually grew up watching football more, and I was really into it for quite some years when I was younger, but really went off it as an adult for all sorts of reasons. But there's just something about the noise of it and the the behaviour. I just don't, yeah, it just doesn't really appeal to me anymore. And I never really got rugby previously. I didn't understand it. Um, I couldn't comprehend why anybody would want to play it. It's only really been through watching my son play over the last few years where I've actually learned a little bit about it and I can now appreciate how technical it is and how difficult it is, and you know what a great game it is. And now I am firmly in the camp that I would much rather watch um a rugby match than a football match. But thankfully we've been given the gift of both, haven't we, over the last few weeks? So um we've got both football and rugby to look forward to. Anyway, I'm not here to talk about sports, am I? Um what I am here to talk about is something that I'm seeing coming up an awful lot with the women that I'm talking to at workshops, the women that I'm meeting, the women who are talking to me in my DMs about my programs and with clients that I'm already working with. And it's an interesting one because it's not something that people typically come to me and say, Oh, I've got this thing, and can you help me with it, please? They'll come talking about something else. But when we really start to dig into what it is that they do and how difficult they find it to stick to things and what's actually happening in the moments where they're deviating from the plan, that we start to see this pattern emerging. And I can honestly say that the more people I work with, the more I see this as a thing, like it's a real thing. And it's all or nothing thinking. Now, you might be sitting there thinking, yeah, you know, maybe I'm a little bit black and white sometimes, or maybe this isn't something that you relate to at all. But honestly, on some degree or another, there is a little bit of this in all of us, I think, or the potential to be like that. And it might present itself in different ways, like being a perfectionist or being really competitive, but the end result can be similar, and and this is what I'm seeing playing out over and over again with a lot of the women that I'm working with. So, I mean, what is it really? Well, all or nothing thinking is that tendency to be really black and white, you know, to put things into one of two boxes, like it's either really good or it's really bad. It's got to be perfect or it's not worth doing. Like if I've messed up, then I'm not doing it anymore. If it's um, you know, you might hear yourself saying, if a job's worth doing, it's worth doing right, all of that sort of stuff. Um, and the problem with that is that it doesn't leave any kind of wiggle room. Like there's no middle ground, there's no grey area, you're either all in or you're all out. And actually, what you're missing out on is this all of this lovely stuff in the middle. So when it comes to your food, when it comes to your exercise, when it comes to routines and habits and the way that you look after yourself, actually having this all or nothing thinking keeps you either in that top 10% or the bottom 10%. And you're kind of leaving the other 80% on the table where you could be making progress, where you could be seeing impact, you could be making shifts. You're not doing it because you're stuck at one end or the other. And if you are stuck in those two ends, anything that brings you out of them, one small slip can mean catastrophe for you. And what might that look like? So eating one biscuit, maybe somebody brings you a cup of tea and there's a biscuit on the side of the plate already, and you're hungry, so you eat it, and then you think to yourself, well, I've eaten a biscuit now, I might as well just sack it off for the rest of the day. And before you know it, you've eaten half the packet or the whole packet. Same with crisps, or maybe it's a glass of wine, or maybe you've set yourself the target of going to the gym at 6 a.m. five mornings a week, but Monday morning there's something going on and you don't get to go. So you think, well, I've missed Monday. What's the point? Won't bother going again. And maybe you go back on Monday, maybe you don't, but that's the nature of all or nothing thinking. It doesn't allow for momentary lapses, it turns them into something much, much bigger. You start to tell a story to yourself about them and make them mean something that they don't necessarily mean. So I was actually at a workshop a couple of weeks ago, and one of the ladies there was talking about this, and she'd said, you know, actually, I feel like I know what to eat, and I was really proud of myself because I'd followed the plan and I'd been eating really, really well. But then she'd picked her daughter up from school and she'd got some chocolates that she'd been given, and she found herself basically demolishing a bag of revels on the car journey with her daughter. And rather than just seeing that as a momentary lapse, and okay, look, maybe it wasn't the ideal thing to eat the bag of revels, but it's not the end of the world. And actually, you can put the rubbish in the bin and just move on with your life and keep going. She saw that as total failure. She felt embarrassed by it, she was ashamed of herself, she was really frustrated with herself. And that led to her just sacking it off for the weekend and then starting again on Monday. So actually, what she missed out on was a whole weekend of eating well, which would have made her feel much better about herself. So that's what we see, or that's what I see in the women that I'm talking to. And when they start to talk to me about all these other plans that they've tried before, what you notice is that, you know, traditional diet plans are by their very nature restrictive. And if you're an all or nothing person, then you're that person who's going to go out, buy all the shopping, clear all of your cupboards, because this is the plan that you're on. I'm all in and I'm taking it seriously. And if it's worth doing, then it's worth doing right. And then something happens, life happens, maybe you have to eat out one night unexpectedly, and you end up eating a burger and chips. Or maybe you are out for lunch and accidentally drink a bottle of wine with your friend, then all of a sudden that becomes, well, I'm not on my plan anymore, therefore I must be completely off it. Like there's no wiggle room, there's no ability to look at that and say, okay, it's a one-off, not going to do it again this week. I'm just going to get straight back to my plan. What you're doing is saying, if I'm not a hundred percent sticking to this plan, then I'm a hundred percent not. And actually, you're missing out on all of this lovely stuff in between. So, where does this actually come from then? Well, it can come from a number of different places, but often this will come from childhood. It will come from the way that people related to you potentially when you were little. Maybe you grew up in a house where you were praised for achievements. Maybe you were praised when things were good. If you did something good at school, you got lots of attention and love and praise. And if you didn't, then maybe you kind of slipped into the background. Maybe you're one of many siblings, and actually to get noticed, you had to do something really good. You weren't praised or didn't feel like you were praised if you weren't exceeding everybody's expectations. In those first seven years of life, your brain is basically like a sponge, and your nervous system is being trained, it's being conditioned based on your experiences, based on how people interact with you, how they respond to you, how you get love and attention, and how you earn respect. So all or nothing thinking is no different to any other pattern in that sense. The messages that we took on, the things that we internalized as facts about ourselves and how the world works. And as always, I do just want to make the point here that this isn't about blaming your parents or your upbringing for anything that you've struggled with for the rest of your life, it's just about noticing, getting curious, like when was the first time that I felt like this? And how often have I felt like this throughout my throughout my life? And I mean, that said, obviously it can come from more traumatic childhoods, but it doesn't necessarily need to. If you grew up in a household where love and affection felt conditional, you know, where you were praised if you got it right, but actually there was a real absence or withdrawal when you didn't get it right, if you were expected to be perfect all of the time and actually didn't really feel safe if you made a mistake, then that can obviously be the origin of this kind of a pattern. But it can also come from something much more subtle. You know, you might have grown up in a household that was lovely with lovely parents who showered you with love and affection. But don't forget that we're talking about that period of your life between birth and the age of seven. So as a child of that age, we don't have the emotional kind of capabilities and regulation to really understand what's going on. You know, we we're not mature enough to understand context. So we are basing our interpretation of the world at that time in our life from a child's perspective. Like it's really difficult to look at it as an adult and really comprehend why a child might have thought the way that they did. So you might have had a completely loving, completely normal upbringing, but have still developed this pattern because as a child, you're processing the world around you without that emotional vocabulary and without that cognitive capacity to really understand context. So if you are a highly sensitive child and many of the women that I work with were highly sensitive children, then you notice things. You notice things that other people don't necessarily notice. You might spot that there's some tension in the room, even when someone hasn't said a word. Maybe you notice a little shift in a facial expression. Maybe your mum's face just suddenly drops, or your dad just goes quiet, and you don't necessarily have the ability to understand what's going on, and you don't know that it's not about you. It could just be grown-ups dealing with grown-up stuff. They've had a bad day, they're stressed about something at work, it's completely unrelated to you as this little child, but you don't know that, you don't understand that, you don't have the ability to comprehend that. So you make it mean something about yourself. So as this little child, you might be thinking, Oh, mum seems upset, I must have done something wrong. Or dad's really quiet tonight. I just need to cheer him up, I need to be better. Maybe if I'm good enough, maybe if I'm perfect enough, if I just get everything right, then everything will be okay and mum will be happy and dad will be happy. So it doesn't need to come from anything particularly negative in childhood. I think that's the point that I'm making. It can come from that, it can come from a household where maybe you you had harsh parents who made no bones about the fact that they expected you to perform, they expected you to do well, they had these expectations of you and they made them clear. And if you fell short of them, then maybe there was punishment involved. But my point is that it could be that, or it could be just your interpretation of the world through a child's eyes. But either way, as a child, you learned that by being good, by being perfect, that was how you managed your world. And this all or nothing thinking is a strategy that actually kept you feeling safe, kept you feeling happy. And the problem is, is that whilst you might have grown up, your strategy hasn't evolved with you. And this is what I see happening. You know, when all or nothing thinking meets a woman who in every other respect might be really high achieving, it's quite common for women who are high achieving to have all or nothing thinking because it is that kind of drive that might allow you to succeed where others fail. You know, these are women who are used to being good at things. You know, you've done it your whole life. Your whole sense of self-worth and identity is attached to being good at things. You might have built a career based on you being really capable and really reliable, and you're the person who can get things done. You are not someone who fails once you've set your mind to something. So when it does happen, like when you set yourself a plan and then you fall off it, you just, you know, you've eaten the wrong thing, or you've skipped a session, or you've fallen into the temptation of a glass of wine at the end of a stressful day. It doesn't feel just like a little blip to you. It feels like evidence, evidence that you can't do this thing, you can't follow this plan. It's bigger than you, it's greater than you, and you can't do it, that you're different from the women who can follow it. Maybe there's actually something wrong with you. And actually the shame that comes with that is really significant because you're not the person who fails at things except apparently at this. You know, I'm really struggling with this and I just don't understand it. And that shame spiral starts. And when you feel shame, actually you feel stressed. And when you feel stressed, you're much more likely to revert back to your old patterns and you're going to struggle to use your resources of discipline and motivation and your logical brain to overcome it and to start again. So, in this scenario, you've got this person that has this core belief about themselves that they're capable of doing big things. And now they're faced with this thing that they can't do. They feel like they can't do it because I'm all in or I'm all out. And I've just proved to myself that I'm not all in because I've just eaten this thing. Therefore, I must be all out, therefore I must be failing. So she starts again. And what does she do? She goes harder this time because she thinks that she needs to. She sets bigger rules, she gives herself more restrictions. Well, I just need more firm rules and regulations to stick to, more pressure. And then when it doesn't stick again, because it won't, you know, this this pattern is still running, then the shame gets louder and louder and louder, and the story gets bigger about her, and this cycle digs in deeper. So this is not a discipline problem. This is not something that can be solved by giving yourself more and more rules to follow and more structure to follow. This is a pattern that is running underneath, and it's running on a very old program that was written before you ever even started school. Now, for me, I find for myself that I don't necessarily identify as having all or nothing thinking. What I do recognize in myself is competition, a real competitive streak. And it can show up in a very similar way, really similar behavior. Like I'll assess something really, really quickly. And if I can't see how I'm gonna win at that, then I'm probably not gonna play. If I don't think I'm gonna be good at something, then I find it really hard to start. And it's that same feeling underneath it. It's not all or nothing, but it's that's that fear of trying something and coming up short. So it's almost like a shame, it's an embarrassment. I'd I don't feel safe to not be good at something. And it's that same kind of preference for risk aversion. I don't want to risk failing. I don't want to risk looking stupid. So therefore, I'm just not gonna do it. So I've had to be really honest with myself about that and where that comes from, where it shows up when I'm not paying attention, because it can manifest in all sorts of areas, in your relationships, in your work, in your food, in your exercise, absolutely everywhere. And it really can hold you back. So this is why it's important to start looking at these things and recognize it in yourself, not from the point of view of, oh, look at this terrible trait that I've got, look at this awful behavioural pattern that I just keep repeating. Isn't it awful that I just can't pull myself together? We're not doing that. Like we're not here for that. What we're here for is getting really curious and getting to know yourself on a much deeper level. So recognizing that you have that pattern. Is it the all or nothing thing? Is it the competitive streak? Is it just that fear of failure? However it kind of resonates for you, it will be showing up in this same way. Like I'm either going to do it really, really well or I'm not gonna do it at all. So I can't give you a short list of things to do to fix this. I just don't think that that's the way that it works. But what I do know is that the most important thing, and this is the thing that has to come first, is awareness. You cannot interrupt a pattern that you haven't noticed. And most of the women that come to me haven't actually reached the point of being able to identify this as being the root cause of what's going on for them. So even just getting to that point, naming it, you know, they just come to me and think that they're somebody who can't moderate. They'll say to me, Oh, I'd love to be the kind of person who can just have a biscuit with their cup of tea and then leave the rest of it. I'd love to be the kind of person who can just have one glass of wine and not need to drink the rest of the bottle. So they've they're making this mean something about their character. Like I'm someone who just can't moderate. And actually, once we start to really name it for what it is, you can separate yourself from it, you can see where it comes from, it becomes something that you can start to work on. You know, maybe these are women who think that they just self-sabotage all the time, which is quite a negative thing to think about yourself. They think they're someone who starts things and just doesn't finish them. So you see the difference in the way that that makes you feel about yourself. One of them is inherently, well, you're clearly just this kind of a person, and isn't that terrible? And the other is actually, oh, hang on a minute, I'm doing something here that worked for me when I was little. It kept me feeling loved. It brought me the love and attention that I wanted and it kept me feeling safe. Not this negative assertion about yourself. So what if we start to notice that? What if we start to recognise that this was not a negative character trait, but actually an old survival strategy that made sense once? It kept you safe at some point. But now, as a fully resourced adult with other tools available to you, it just doesn't serve you anymore. So that's the invitation. Like next time you notice yourself flipping and going from completely on it to completely off it, recognize that that's what's happening and just pause even for a second. And before you start to allow that feeling of shame or embarrassment or criticism sneaking in, don't allow that story to start running. Instead of getting straight to that, well, what's wrong with me? Start to get curious. Ask yourself, what just happened there? What did that feel like? And if you want to go a little bit deeper, when was the last time I felt like that? When was the first time I felt like that? And you don't need to have all of the answers, but just starting to become aware and starting to ask yourself those questions starts to bring it into your conscious awareness. And that is where everything begins to shift.

SPEAKER_00 21:04

So here's the thing that I want to leave you with.

SPEAKER_01 21:12

So this all or nothing pattern, it didn't start as you being a terrible person who self-sabotages and can't moderate, it started as self-protection. It was your younger self doing the very best that she could with what she had. And actually, when we look at it like that, this little version of you deserves a little bit more compassion than she's been getting rather than being criticized, and so do you. And in the spirit of what would she do, if you were to ask yourself what your future elevated version might do in this situation, well, she'd probably just have the one biscuit and then leave it there. If something landed for you today, I'd love to hear from you. Come and find me over on Instagram. And before you go, just take a moment and ask yourself what would she do?