Avoiding All Or Nothing Thinking
April 15, 2013Slow and Steady
How many times have you said to yourself ‘today is the day I’m going to change my life’ or ‘today is the day I’m going to get healthy’? For most people, they have the best intentions but have a hard time actually making the changes last.
So what causes so many people to throw in the towel? It’s not a lack of motivation or willpower or a character flaw. More often it’s because of a poorly laid plan and all-or-nothing thinking. I’ve seen it with my clients time and time again. They decide to make a total life overhaul, going from a life of drive-thrus, couch surfing and inactivity to one filled of vegetables, hours at the gym and making healthy choices 100% of the time.
Changing multiple behaviors at once and having wildly high expectations is a recipe for disaster.
One small misstep appears as a ‘fail’ and once a person feels that they ‘blew it’ they put off restarting the transformation process until the next perfect day, week or month.
Does this sound like anyone you know? They start out with the plan to be ‘perfect’ and when the complete behavioural lobotomy proves to be too overwhelming, they give up until the next big start date and throw their healthy habits out the window. This is why incredibly strict diets and over-training, that are impossible to stick to, do not get people to their goals.
We need a shift in thinking. We need to think about making slow changes, one at a time, that aren’t entirely life altering. Rather than throwing yourself haphazardly into a completely new lifestyle, take a breath, sit down and make a strategic, well laid out plan. The best plan of attack is to make subtle lifestyle changes that you barely notice are happening. That’s how new behaviours become permanent.
Not sure where to start? Here’s a step-by-step process for how to make it work for you. Since most of my clients face the biggest struggle in terms of nutrition, we’ll use the example of the goal to become a ‘clean eater’.
Mapping Out the Plan to ‘Clean Eating’:
1.) Look at your ultimate goal and identify what behaviours you are doing now that don’t align with that goal. Decide where your nutrition needs to be changed and create a list of mini goals. Ideally the steps are relatively small, specific behaviours you can focus on one at a time. For example: adding protein with breakfast, eating 5-10 servings of veggies per day, removal of calorie laden drinks, not stopping at the convenient store on the way home from work, or removal of added sugars and processed cereal/granola bars.
2.) From your list, pick one behaviour as a starting point. For our example, let’s choose the removal of calorie laden drinks from your diet. From there, develop the best strategy possible and cover all of your bases. When you go into the coffee shop, what will you have instead of the blended sugar bombs? What if you have withdrawals from the sugar and/or caffeine? How will you deal with cravings? Map out strategies to set up your ideal environment for success. For some people this might mean always carrying around a water bottle, finding a tea they like instead or maybe going for a walk during their afternoon break instead of to the coffee shop downstairs.
3.) Start! Focus on that behaviour (and that behaviour only) until it becomes natural and effortless. The more often you do a behaviour, the more automatic and less effortful it will become. Record your success everyday. Give yourself a check-mark each day you complete your mini-behaviour goal. This part is important. Validating your efforts by recording success on a page has been shown to improve performance and will tell you when you can move forward. Once you stop having to plan and it feels like a regular routine in your day you’re ready. This doesn't mean you have to be 100% on track every day. Remember, it’s not about all or nothing. What you’re looking for is that it is a comfortable part of your day and that it no longer requires a lot of thought or effort to keep it up. Re-evaluate your progress every couple of weeks and make sure you’re ready before you move to the next step.
4.) Once you feel like you’ve mastered the first behaviour, look at your nutrition again and pick the next goal to lead you along your path to your ultimate goal. So now that we’ve cut out soda and iced cappuccinos, maybe the next step would be to add more fruits and veggies to equal 5-10 servings per day. Then go back to step 3 and repeat!
Now here’s the crucial piece of information. Despite the best laid plans we all know that life will never be perfect. We can set up the environment and have the utmost willpower but there will be moments where we don’t make choices that are totally in line with our goals. What’s important is that we pick right back up again the next time we have a decision to make and continue on our path. Don’t beat yourself up for going slightly off track. Operate on the principle of a ‘fresh start’ opportunity. Remember if you veer off course at breakfast, it doesn't mean the rest of your day is shot. It doesn’t need to be restarted ‘tomorrow’, ‘Monday’ or ‘after your birthday’. It needs to be restarted now. It’s not about whether or not you have missteps it’s about how quickly you get back up.
Starting your life on a healthier path isn't about doing a full 180 and changing all of your behaviour in one grand sweep. It’s about slow, incremental changes that you barely notice are happening. Slow and steady wins the race.
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