All-or-Nothing Thinking
Is anything less than complete success really failure?
Welcome to the second article in Pitfalls of Perfectionism, a blog series exploring how perfectionism can hold you back. To motivate ourselves, we may attach extreme, binary definitions to success and failure. This article features practical strategies for managing this pitfall of all-or-nothing thinking: a ladder to help you get out of the pit, and a bridge to help you avoid falling in.
Very little beats the rush of succeeding. Getting an A+ on a test, receiving a promotion, winning an award — if you’re a perfectionist, success is often being the best, not just good enough. It can feel extremely validating when you succeed. You know you would not feel this accomplished unless you have achieved your highest potential.
However, with the many ways you can experience success, there are unfortunately many more ways to experience failure. When ‘success’ equals ‘being the best,’ anything less can feel not good enough: if success is an A+, failure is an F, yes, but also a D, C, B, or A-.
Embedded in this style of thinking is a common cognitive distortion: all-or-nothing thinking.
What is All-Or-Nothing Thinking?
All-or-nothing thinking is a binary thought process that reduces a spectrum of outcomes down to two extremes: good or bad, always or never, success or failure.
“If I make a single mistake, this whole thing will be a failure.”
“If I am not succeeding, I am failing.”
“If I fail, I can never succeed.”
“If I fail, I am a failure.”
These statements may feel true, but they lack nuance. Instead of acknowledging a middle ground between complete success and total failure, they assume that only those two outcomes exist. It becomes impossible to do things simultaneously right and wrong. Everything in life becomes pass/fail — except passing is acing and failing is anything else.
As a perfectionist, you may also have all-or-nothing thinking about failure’s ability to predict the future and reflect your sense of self. The third statement — “If I fail, I can never succeed” — assumes that failure is a permanent state, and the last statement — “If I fail, I am a failure” — positions ‘failing’ as an internal or moral deficiency rather than a skill-based one.
Let’s imagine the following scenario: you are giving a presentation in class or at work. It was a good presentation overall, but your teacher or supervisor gave you constructive feedback on one section. All-or-nothing thinking is coming to the conclusion that you bombed the presentation because one section was less than perfect. You may even take it a step further and call yourself a ‘failure’ because the presentation wasn’t completely perfect. This thought process isn’t usually so explicit, but it often lies underneath self-criticism and a response to pressure from others to be better.
Why Am I Like This?
There is nothing wrong with wanting success. Awards, promotions, and A+’s can be instrumental in getting us to the places we want to go, into our desired careers, and toward personally meaningful lives.
The problem is that the sting of failing can be as strong as the rush of succeeding, even and especially when you have still done better than average. ‘Nearly there’ can hurt more than ‘not even close’ because you may feel that if you had just tried a little bit harder, you would have succeeded — you would have been first place instead of second.
No matter how harmful they seem in the present, most habits and behaviours likely helped you at some point. All-or-nothing thinking is no exception: it can feel safer to doubt yourself and put yourself down before anyone else can.
If believing success and failure are diametrically opposed worked for you in the past, you will probably continue believing that your only possibilities are being a total success or a complete failure. As a perfectionist, your brain will likely highlight evidence of failure while disregarding evidence of success — or even just evidence of doing okay. Maybe this mindset is motivating at first, but you may reach a point where it feels more defeating.
Ladder: Notice, name, and neutralize
If all-or-nothing thinking is a habit, it can be broken with time and effort. Cognitive distortions, like all-or-nothing thinking, often feel automatic. You receive a rejection email, and you instantly think, “I am such a failure. I will never find a job.” Your hockey coach says you need to improve your stick technique, and your mind goes, “I am no good. I will be such a loser if I don’t make the team.”
Notice, name, and neutralize — an acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) technique — can help break the cycle of all-or-nothing thinking and promote cognitive flexibility, a less fixed mindset.
The first step is to notice these thoughts as they occur. Look out for words like “always” or “never” that hint at a generalization being made. All-or-nothing thinking can also have an ‘anxious’ vibe, communicating worry about what your problems mean for the future. Get curious about your thoughts instead of judging them.
The second step is to name the thought. Take a few deep breaths and focus on physical sensations that have been activated. Then, name the thought by saying either out loud or to yourself, “I am having the thought that [I am a failure],” replacing the content in the brackets with the content of your specific thought.
Finally, the third step is to neutralize the thought by considering whether the thought works for you. Ask yourself, “Is it workable for me to think that [I am a failure]? Does it serve me and support me in living my life based on my values?” If the answer is yes, you can stop here.
If the answer is no — which is probably the case if you have made it this far — replace your original thought with a more nuanced and balanced one. For instance, if your thought is, “I am such a failure. I will never find a job,” you may replace it with, “It is so difficult to find a job these days. I didn’t get the job this time, but that doesn’t mean I won’t succeed in the future.” Even adding the word “yet” to certain thoughts can encourage less rigid thinking, such as “I haven’t found a job yet” or “I can’t solve this yet.”
The replacement thought should stick with the observable facts of what happened and sprinkle in some self-compassion. This process is by no means easy, but with practice, noticing, naming, and neutralizing will come faster to you.
Bridge: Explore how you define ‘success’ and ‘failure’ through journaling
We often throw these words around without interrogating how we define them. People define ‘success’ and ‘failure’ very differently depending on their upbringing and lived experiences. The success/failure binary can flatten how we experience life, so it can be helpful to remind ourselves of the grey areas, the nuance that creates the full spectrum of human experience.
Regardless of whether you engage in all-or-nothing thinking or have perfectionist tendencies, consider journaling about your relationship with success and failure. How do you determine each? Is there a middle ground between them? How do you feel when you have achieved something? When you fail to achieve something? How do ‘success’ and ‘failure’ work for and/or against you? What have you gained from failure and lost from success?
If you are new here, my name is Diem Morriswala (he/they), and I am a therapist who works with perfectionists of all lived experiences and walks of life.
I would be honoured to sit with you through life as we know it and collaborate with you to work toward what life could be. Feel free to book a free 15-minute consultation with me by filling out my contact form here.
