All or Nothing Thinking in Individuals with ADHD

Business owners are increasingly being pulled in so many directions, feeling like they aren't reaching their full potential in business and life despite their type a ways. With my background as a therapist, entrepreneur and as a.com dropout with ADHD, I interview and coach high achieving business owners like you who want to stop struggling for success by using psychological systems, strategies and the occasional carefrontation. This is the easily distracted entrepreneur your place to slay overwhelm perfectionism and shiny object syndrome so that you can get done what matters most to you.

00:00:40     

I want to share with you a quote by Henry Cloud, an American psychologist. He says, don't use all or nothing thinking. Take each day as its own day and don't worry about if you mess up one day. The most important thing you can do is just get back up on that horse. Well, all or nothing thinking or I'm going to say all or nothing living is as common to ADHD as being distracted by squirrels.

00:01:07

We live in all or nothing at times, whether that's having a perfectly clean house or it's a total shit show. You go all in on a hobby for three months and then you abandon it, never to look at it again. Or you start exercising every single day for six weeks only to all of a sudden stop and it takes you months to even think about going back. We live in all the things or none of the things. We are not in between people.

00:01:37

We tend to live in extremes. One of the biggest ways I see this pop up for business owners is in the question that I get asked all the time what if I have a plan? But then I'm not feeling it. And even though I usually will ask more questions and kind of get to the bottom of things, what I have noticed is often this is due to all or nothing thinking. We will waste time all day thinking about it, either intentionally filling up our time, actively avoiding the thing we're supposed to be doing or we forget and we're like, oh well, I can't finish it today anyway, so I'll do it tomorrow instead, which is the all or nothing.

00:02:15

We're either going to be doing it or we're not doing it. It may not appear to be all or nothing thinking on the surface, but what ends up happening is you get this momentary sweet relief from the anxiety or the stress and you completely let the thing go only for it to build up again tomorrow. And sometimes this can go on for days and weeks. And that's really the biggest problem with all or nothing thinking is it can keep us stuck, it can keep us in stress and overwhelm and it doesn't allow us to move forward on the goals that matter to us. So I've kind of broken it down to two different areas in which I think we are impacted by all or nothing or why all or nothing thinking is happening for us as ADHDRS.

00:03:01

The first one is perfectionism. And there are two types of perfectionism. There's what's called front end perfectionism. This is where you have conditions. All of these conditions have to be met in order for you to move forward with something.

00:03:16

Or there's back end perfectionism. And that's where it's like I need it to be perfect in order to put something out there. It has to be just so like everything has to be all the T's crossed and all the I's dotted. The other realm is executive functioning, which we know impacts all of us neurospicy people. And this is time struggles.

00:03:40       

So not allowing adequate amount of time to do something that can lead to like all or nothing, because we just feel like, I give up. There's no way I could get this done, so I'm just going to give up. There's no thought about incrementally doing something. Another way that shows up is the forgetting. So we fall off track with something, we forget about it.

00:04:02

And this happens with disruptions to our schedule and I think also not building into our habits. So when something's not really in our habit, we tend to forget about it, we tend to be inconsistent with it. The other part of that is like bandwidth, which kind of combines both of those things. This is when we're over committed. We have decision fatigue, we're dealing with other major stressors.

00:04:28

There's no space to remember or be on top of these other things that we're trying to do or incorporate when it's doing something consistently in our business. And the last reason that I see that kind of would fall under executive functioning is when something happens. So you give a disruption in your schedule, whether that's you're sick or people are visiting, you go on vacation, major life event happens, all kinds of different things that can disrupt our day to day and our weeks. And that can be that a trigger is removed and this is a positive trigger. This is the thing that gets us into action, which we struggle with as ADHDs.

00:05:12

It's getting that activation. So it's like we need this thing to happen in order for us to remember to do that next thing. And so when that gets removed, then it's hard for us to remember. So what can you do to address this all or nothing thinking? Well, first of all, when it comes to the perfectionism part, we can address the conditions.

00:05:34

I like to say we build up these contingencies and so like, this can't happen unless this happens and then I have to do this, this and this. And we build these impossible walls around ourselves into getting something done and it keeps us from moving forward. And that's kind of the all or nothing. Well, if I can't do all of these things and you can't possibly do them all at once, then I can't do it. And we kind of just stay stuck.

00:05:58

The first way you would do this is by asking yourself, how can I make this easy? Or what would make this easier? It's allowing yourself space to let go of all of those contingencies or figure out a way that maybe isn't your ideal or your preferred way, but it's a way to get the ball rolling and to get moving. I recently started with a new client, and she was talking about building her business and what the goals were for her business. And there was all of these parts, all these moving parts.

00:06:34

And as we talked, she was adding on, but then this and has to happen, and this has to happen. And this is very common when I talk to people where they feel like all of these things have to happen in order to move forward. And so we identified what was the one thing that needed to happen first. And I said to her, well, what I see is you need to be making money, but there's no way for people to pay you for anything. And she was like, Well, I want to build this community.

00:06:59

And I'm like, okay, that's great, but we have to get an easy way for people to pay you. So let's just start there. And so sometimes it's about slowing things down, separating all of the pieces and just finding what is that first thing that can happen. Another question you can ask yourself is what would make this good enough? And that's sometimes, again, pulling back what would be nice tos and what are really musts.

00:07:28

Like, what are the real necessities? Just like anybody, I'll say I like to have things be very polished and professional, and I want things to be aesthetic and look nice, and I want to feel like I've done my best job. But sometimes we can get stuck in that space of feeling like I need to do it better, there's more I need to do, and so I can't move forward with this thing. I've talked a lot about my struggles with solo episodes for a myriad of different reasons. But there are those times where I get really excited to record because I want to talk about something I just talked about in a group coaching call or a private coaching call with somebody.

00:08:11

And I'm amped up and it was such a great conversation. It was so helpful for people. So I want to record that episode, but then I go to record and I'm like, well, it should be the best episode, so I better do some research, and I better do X, Y and Z. The reality is these are things I talk about all the time. So I have the expertise, and rather than just writing the outline and then deciding if I need to do research, I always make it contingent on I've apparently got to do all this research, which then I avoid because that sounds not fun and overwhelming.

00:08:45

And I've made it this big thing. So there are times where I just have to be like, okay, let it go. What can I do to make this good enough? Can I just start with what I know? Right?

00:08:56

So sometimes we have to do that self talk to ourselves or break it down and let go of those things that we think have to happen in order to make it good enough. Way to address the perfectionism is to delegate out a task or create distance between you and the thing or the outcome. I see this a lot with and I've experienced it too, where people will create things, they have all these episodes or they have all the social media stuff or reels or videos and they never put it out there because that's where the perfectionism starts coming up. That's that kind of back end perfectionism. Like the impostor syndrome or feeling like it's not good enough.

00:09:45

Like who are you to be doing this, right? And so having somebody else do it. So me creating whatever it is that I create and then having an assistant actually post the stuff on social media or once I've recorded the podcast episode, it's just out of my hands and other people are taking care of it. So that way I can't sit and go, well, should I rerecord? Should I do this over?

00:10:10

Was that good enough? I take away that space from that happening. This also can happen. I've worked with clients where they needed to create that distance in asking for feedback from clients or other things because it just became overwhelming and they would get in their head or even asking for testimonials. And it's like, how can you create distance?

00:10:32

How can you have somebody else do this or make it done in a way that's maybe automated so that you don't have to feel the stress that you're feeling when you're asking for things. Way to address that back end perfectionism again, putting stuff out there in the world that would be getting feedback from a trusted person. Whether that's somebody like an assistant or a good friend who's knowledgeable about this stuff. Not just Sally who has no clue about business or whatever it is that you're doing, right? Asking somebody who you know will give you honest feedback.

00:11:09

Because often we're our worst critics and it's so much more helpful and people see the good stuff in it that we can't always see when it comes to this all or nothing thinking that's impacted more in what I would say is like the executive functioning realm where maybe our bandwidth is really low. We're over committed, we're overwhelmed, we feel exhausted. And we have that case of like I feel tired, I just can't do this. I'm done for the day. And then we kind of cut ourselves off at the foot, right?

00:11:45

Sometimes we need to do that sometimes we really are done for the day, but what we can do is allow ourselves to recharge. So whether that's resting, going out and getting some exercise, doing things that you know, can recharge you and then coming back and reevaluating, sometimes we need to eat, right? We forget to eat. So there's so many things that can be impacting our energy. It could be that we worked for too long without a break.

00:12:12

We haven't talked to anybody all day. We haven't been outside so many things. So take a break whether that's 30 minutes or an hour even longer, and then come back to it. Give yourself time to recharge and then ask yourself, can I do this? And when you come back, also give yourself the option of, okay, can I work for 30 minutes instead of expecting myself to finish the whole thing.

00:12:38

Because we have to remember that baby steps add up to finished goals. And even though I will admit I'm not somebody who tends to incrementally work on something, like if I'm giving a talk or a speech somewhere, I'm not one that's usually like, I'm going to work on it 30 minutes a day. It's not going to be that, right? It's a little bit different. It's about understanding that, well, if I can just do 30 minutes or an hour of something, then that's less time that I have to give to it later on when I get to the crunch, when it's coming up on deadline.

00:13:12

I've had that happen so many times, even thinking about when I would avoid washing dishes when I didn't have a dishwasher, and I would be like, oh, I just can't tonight. And then the next day I was like, why didn't I just do like, one sinkful? Those would be one less sinkful I had to do. There's just so many ways in which we kind of keep ourselves stuck and overwhelmed. Sometimes we need to start intentionally building stuff into our routines.

00:13:39

Like, if you're the kind of person who's like, I either check email and I'm in it all day or I avoid it for a week and then it's super overwhelming, right? We need to figure out ways to build that into your routine. So how can you figure out when that would be the best time or have it be like, this happens? In order for this to happen, however that's done, we need to build it in. The thing that we do have to be mindful of is what is on our plate, like, what are all of our commitments and things we're doing?

00:14:13

So this would be a case if we were trying to add something in that wouldn't be a necessity. Probably like email, although we can question that as well. It makes me think of a good friend who was like, okay, I'm going to start working out and eating healthy. She is a fellow ADHD, and I noticed this trend with her because like all of us, like, we're talking about the all or nothing. She's all in doing it for a while, even sometimes a couple of months, and then it just goes completely away, and it's like a free for all.

00:14:48

Like no exercise, just like living off junk food, that kind of thing. It's like the all or nothing again. And what I noticed was she would go through those periods, and then we would have a time where we were scheduled to meet up or go on a trip. Either she would go on a trip somewhere, or we would be meeting and going on a trip. And right before the trip, she would be like, okay, I'm going to start eating healthy again and working out and getting really restrictive with everything.

00:15:17

And finally, there was one time where she started talking about it, and I said, please do not do this again. Do not come visit me in North Carolina and tell me that now you're not eating any sugar, you're not eating any fried foods or any kinds of stuff. You're going to visit me in the south, and you're not going to eat any of this food. This is somebody who loves food. She's a foodie as well.

00:15:39

So I'm like you're literally setting yourself up for failure, and actually what you're doing is setting yourself up to be miserable on this trip. So you're not even going to enjoy yourself. You're going to feel this overwhelm and this stress of like, I'm on this trip, but I have to be perfect in how I'm eating and how all of this other stuff, right? There's no middle ground. There's no, like, I'm going to mostly eat healthy, but I'm going to try things that I want to try because it's a place I've never been, and I'm into the cuisine.

00:16:07

So it's looking at things like that. If you wanted to start adding movement into your day to day, but you're kind of like a total couch potato right now, you have to look at, do I have the space? Do I create the space for me to build that habit? Do you have the bandwidth? Are you going through something major right now?

00:16:31

Or could you say to yourself, all right, I really wanted to start this habit, but I'm going through this major thing, or this week is launch time in my business, and it's a little extra. Is this the week to start building that habit? Probably not. So again, that's one of those ways of realizing we do those all or nothings because it wasn't part of our routine. We're much more apt.

00:16:53

Like, if you're again, I'm going to use the exercise thing. If you were exercising regularly or getting movement regularly, you're more apt to continue to do that during times of stress or when you have extra stuff on your plate than if you're trying to incorporate it at the same time as major stressors. I kind of wanted to address the abandoned hobbies thing because this is one that people talk about a lot and sometimes it's getting off track, right? Like we have these routines or habits and things happen and we get off track. And sometimes it's because we've let that hobby consume like an extensive amount of our time.

00:17:31

We went all in on it. And so I've worked with people who are like, oh yeah, I'm doing pickleball like 5 hours a day. Which is not really sustainable, right? That's not a sustainable amount. But we tend to hyper focus and get into things.

00:17:49

So sometimes it's that we need to be more reasonable about the frequency or the amount of time that we're giving something. And so instead of having that inexorbitant amount of time, could we do something for like an hour a day instead of 5 hours a day? Right? And then sometimes we master things as ADHD people, we're super into it and then it just no longer holds our interest and we move on. So that's okay too.

00:18:15

So I just want to put that out there because it is something that people talk about a lot, like getting super into things and then moving on and never doing them again. Another way that we can deal with all or nothing is to trick ourselves. So that could be telling ourselves like okay, I'm just going to put on my shoes and walk to the end of the block. Because I said I was going to do a 45 minutes workout every day and I'm running out of time and there just isn't time and I'm overwhelmed and I'm tired and whatever the reasons are. And so just putting on your shoes and say I'm walking to the end of the block.

00:18:52

Often what will happen is we get to the end of the block and we're like oh this feels good. Or I might as well just go a little bit further, a little bit further and then we kind of get into that groove and we keep going. So that can be one of those tricks. And frankly, even if all you did was walk to the end of the block and back, at least that was some movement. Again, we can't dismiss just those little tiny baby steps towards habits or towards goals.

00:19:22

They do add up and it really is about creating consistency. Another way to kind of trick ourselves is to say like this is just a practice round. My friend Abby Herman said that one to me when I was talking about like oh, I have to record this real and I don't know, she's like, just record a practice round. And then usually that first time you do something, it's usually the best or it's good enough, right. And then you end up using it.

00:19:51

And frankly, she knows that I'm the kind of person, like once I've done it, I'm like I don't want to do that again. I'm done that was good enough. And no matter what, I'm just like, let me move on. The goal here is to even out our extremes that we tend to live in as neurospicy people because of how our brains work. And we need to realize, we need to build habits or keep in mind this tendency to all or nothing and how it keeps us stuck and from moving forward or having more balance in our life.

00:20:23

I also think it's about finding a level of acceptance that this is just how you roll or you tend to roll. So giving yourself compassion and just getting back to it, not beating yourself up like, oh, why am I doing this again? What's wrong with me? But just understanding that's the way my brain leans and this is how I have to work with it. If you would like support in implementing strategies like these into your real life so that you make consistent movement towards your big goals in a community of people who really get it.

00:20:56

Applications are now open for the next round of the incubator. Space is limited to ten people, so go apply right now so you don't forget and miss out and we will talk all about what the incubator offers and see if it's a good fit. Go to Amberholly.com incubator. Several current members have reported their most profitable months and I assure you it wasn't from working more every week, people are sharing wins in how the process is helping them in knocking out major projects, growing their businesses, and addressing the mindset and practices that lead them or keep them in burnout. I would love to have you join us.

00:21:38

So again, head on over to Amberholly.com Incubator. And you can also find those links in the show notes or on the website or social media profiles. But I would love to have a conversation with you and support you in all of these ways that ADHD kind of tries to mess with us. I hope that you got something out of this and maybe even recognized like, oh, this is all or nothing thinking and it's impacting me. And if you implement any of these strategies, I would love to hear from you.

00:22:18

Feel free to email me and I will see you next week.