On Goals & How I Learned to Change My All or Nothing Thinking

Still a work in progress...

Writing this was deeply therapeutic, almost as a letter to my past self.  

I do not claim to be some expert in this specific area, but felt there was enough here that it could help someone. 

This short essay on goals may seem like common sense to some. But to me this is a vastly different approach than I’ve tried in the past.

Due to the specific way my brain is wired, I tend to get commonly stuck in an all or nothing style of thinking.

I learned about this concept a few months back from John Bradshaw and it was me to a T.

For context, I've provided a summary of this fairly common trap: 

People with an all or nothing thinking style will (from Chat GPT):

"All or nothing thinking," also known as black-and-white thinking, is a cognitive distortion where situations are perceived in extreme, absolute terms without any middle ground or shades of gray. Here are ten examples:

• Success or Failure: Believing that if something is not perfect, it's a complete failure. For example, thinking you're a terrible cook because one dish didn't turn out well.

• Good or Bad: Labeling people or situations as entirely good or bad. For instance, thinking someone is a bad person because they made a mistake.

• Always or Never: Using absolute terms like "always" or "never" in thinking or speaking, such as "I always mess things up" or "You never listen to me."

• Love or Hate: Having only extreme feelings towards others, like thinking you either must love or hate someone, with no in-between.

• All or Nothing in Relationships: Believing a relationship must be perfect to be worthwhile, or else it’s completely worthless.

• Success in Terms of Extremes: Thinking you must achieve the highest level of success in your field, or you are a total failure.

• Health and Fitness: Believing that if you can't follow a diet or exercise regime perfectly, you should not bother at all.

• Personal Beliefs and Opinions: Thinking that if someone disagrees with you on one topic, they must be completely against you in all aspects.

• Learning and Intelligence: Believing that if you don't understand something quickly, you must be unintelligent.

• Financial Success: Thinking you are either rich and successful or poor and unsuccessful, without recognizing the vast spectrum in between.

Now how does this relate to goals?

You hear a lot of arguments or discussions on the internet whether we should set goals, intentions, implement habits, create systems, etc…and which way is the best way. 

I’ve found much of this thinking and discourse to have some serious flaws.

Then we have the even more misleading category:  

Goals are not needed, simply act with Spirit, God, Presence, The Universe and all of your wildest dreams will unfold before your eyes without effort. 

"Wu Wei your way to riches..."

Here’s something radical in some circles: 

It’s okay to set goals…

Tell this to a spiritual person that has been mislead and you might get a surprising reaction.

And you can tell this to your favorite self improvement guru: 

It’s okay not to accomplish your goals. 

There’s nothing wrong with your character, there’s nothing inherently wrong with your being. 

Maybe it was just slightly out of reach

Maybe there was something out of your control (someone gasps as they claim to create their own reality)

Maybe you’ve lost interest in the thing you were chasing

I’ve accomplished some goals that I set out to achieve, but failed miserably on others. 

• I wanted to play varisity basketball in high school. And by my junior year I was a starter, after barely getting any time on JV, and being (for the most part) not a natural athlete.

• I competed in University Nationals in weightlifting events in college and my early 20s. 

• I set a goal to snatch 300lbs and I did that, I set a goal to clean 400lbs and I did that too.

• I started a consulting business that I’ve been able to run as a solopreneur for almost 2 years
  

But I’ve also failed miserably at many (most) goals I set. 

• I dreamed of making it into the NBA for years but never even made it onto a college basketball team.

• I was dead set that I was going to go to the Olympics, but I never even qualified for a World Championship team, much less the Olympics.

• I wanted to make $1million dollars within a year of starting my own business….and  I failed in accomplishing that (even after writing it down in notebooks everyday for 6 months, maybe I just needed one more day...) 

Now the point here isn’t to list my accomplishments and failures, but merely to show that I’ve achieved some goals and not others.

But rather than focus on the realities of the situation, in setting new goals:  

I would try and find the perfect goal setting and visualization system to guarantee that I would accomplish the next one.

If my last goal failed it was surely because I the goal accomplishing device was flawed and not because of some things I failed to do, unrealistic expectations given my abilities, and circumstances completely outside of my control.

Then we have the whole other issue of the nature of the goals I was setting. 

Always extreme, always going to be the best at X or Y, and in the fastest time ever seen. 

Even the goals themselves were all or nothing. 

Here’s how I look at goals now:

• Set a reasonable goal that you believe you can achieve

• It’s okay not to accomplish a goal

• Don't base all your happiness on its accomplishment

• But you are still allowed to care about it, if you accomplish it you will naturally experience joy and contentment

• You are still allowed to experience joy and happiness along the way to the end goal

• Achieving the goal has absolutely no impact on your value as a human being

As I mentioned in the intro, this may all seem like common sense to some.  But these are concepts I never even considered in setting previous goals. 

Before learning about this my two goal setting strategies were:

1. Going all in and obsessing over one thing at the expense of all other aspects of my life until I accomplish it, I breakdown, or it breaks me

2.  Never setting any goals, and trusting that Source, the Universe, God, Presence, would provide.

Both worked somewhat, both had serious flaws.

And notice how even my goal setting strategies were either all or nothing.

As with many things, there is some middle ground to be found. 

These concepts are all still fairly new to me, so please anyone reading this, do not take it as a prescription.

My hope is that if anyone else that is struggling with this line of thinking, in this case related to goal setting, will find some help here.