I suppose I’d always admired my former husband’s unshakable confidence, his ability to see the world in straight black and white, right and wrong. For someone like me— a bit of a floater, unsure of her own opinions or goals— he was like the North Star. It didn’t take long for me to see, however, that he’d never really lost any of the misconceptions he’d grown up with when it came to Americans: We were all immoral, selfish, reckless, and disloyal—there were no shades of grey.
I once considered myself the polar opposite of the man I’d married, but I now recognize that I’m just as all or nothing as he ever was. My version of inflexibility just looks different than his did.
- Eat a piece of bread after swearing off wheat, well the diet is shot, so I might as well eat the whole damn loaf.
- I work best in 2-hour blocks of time, so if I’ve only got 10 minutes, screw it, let’s surf the net.
- If my husband and I have a fight, it’s all over, so I need to figure out how I’ll survive.
I can spot my peeps from 50 yards away. They stand out like American tourists in a crowd.
One of my coaching clients, for example, a passionate woman who wants to extricate herself from a project that’s consumed her for two whole years. So she can devote herself full time to the art of poetry. Not in little steps, but overnight.
While my former husband’s rigidity may have been due to cultural upbringing, my client and I can thank our families of origin.
According to The Adult Children of Alcoholics Syndrome by Wayne Kristsberg, this all or nothing mindset is a typical response to, and a way to deal with, having an active alcoholic as part of the family. A habitual attempt to bring order and stability to a chaotic and unstable situation. A byproduct of our inability to negotiate for our own needs. What happens when you “don’t have a sense of the process of life.”
The problem with having an all or nothing mind set is that you tend to walk the planet feeling pretty amped up. Ours is an extreem world where one little slip up equals total failure: where shifts in other people’s mood feel like air-raid signals; where, for it to be worth the effort, we need to run 20 miles.
For us all or nothing folks, only two choices exist. On or off, friend or enemy, right or left, safe or dangerous, harmony or bedlam, pure or evil, failure or success. Seldom is there anything in between. A third option is impossible to conceive.
The good news is that change doesn’t have to be all or nothing, either. You don’t have to immediately change every one of your wretched zebra stripes, or you’ll die, die, die.
It’s ok–REALLY– to recognize the tendency, and to compensate for it.
Here are a few tricks I’ve learned that work like corrective lenses for crappy eyesight.
1. Change your rules.
My old rule about what it means to be a writer went something like this: I am only a writer if I write 4 hours a day and I work exclusively on revising my book. Anything short of that and I’m a delusional fake. My new rule is: I am a writer if I read with an eye on style, or if I putter on a blog or an essay, or if I revise my book, or if I discuss the craft. (See how being more inclusive might make you feel better?)
2. Commit to small chunks.
In the real world there’s a lot of shit to balance. Things go to hell in a hand basket fast when you ignore all those pesky responsibilities. When I can’t sit in a room of my own and write until the cows come home, I’ve learned to schedule three 2-hour time slots each week and to treat them like one would a dialysis appointment.
Little dabs over time will eventually do you.
3. Get good coaching
There is nothing better than describing the rock and the hard place you’re stuck between to an outsider with perspective. An outsider who will then proceed to poke holes in your ridiculous bullshit. An outsider who can offer you 59 alternatives, not including the two you managed to come up with yourself.
Nuff said.
BTW. Walt just bought me Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James. It doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the all or nothing mind set. Wait. Hmmmm. Maybe it does.
