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ALL-OR-NOTHING:

All-or- Nothing personalities are extremists, driven to achieve goals or abandon goals. If you’re in the all-or- nothing category, you can flip from one extreme to its opposite, going from gung-ho to gung-ho- hum. You’re a thrill seeker, looking for the next big kick that will give you a mega-rush of excitement. Problem is, you often neglect other areas of your life while pursuing your passions. Your preoccupation with achieving your goal to the exclusion of everything else eventually leaves you feeling burnt out, empty, and depressed. You need to learn to live without the high-highs and low-lows and find a middle ground.

THE ALL OR NOTHING

The all or nothing person devotes himself entirely to a chosen activity, job, or goal. Excluding himself completely in order to achieve his goal, the all or nothing person puts blinders on all other areas of his life. Whereas the perfectionist wants to be perfect at everything, the all or nothing person wants to achieve a single exclusive goal. To that end, other areas of the person’s life can often be neglected in order to achieve this goal. Additionally, where the perfectionist operates out of feeling of anxiety, the all or nothing person operates out of a feeling of excitement. In focusing solely on his goal, and operating at an artificially high rate, the all or nothing person experiences a rush in his pursuit of his goal. The all or nothing has a high need for excitement, and often, as a child gravitated toward extreme, or high risk sports and activities. At that time, he may have gained his parents attention through his extreme behavior, and felt as though, without doing these things to gain his parents attention, he was neglected, or overseen. Where balance in life can bring most people a sense of satisfaction, and comfort, for the all or nothing person, this satisfaction and comfort lies in the rush they get from their single minded pursuit of their goals. So while they may not only feel insignificant when not in a rush, they also can be uncomfortable, or bored with a life in balance. Unfortunately, this makes burnout the inevitable ending for the all or nothing person. When they do burn out, it usually leaves them feeling very listless, worn out, and without purpose. As the all or nothing person’s life is built entirely around their single minded pursuit, without it, they can feel very hollow and depressed. In the case of achieving health, or even weight loss, this can make life very challenging. The all or nothing person tends to over-exercise, become overly restrictive with his diet, and without balance, burn out. When he does burn out, he again, is prone to maladaptive behaviors, like drinking, over-eating, or smoking. As he may have used some of these things to keep himself going during his pursuit of his goals, he now is likely to turn almost entirely to these things. In this sense, the all or nothing person’s burnouts can often look like the opposite of his goal pursuits. Where he is extreme in his pursuits of his goals, he is also extreme in his burnouts. But in addition to being extreme in his goal pursuits and burnouts, the all or nothing person also becomes bored easily. He may have trouble with goals that are long term, or not in the near future. He may also struggle with exercise programs that are not varied and changing in nature. In a sense, if the exercise program is not exciting, the all or nothing person will give up quickly. Obviously it is unrealistic to think that exercise programs will always be exciting, and part of what the all or nothing person needs to learn is to be content with things that are not exciting. While all or nothing people may struggle with balance, they are often described as fun, entertaining, creative, and often, the life of the party. For that reason, they make great entertainers, musicians, actors, and comedians. Their high affinity for excitement and adrenaline can also make them formidable athletes, often leaning toward extreme sports. They are often very respectful of others, and operate from a place of desiring fun and excitement. However, as they often focus solely on having fun, they are prone to feelings of loneliness and lack of purpose when they burn out.

Ty was a star football player in high school, and was the favorite of not just the team, but his friends at school. He was the apple of his father’s eye, and with every football achievement, his father’s pride swelled. He could always be found where the party was, as it seemed like the party followed him wherever he went. At times he dabbled in drugs and alcohol, but his focus on his football could not be deterred. It was his sole purpose, and everything else in his life had to take a back seat. So when he had a jet ski accident while vacationing, he was caught completely off guard. The accident resulted in a severe concussion and hospitalization that sidelined his football schedule for several weeks. Without being cleared by the doctor he was not able to return to play, and his mood suffered. As he felt hollow and without purpose, he started smoking marijuana, looking for some relief. He described this to his parents as relief for headaches, but it was actually a relief for the heartache he felt about his lack of purpose. His whole life had been around football, and he had excluded all other activities in his life to achieve his goal. When this goal was gone, he had nothing else in his life to turn to, and felt completely lost. The marijuana use led to weight gain, which compounded his feelings of sadness and emptiness. Ty had never had a weight problem in his life, and, at this point, he knew he needed help.

Playing with the kids, as an example, may account for as many as 1000 calories. In this way, activities he not have considered before can be seen to have value in his weight loss pursuits. Where in the past, he has used only one goal to achieve a sense of competence and excitement, and has excluded all other areas of his life to achieve this goal, leading to an unbalanced life that ended in burnout, using a larger goal with several methods to achieve this same goal can offer the all or nothing person the variety and excitement that he craves. This approach can also teach the all or nothing person to value more than one way to achieve his goal.

THE ALL OR NOTHING

Workshop 1- Who You Are: As an all-or- nothing personality, you are addicted to extremes and live for the adrenaline rush that comes with living on the edge. You are motivated by a desire for attention, and you’ll go to extreme lengths to get it.

Why You’re That Way: Many all-or- nothing personalities came from families where they didn’t receive the attention they desired. This led to trying diverse ways, both positive and negative, to gain the notice of significant people in their lives. In adulthood, the attention seeking has continued, leaving you pursuing the adrenaline rush.

Characteristics of an ‘All or Nothing’

Devoted

Extremists

Exclusion

Need for excitement

Single minded pursuit of a goal

Boredom

Adrenaline rush

Attention seeker

What areas of your life have you excelled or been successful having this trait?

What areas of you or your life has this trait not served you as well?

Has it affected your health & lifestyle? Your happiness?

In order to achieve health and weight loss, the all or nothing person will need to utilize more than one area of his life to achieve a sense of competence and excitement. As he is accustomed to devoting his entire focus to only one area of his life to gain this sense of competence and excitement, in order to change this, he will have to be willing to adjust to a lower level of excitement, as he will be diverting his attention to many areas, instead of just one. What this means, is that the all or nothing person will have to accept a life that does not feel as exciting as what he is used to. Or, perhaps, the variety will appeal to the all or nothing person that becomes bored easily. In this sense, he can learn to use his need for variety, and high affinity for excitement, to his advantage. He can challenge himself to incorporate as many different activities into his week, or month, while remaining consistent with his weight loss goals. For example, if his goal is to burn 10,000 calories per week, he can accomplish this goal through challenging himself to use as many different activities to do this as possible. Wearing a heart rate monitor that also accounts for calories burned, he may find that activities he may not have even considered exercise actually burn significant amounts of calories.

Workshop 2- How You Feel: All-or-nothingism leaves you crashing after each new high. You know you’ll have to come down to earth and deal with the consequences: adrenal fatigue, boredom, emptiness, and burnout.

With this personality trait, do you expect the same of others, loved ones?

Has this skewed your judgment towards others if they do not measure up?

How would you like to see yourself differently?

Has is affected your health & lifestyle? Your happiness?

Workshop 3– Relationships/Family: Your relationships suffer because you put people on the back burner while you focus on your goals. People get tired of getting ignored or put off, and while you’re out taking a hike, they take a permanent hike. The irony is that by abandoning others while you pursue your goals, you often end up feeling abandoned. You seek attention, but don’t offer it to others.

Frequently, parents of the all or nothing person were not necessarily neglectful, but may have had several other children, were preoccupied with family stress, of perhaps experiencing marital conflict. Whatever the case may be, the all or nothing child found that through excluding everything in his life to focus solely on his goal, he found a sense of escape, or relief of tension. As he found this, he also gained acceptance through his parents attention for his extreme behavior. Where the parents attention may not have always been positive, for the all or nothing child, it was a way to feel noticed, and significant. As adults, all or nothing people struggle mightily with significance. As they have built their entire identity around these extreme, single minded pursuits, it can be hard to imagine a life without them. Some all or nothing people even describe this as feeling like they have to give up the rush.

How has this affected you?
What have you missed out on by having this trait?
What is important to you at the end of the day?
If you look back at your life would you feel fulfilled

Workshop 4-Watch Out For: You can only walk the all-or- nothing high wire for so long. Sooner or later your pursuit of your goals, and the lack of balance in your life, will cause you to burn out and come crashing back to earth.

Recommendations: Strive for moderation. It’s great to pursue goals, but not at the expense of everything else in your life.

List some realistic goals that are important to you with a realistic timeline or timeframe
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Lecture All or Nothing

ALL-OR-NOTHING:

THE ALL OR NOTHING