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Courage & Clarity
108: Overcome All-or-Nothing Thinking and Still Make Progress Toward Your Big Vision
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Steph Crowder
Welcome to the Courage and Clarity podcast. I'm your host, Steph Crowder. I'm a former sales training director who's helped thousands of entrepreneurs earn a living doing something they love over the past 10 years. On your journey, you'll need the courage to be bold, to take risks, and to do what looks crazy on paper. You'll also need the clarity, the brass tacks, simple strategies that actually work. And on this podcast, we deliver both in equal measure. Oh, and by the way, we've got absolutely no time for bs, gross marketing tactics or get rich quick schemes. Just sustainable business strategies for good humans with big dreams. If that sounds like you, you're in the right place. Let's go. Hello, CNC listeners. Welcome back to the podcast. This is episode number 108, and I'm so excited to talk to you today about how to overcome all or nothing thinking and still make progress toward your big vision. This is a huge topic. It's been popping up a lot. Honestly, it's been popping up a lot for me. I've been seeing it a lot in my clients. I've been seeing it in a business realm for myself and for others. But it's also heavily prominent in our personal lives as well. This idea of all or nothing thinking, especially if you identify as a high achiever, as a perfectionist, whether a former perfectionist, recovering perfectionist, current perfectionist, whatever your relationship is with perfectionism, it can really be a breeding ground for what I've been thinking of as all or nothing thinking. So much good stuff to get into. All or nothing thinking is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, I think it has sort of served its place for a lot of us in the success that we have, and we will get into that as well. But I think this is going to be really, really helpful for those of you who find yourselves kind of falling into. I. I keep bringing up. What is this line from? I know it's a commercial. Maybe it's Mercedes Benz. The best or nothing, right? The best or nothing. It has to be a hundred percent or you find yourself not wanting to do it at all. If you identify with that, this is going to be a really useful episode for you to kind of start to learn how to dance in the gray, so to speak. If we think about another way of saying black or white or all or nothing thinking is black or white thinking, right? It's like, gotta be a hundred percent black or white. The beauty and the opportunity is truly in learning to dance in the gray. And we're gonna get into what that looks like what it means and how it's going to make such a profound difference in your ability to make progress. Because at the end of the day, this really is. This whole thing, this whole business building ball game is won or lost in our ability to prioritize progress, incremental progress, week after week, putting one next best step in front of the next next best step, one thing at a time. Before you know it, you look back and you're like, oh my goodness, I've taken 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 steps and I'm actually a lot further from my starting point than I even realized. Right before we dig into the meat and potatoes of today's episode, I do just want to give a quick little preview, little teaser for my upcoming year on the Wall training. Yes, it's happening. We're doing it. More details to come very, very, very soon. I'm updating everything. This week we're going to be sending out an email with your official invitation. If you are a Purge and Clarity fan and you've been here a while, you know about Year on the Wall. You know, this is kind of my beloved super bowl that we do every single year. If you're new here and you don't know what I'm talking about, you will get to know this process very soon. If you follow me on social media, I always post a lot of visuals because this is such a visual process. But my Year on the Wall training is my annual. My annual training for the coming year that I host every December. I typically do it in the first week of December to get us all prepared for the next year. So we'll be working, of course, on 2025. And the concept is you get these big calendar pages and you put them up on your wall and you learn my color coded system for planning out your whole year in a highly visual way that is beautiful to look at. Really simple and most importantly, very clarifying in terms of helping, you know, with one glance at your wall throughout the year, you will know exactly what you're working on. You will know how you're making money. Um, you'll just have so much clarity on everything that's to come in the new year. So I always like to do this training the first week of December so that we get it out of the way and we get all the clarity that we need for the coming years. So you get to walk into your holiday season just ready to enjoy. You're like, I don't have to worry about 2025. Cause I know exactly what I'm doing when I walk into the office on January 2nd or 3rd or whatever day you're gonna be back. So stay tuned for those details. We're gonna be emailing. If you're on my email list, just look out for that email. I'll be talking about it quite a bit here on the podcast and on social media, but very excited to offer year on the Wall. I don't even know how many years we've done this. This has gotta be like six maybe. And it just gets better every year. Yes, I do always update it. The basics and the core of it remains largely unchanged because I don't like to break what's. I don't like to fix what's not broken, essentially. But I always make updates based on new learnings and new things that I've tried that can help you, my clients, my listeners and my friends. So stay tuned. That's coming very, very soon. I've gotten some questions from people wondering when we're doing it, if it's happening. The answer is yes, absolutely. And more details are coming very soon. Okay, so for today's episode, let's talk about this idea of all or nothing thinking, what it is, how you can tell if you have fallen into this and what you can do about it. So like I said, I, as I sort of hinted at, I have definitely been experiencing quite a bit of all or nothing thinking in my personal life and my business. I'm going to share examples of both just because I think it's so instructive to. Sometimes we understand business concepts even better when we think when we look outside of our businesses. So the concept of all or nothing thinking can absolutely show up both personally and professionally. And the problem is it prevents us from moving forward when we can't achieve perfection. So we're going to get into that. This episode is going to be great for all of you entrepreneurs and goal oriented people who find that you set really big visions and often feel frustrated when you can't achieve 100% of your goal. Okay, for those of you who are my clients, you know, this is why I teach this framework called Good, Better, Best goals. Because if I left you all to your own devices, you would just choose a best goal 100% of the time. The best goal is like the hitting it out of the park goal and we are really, really good at beating ourselves up when we are not the best, best, best 100% of the time. So we have a whole framework for this to help it feel like we have an easier time seeing the progress and celebrating the progress. This is also going to be an amazing episode for those of you who feel like you can't launch a. You can't launch a product, service, or campaign unless it's perfect. You find yourself not putting it out there because you don't have all your ducks in a row. You don't want to start having conversations with potential clients until the page is all set up, or until you have the right messaging, or until you've got enough testimonials or whatever your it is that you are telling yourself it's keeping you from moving forward. And your thought, whether conscious or unconscious, is, I'd rather not launch at all if it's not what I like, the expectations, the standards that I have for it, if it's not up to par, I'm just not going to launch at all. And this is really sneaky because it feels like you're doing something so responsible, right? You're like, well, I'm going to launch. It's just that it's not ready yet. I don't want to put something out there into the world unless it's my best work, okay? And you can just see how on one hand, it makes all the sense in the world, but on the other hand, and at the end of the day, the bottom line is the longer you're not putting it out there, the longer the people on the other end are not benefiting from your wisdom, from your gifts, the longer you go without connecting with those ideal clients, without hitting those business milestones that you dream of. Honestly, what it boils down to is it just keeps you in inaction longer. Even if you feel like you're taking action, you're like, no, but Steph, I'm working on it. Like, I'm working on it, right? But it's like if we were to look at the scoreboard, so to speak, you're not even on the board. You're not even. You haven't even scored a point because you're still behind the scenes. This is the trap. I think of all or nothing thinking. So this idea, like, what is all or nothing thinking? Just to go a little bit deeper into it, it's what I would think of as a cognitive distortion, okay? Where things are viewed as either complete successes or total failures. This can also look like. Like I was just talking about not even putting things out there until that you reach this sort of arbitrary bar in your mind. And it becomes, like I said, very easy to justify continuing not putting it out there because you're like, no, no, no, I'm going to do it when I'm ready. It's not that I'm, you know, putting it off. It's just that it's not ready yet. And again, it feels like you're being responsible, but at the end of the day, it's. It's really a form of self sabotage. And I think one of the things I've been talking with my clients about is for those of us who are visionary types. My. I'm going to put myself in this for sure. One of my gifts in this world that has made me successful is my ability to visualize the future. It is a wonderful gift. I can look into the future. I always thought this was something that everybody had. And I've only recently talked to friends who are like, I don't know how to do that, Steph. Like, that's a you thing. Right? But I know I'm not the only one. A lot of my clients can do this as well. Where. When you close your eyes and you think about where you want to be in five years or three years or even next year, you get a really clear picture. This could be in your business, it could be in your personal life. You know what you want, you know what you want it to look like. You can picture it. This is an incredible gift. Again, some people don't have this. They're like, I don't know what I want or I can't picture it. That's like a whole different ballgame entirely, right? But here's the shadow side, the dark side, the other edge of that sword. For those of us who are the visionary type, when we know what we want it to look like, and I joke around with my clients about this, we can't. When we can't find the teleport button, we're like, I know where I want to go. I don't want to be where I am anymore. I've seen it. Now that I've seen it, I'm like, I want to get on the airplane and go there. I want to push the button and be there. I want to fast forward because I can see it so clearly and I can feel it. And I just want to be there. I just want to be there. And it creates this. This. This dysfunction and this frustration when you know perhaps that ultimate destination or that ultimate vision is 50, 100, 200, 500 steps from where you are right now. And what that sets you up for is not being able to celebrate the gray, the gr. If. If we're talking about black and white, it's like, if Black is where I'm starting and white is 100. Like the PER. 100 steps from now. Like the picture perfect vision. You're not allowing yourself to celebrate anything in the gray. You're like, until it's exactly the way that I have it in my brain. I'm failing. That's the cognitive distortion of it, right? Like, I'm failing because I'm not there yet. I'm going to get really frustrated with myself and honestly, maybe even just chuck the whole thing, not do any of it, because again, the best or nothing. Okay, here's a really great example I have in my personal life, and I've been really having to work through this. I have a vision for what I want my home to look like, okay? I want it to be decorated in a certain way. I want it to be tidy. I want it to smell like beautiful candles. I want everything to have its place. And again, I can just picture that so clearly in my brain. But how does that end up working out in real life? I have two young kids. I have a very busy, full life with sports and activities and family commitments. Nine times out of 10, my home is not looking like that perfect vision, okay? And then you throw in the holidays on top of it, and it's like I have this vision of how I want it to be decorated, but then I end up taking almost no action towards, you know, what that could look like. Because in my brain I'm like, I'm not going to be able to achieve, like the Hallmark version of what my home to what I want my home to look like. So I just end up not decorating at all. And then I'm frustrated with myself and I'm like, this isn't what I want it to be. And, you know, it's really crazy. Then I start thinking, maybe I should move. Maybe I should get a different house. Maybe we should go somewhere else. Okay? Think about how this example might be playing out in your real life where you're like, you know, have this picture perfect vision and your discomfort with the gray of it with like, okay, if I can't have the perfectly tidy, decorated, picked up home, what if I could pick up my kitchen? What if my kitchen could be, you know, the way I want it, even though the family room is kind of a disaster right now, but if we don't manage that, that becomes unacceptable. And what you end up doing is again, either consciously or subconsciously, you're like, I'm not even going to bother to pick up the kitchen because the family room's a Mess. So why would I do any of it? And then you're just even more pissed because nothing is the way you want it, right? Let's think about how this shows up in business. So let's say that you're thinking about launching a major new product or a new service, something that you're going to sell and you're thinking about the picture perfect vision for how you want this to play out. Let's say it's a group program and you want there to be this full robust curriculum with all of these modules and lots of lessons and worksheets and you want to know what every one of your coaching calls, what you're going to talk about on every single call. You want to have a full out marketing campaign, super high quality branding, a bangin website. Okay? You can picture in your mind where this thing is going for you, but when all the pieces aren't ready, you delay, you put it off, you tinker. Or maybe you abandon launching it altogether. You're like, yeah, I'd love to do that. Like, you know, membership site that I'm dreaming of, but because I can't make it look like so and so's membership site. And it's just going to be amateur if I do it in as like a, you know, like a gray again, black and white. If I'm just kind of doing the gray version of that, the best or nothing, I'm not gonna. It's not worth my time, it's not worth my energy, so I'm just gonna put it off. Okay? So that's. I want you to think about all of the ways that that all or nothing thinking may show up for you. It might show up in a movement routine, an exercise routine where you're like, if I don't go to the gym seven days a week, I end up not going at all. Or if with the way that you're eating, you know, you say I want to eat like all whole foods or I want to follow this particular protocol. But then you miss one meal, you eat one piece of Halloween candy, all of a sudden you're eating 15 pieces of Halloween candy because you messed it up once. So now we're just off track and forget it. Okay? This is all or nothing thinking. So let's talk about how this impacts your personal life as well as your business life. So why is it hard to accept less than the full vision as I'm calling your attention to it? I know that intellectually you're like, oh, I could see what I need to do. I just need To I need to allow myself to dance in the gray. Why am I not doing that? Well, one of the reasons why I hinted at this earlier is perfectionism. Some of you may not even identify as perfectionists. I, for a long time, didn't really identify as a perfectionist because I take a lot of messy action, and I don't really have a problem with a lot of parts of my business being messy. And it wasn't until I realized that there is something called messy perfectionists. We exist, okay? And that perfectionism still exists, even for those of you who are out there taking messy action. So the problem is the perfectionism creates a barrier to taking action. And again, this will show up both personally and professionally. You can totally go back to the example that I gave of my home. It's like, I have this perfect vision for what I want my home environment to look like. And when I'm not hitting that bar, I just end up not doing anything about it. I just end up being like, well, maybe someday, maybe someday my house will look the way that I want it to look. But for right now, forget it, right? Like, I don't do my maintenance routines in my house. I let the laundry pile up. I don't bother to make my bed because it's like, I'm not going to hit that bar for what I dream of it being. So, like, why would I do those little things? But the problem is, that is the little progress that we like. Paradoxically, that's actually where the answer is, because all, or here's the problem with all or nothing thinking. All or nothing thinking can lead to burnout and frustration. All or nothing thinking makes us feel like anything less than perfect is failure. Right? If you're having a hard time celebrating your progress, if you are someone who you're sitting here thinking like, yeah, celebrate my progress, that's not really something that I do. Then you are really on the fast track to burnout and frustration. And frustration that causes burnout and ultimately quitting. Because when we don't feel like we're making progress, why would we keep working so hard? If you didn't feel like you were making gains in the gym, why would you keep turning up every day? Why would you do anything if you perceive that you're not getting anywhere, it's just like walking on the treadmill just over, like just hamster wheel, just over and over and over, right? And so, you know, kind of going back to the business example of creating some kind of program for your clients, like a group program or a course or really anything. And we talked about wanting every single module to be really polished with professional videos and worksheets and bonuses. If you hit a snag or one section isn't ready, or there's one piece of it that just like isn't fitting that vision again, that's going back to delaying the launch. Eventually it's postponed so much that it never happens. And ultimately you leave revenue on the table, you leave your impact in this world on the table. So, so often I talk to people who are like, yes, Steph, I want to do a group program, but it's not ready yet or, but I just feel like you could just continue looking for all of the things that are not done, that are not good enough. And again, you think you're being prudent, you think you're being pragmatic, but really it's perfectionism at the end of the day. And you can imagine how this stalls your progress in business. So this mindset will prevent you from launching, it will prevent you from ever putting things out there that are good enough. Right. It's like, what does good enough look like? Some of you I know from speaking with you are so mind blown by the idea that you could put out B minus work and sell it on the Internet and it could still change people's lives. You're like, no, no, no, no, no, B minus, that's not, that's not okay. That's not okay to take people's money for B minus. But the reality is you're waiting for the perfect version of it. And your A plus is that shiny unicorn that is just out there in the ether, that you're just going to keep chasing and chasing and chasing when the reality is what feels like B minus for you is going to blow the doors off of somebody else's life. I mean, think about that. There's so much power in that. And so, you know, again, like waiting until your branding is just right or maybe you need to have like the right team in place or you need, yeah, like someone on your team who's going to be able to give you full time help or part time help, whatever it looks like. In the meantime, you're stuck working in your business, just continuing to tinker behind the scenes and paradoxically then the business doesn't grow as quickly as it could. And then you're wondering why you're not growing, why you're treading water when we're not putting things out there into the world. Right. Okay, so what can we do? What can we do to overcome this all or nothing thinking. Some of you are listening to this. You're like, yes, this is me. I admit it. I fall into all or nothing thinking. I think most of us can relate to this. Especially again, if you see yourself as a high achieving type, which most entrepreneurs are. Because why the hell would you be doing this if you are not trying to achieve, right? If you are not striving to make a bigger, broader impact in this world, to change your law in life, to change other people's lives. Okay, so let's talk about some strategies for overcoming this all or nothing thinking. Strategy one is reframe success in phases. Okay? Reframe success in phases. So again, you've got your big vision. I know it's beautiful. I know what you want it to look like and I love that for you. But we've got to break it into manageable pieces and learn to celebrate milestones. Inside of my mastermind sold out group programs, we talk about wins and celebrations every single day. In fact, there's a whole space in the program dedicated to the celebration of wins. And it's not just for feel good. It's not just for us to pat ourselves on the back or for me to be like, look at me, I'm so amazing as a coach. It is because we talk about celebrating success as a sales strategy. Okay? What that means is I have multiple pieces of research from Harvard Business School, from other universities that show that people who celebrate their success, especially in business, go on to sell more stuff. Why is this true? Because you're giving your brain. You're like completing that reward loop in your brain that's like, look, I did a thing and now I'm celebrating myself and I'm allowing myself to feel good. I want to go get more of that, right? Versus like you've tried beating the shit out of yourself. You've tried telling yourself it's not good enough. And where did that get you? Okay, try something different. Try learning how to celebrate the milestones, not just the end result. So let's talk about some examples of this. I have lots of examples as we go through these strategies. So for my home, I'm going to give you like a home example because that was my personal example of all or nothing thinking. And I'll also give you a business example so you can kind of think about how this might apply to you. And I invite you to think about all different areas of your life. Like I said, it could be fitness, it could be relationships, it could be so many different areas of your life where this is Showing up. So my home example for reframing success in phases is think about like phase one. Phase one could be organizing one room at a time rather than tackling the whole house. Okay. It could be when I was talking about like holiday decorating, this actually was really great coaching I got from a friend of mine where I was like, oh my God, I love fall. And I keep not decorating my porch. And it was because of the all or nothing thinking. I was like, I don't have the right things and if I'm gonna decorate it, I want it to be the best in the neighborhood and I wanna delight my kids with a 12 foot skeleton. But where am I gonna store the 12 foot skeleton? And my friend was like, Steph, just get your kiddos and go to the pumpkin patch and get like three pumpkins, a couple of mums. Put your little skeleton that's in your basement that you have, put em out there and call it good. And I did that and it actually was delightful. Every time I come back from a walk or walking my dog or walk in the front door, my little front stoop looks so cute. I have like five pumpkins out there, couple of moms, Glenn the skeleton. And I'm not winning any awards for like the best decorated porch in the neighborhood. In fact, if I'm being 100% honest, I think my moms are dead at this point. But the bottom line is I did phase one and I did celebrate. I was like allowed myself to just kind of admire my work. I took some pictures, my son helped me lay the pumpkins out. And it wasn't perfect, it was so far from it, but it was something, it was phase one and I allowed myself to celebrate that. Okay, a business example of this. And this is really, really just like on par for those of you who are my same day sales clients. You already know. You already know. But when we go to launch something, phase one can be just talking to people on your email list that you already have, just using your network with minimal branding, a Google Doc sale sales page, conversation to close people and then build out the full version later once you've tested and validated the idea and proven that you can get paid for this, right? Too many people are still out there trying to sell the perfect version when truthfully you can do it with a Google Doc sales page. I teach it every single day inside Same day sales, my program that teaches you how to use your current network to get your first sales. That can be phase one. I have clients who are doing this where they're like, oh, my gosh, I just ran my first group program, and I just did it by texting people, by messaging people, by having authentic conversations. And now as I go into running it again, a second or third time, I'm going to update my branding. I'm going to start to look at putting together a sales page. I'm going to kind of take that next step. But they're doing it with money in their pocket instead of staying stuck in perfectionism. Okay, so that's the first strategy is reframe your success in phases. Celebrate every little step along the way. I know it sounds corny, but I want. If it's feeling corny, if it's feeling cliche, I want you to remember celebration as a sales strategy. Right. Celebration as a sales strategy, where it's like, you're not just celebrating to brag about yourself. You're celebrating because people who celebrate make more money. Period. All right, Strategy number two is create a minimum viable effort. Oh, man, how me and my clients love talking about minimum viable efforts. You've probably heard about me talk about mvi, minimum viable income, and you've maybe heard of the business concept minimum viable product mvp, but have you heard of minimum viable effort? Mve Minimum viable effort is identifying the smallest viable version of your goal. And starting with that, what is the minimum viable effort that keeps you moving forward but not staying still? And not staying still. Right. So the home example, I think would actually be like, the pumpkins on my porch. Right. Instead of decking out my whole house, I can throw a few pumpkins on my porch and feel good about that. Okay. Maybe with, like, the holiday season coming up. Christmas, for those of us who celebrate Christmas, it's like, like the decorating super bowl. And it's really overwhelming. Gosh, especially if you spend any time on social media. I mean, I'm recording this on November 4th, and, like, there's already so much Christmas. Christmas content I like, it actually triggers me like, crazy. And so it's like, what if you focus on one wreath, one centerpiece, one Christmas tree? Okay. We don't need to look like home goods threw up in your house. What does minimum viable effort look like instead? Like, I can't even tell you how close I was to just, like, not decorating for fall at all. It's my favorite season. And I was like, I'm just forget it. I'm not going to do it. Until my friend was like, what if you just got a few pumpkins? What if you just did a little bit? Okay, so thinking about I'm sure you can think of many examples in business of what this looks like. Instead of delaying a website redesign until it's perfect, launch a simple, functional version. I was on a squarespace, my own, like, squarespace template website for 10 years, and I've done multiple six figures. Only just this summer did I go through a big rebrand with, like, a really impressive website. Right. Think about companies. There's so many examples of companies who have done this so well. I have examples like Airbnb, Dropbox. These are companies that started with very, very minimal versions. Go down the rabbit hole on these companies and learn how they got started. It's fascinating. Now they have massive platforms, but they started with minimum viable effort. It's actually so inspiring to think of. Okay, so what does minimum viable effort look like? You know, this is really amazing to think about for movement as well. Lots of us are like, I don't have time to go to the gym. I'm so busy. I'm a single parent. And look, I get it. You are stressed to the max. You're every single moment is scheduled. I get it. But, like, can you take a, like a loop around your neighborhood? Just a quick walk? That would be so much better. Get the sunshine on your eyeballs. Especially this time of year when we're, you know, coming into the sad time of year with seasonal affective disorder, you know, depression, seasonal depression. Something is better than nothing. Minimum viable effort. Do not fall into the trap of believing that it's not worth it, that it's not good enough, because it's not the full version, because it's not an hour long CrossFit workout. It doesn't count. There's a toxic thought that is going to keep you sitting on your butt feeling crappy. So minimum viable effort all day. If you were to just roll with minimum viable effort every day for a year, you would be miles ahead of where you would have been on the couch. That's one way to think of it as well. Okay, strategy number three is I love this one. Multiple routes to the same destination. All right, so thinking about different ways to achieve your goal so you can be flexible when life happens. Right? I notice a lot with my clients when they. The more stressed they become, the more rigid they become. They're like, I made a plan and now it's all screwed. Right? And this is actually going to be really relevant. We talk about this a lot with my year on the wall training where people are like, oh, my God, I made this beautiful plan. And then, like, my kid got sick in the second week of January and they were out for a week, which means I was out for a week. Like, I. That's it. I guess I can't hit my revenue goal this quarter. And it's like, no, no, no, hold on. What are the different. Like, if you could. The first step is to realize that, yeah, you planned one road, one route to your destination. But then if we think about driving in a car, then there was a road closure, there was construction on the road, there's a car accident. Right. What happens when you run into something like that? Do you just say, well, I guess I'm not going to my, you know, meeting today. I guess I'm not going to wherever I was going. I guess I'll just turn around and go home? No, of course not. You plug it into your map and you find the detour. You look at a map and find the detour. You go on the side roads, you do what needs to be done to go around the roadblock. So what would that look like? To embrace the idea that, all right, plan A was just that it was only one plan, it wasn't the plan. There are multiple routes to the same destination. So an example I have of this for like my. I'm just keeping with my home example because that's been such a pain point for me is, yes, I would like to have my whole house picked up all the time. But on really, really busy weeks, can I focus on keeping just one key area? For me, it's my kitchen, like, kitchen. I think it's true for a lot of us, like, the state of my kitchen is like the state of my heart in my brain. If my kitchen is a disaster, I just, I'm in such a bad mood. It's just a thing. Okay, but if I can keep the kitchen picked up when I go to bed at night, honestly, I can be like four loads behind on laundry. I am like, that's okay. I can be okay with that. Other examples for home would be like, if your plan A is like all home cooked meals sitting down to family dinner together. Like, what's the, you know, like Costco shortcuts version of everybody getting a decent meal? I was talking to a friend about this last week where I was like, I am going to Trader Joe's to raid the freezer section. And is that the same as like making like super nutritious, delicious home cooked stuff in the crock pot? No, no, it's not the same. But to me it's better than McDonald's Drive Through. It's Better than takeout every single night because I'm still assembling mostly Whole foods that, you know, there's some shortcuts for sure, but it's like a middle ground, right? Multiple routes to the same destination. The destination is making sure that everybody sped. Everybody has protein, a vegetable, and a carbohydrate. That is the destination. And I'm going to allow myself to take multiple different routes to that same destination. In a business example, you know, let's say you're trying to grow your email list, but you are. You don't have time for, like, a full big launch strategy or paid ads or some big, sophisticated campaign where you're emailing every single day. I see this a lot with clients and content where they're like, well, I'm supposed to be, you know, like, emailing every week, or I'm supposed to be making a podcast episode every single week, but I missed a week or something happened, right? It's like, how can you focus on small, consistent actions if you don't have. You are not, you know, ultimately able to go with, like, the big crazy strategy. What can you control? So focusing on, like, small, consistent actions such as guest blogging or, you know, guest opportunities, collaborations, participating in online events to steadily attract subscribers versus, you know, some huge email campaign that just isn't realistic for you right now, Again, that same destination is growing your email list, remembering that there's more than one way to do it, and you can adapt without chucking the goal. Okay, so important to remember there's multiple routes to the same destination. Okay, Strategy number four is visualize small wins, not just the big picture. So remember how we talked about, you and me are really visual, like, visionary people. We're really good at visualizing. If you're someone who's like, yes, I know how to visualize where I want to be to a fault, like me. Let's harness that power and use it to visualize our small wins. So you're really good at visualizing the perfect picture. Me too. What if we learn how to imagine the small wins? So in my example, around my house, I can visualize having just one room put together, right? Just my family room, just my kitchen. I'm going to picture. I actually use this all the time when I'm tired at the end of the day and my whole house is a disaster and I'm like, oh, my God. I'm just going to say, forget it and get in bed with my book. This isn't worth it. I will picture how my kitchen looks when all the dishes are put away and when the counters are wiped off and like the candles burning, I just picture what that looks like. And I'm like, okay, it's actually worth the 10 minutes. Like, that will feel so good. And then I do it. I think about the peace it's going to give me, right? And then I do it. And sure enough, I've created that result and I do feel better. Okay. You can think about how this would look in so many different areas. If you have really big fitness goals and you have £100 you want to lose. Okay. And you're thinking about that big vision of like, you and your swimsuit a hundred pounds from now. Well, what if you visualize what it looks like £10 from now? Right? Or like just that next milestone, whatever that looks like for you. Being able to pick up the 25 pound dumbbells instead of the tens. Okay. Just thinking about that one next step and allowing yourself to really visualize not just what it looks like, but what it's going to feel like too. So in business, instead of focusing only on your $100,000 massive launch, what if you could visualize how it's going to feel to take steps along the way? Like sending out your first promo email for your new idea. Right. Or getting your first client to sign up for it. Like, how is that going to feel? If you want to do a group program and you're so fixated on getting 10 people, what if you could think about how is it going to feel when you get paid for that first? Yes. How is that going to feel? And really visualizing that, it's going to make it so much easier to celebrate. So harness that power of visualization that you have. I mean, I could do a whole podcast episode on all of the studies that have been done about the power of visualization. It is key to our success. So allow yourself to picture those little steps along the way, not just the big picture. Okay. Strategy number five is challenge your inner dialogue. So I think this is really important to not just let the thoughts run rampant, but instead kind of add a nuance. Okay, so if you're criticizing yourself and you're doing the black or white in white thinking, and you are like, oh, everything in my house is such a mess. Like, every. Every room looks terrible. Or I can't believe, like, I'm not decorated for the holidays yet and everybody else is, here's how this can look. Instead of saying, my house isn't totally organized, so it's a mess, I could say the living room looks Great. I did a really good job on the living room or I did a really great job on the kitchen today. Next, I'm going to tackle the bedroom. Right. I mean, what's. What a difference? Okay. So going from everything to mess, it's not all organized, so it's all a mess. I can say, look what I did in the kitchen today. The kitchen looks pretty good. Next, I'll tackle the bedroom. And notice how that puts the power back in my hands to know what I'm doing next. And again, it all feeds progress. I'm not confused. I'm not giving up. I have a goal of next, I'm going to tackle all the clothes that have piled up in my bedroom, and that's going to feel really great. So all I've done is challenged my inner dialogue by adding nuance. Here's a business example. Instead of, you know, oh, my offer's not a hundred percent ready, so I can't launch it yet, I could say, the, you know what? The core of what I'm going to teach is so strong. Let's say. Let's say that you're doing a launch where you are like, you have bonuses. So inside of my mastermind program, we talk about how to use bonuses to incentivize people. But maybe you feel like the bonus that you're off you're offering is, like, pretty weak. Okay. You might say, my program is really strong. I can improve the bonuses after I launch. I can come up with a different idea for that later. Or if you don't really like your emails that you're writing, you feel like your emails are kind of meh. Be like, you know, the core content of what I'm teaching is so good. I can improve my emails next time. Okay. Allowing yourself to celebrate what is going well and have a specific goal for what you want to change next, absolutely huge. You're letting it be a process, and that puts so much power back into your hands. Okay, strategy number six and final strategy I'm going to give you for this is recalibrate instead of giving up. I love this one. Recalibrating a goal doesn't mean that you're giving up. It just means that you're adjusting based on your current realities. I walk clients through this all the time where they're like, I wanted X, but Y came up, and now my life is, like, looking totally different. How do I adjust? Okay. And I love that my clients will come to me and ask me this because it shows me that they're catching themselves in their all or nothing. Thinking. Because they're like, oh, my gosh. I was planning to do plan A. Holy crap, somebody got sick. There was a natural disaster or something crazy happened. Plan A is not going to work anymore. Instead of being like, well, that's it. Let me just go ghost on my coach. Let me just, like, creep away and, you know, hide under the pillow and just, like, slink back into my Heidi hole. They're raising their hand and being like, what could I do instead? What does a modified version of this plan look like? So for a home example, let's say that I just, like, get really ambitious, and I'm like, I'm going to take this whole next month to organize. I'm going to organize every room in my house. It sounds like something I would do. I put together a plan and be like, okay, this week I'm doing this room, and this week I'm doing that room. But something happens in my life where that just is not going to happen. It's not realistic. Okay, I can revisit my plan and be like, okay, I was planning to organize 10 different spaces. Which of these 10 spaces do I use the most? Which of these are the highest priority? I actually did this this year. I was working with a home designer, and we walked through my home and we talked about all of my. The. The places that I wanted to redesign and redecorate. And I got so excited about everything they came up with. But then I started looking at the quotes and the dollars and cents and. And quickly it was surpassing my budget that I had for the project. And so we were looking at my outdoor space, like my. My porch, which a makeover, because it's a beautiful space that I love to use. And I found I wasn't using it because it wasn't set up properly. We also wanted to make some changes in my living room, my family room. We wanted to redo all my shelves and get a new coffee table and an end table. And then we had other projects. We have some projects upstairs in this, like, loft area. And ultimately we want to do my basement and really make it like a family gathering space. Right now it's kind of just like a toy zone, right? Just, like, unorganized. And I wasn't able to do all these things at once. As much as I would have loved to, it was not in the plan budget wise. And so what I did is I said of these projects, which is going to give me the most bang for my buck? Like, what do I really need right now? This was in May, so summer Was coming up, getting my outdoor space together was top priority. So we did the full plan on the outdoor space. It's beautiful. I love how it turned out. Used it all summer long in my family room. We ended up redecorating the shelves, but hitting pause on ordering the coffee table, table and the end table. I know I picked them out and I'm going to order them later. Right? And then we totally hit pause on my upstairs loft and our basement. Like, that's just someday. Okay. And so it's like plan C. You know, I would have loved to do everything, but every time I walk onto my porch, I feel the gratitude of, like, I'm so happy I said yes to getting the right furniture in that space. Every time I go in my family room and I look at the way that we redecorated the shelves, I feel so much joy and peace, even though I look at my coffee table and I'm like, that is not the right table. Right. But I'm allowing it to be a process, and I recalibrated instead of giving up. It's huge. So as a business example, let's just say that you're doing, you know, if you're in my mastermind, you have access to my buzz blitz strategy, which is like a big marketing strategy for a launch. But maybe you. You're not in my mastermind. You have your own process, and you're. You're doing a big marketing strategy and you're doing your best, but it's just not going as planned. A lot of people want to just abandon the whole launch. They'll come to me and be like, I think I'm just going to cancel this. I don't think it's working. I'm just going to, like, go just, you know, cancel it and go cry in a corner. Right. But instead of doing that, you could pivot by focusing on the marketing channels that are actually working. You can double down on. Okay, what. What has worked so far? Okay, I've been posting on Instagram, I've been emailing people, and I've been doing personal connections. Let's see. The personal connections are the thing that seems to be working. I'm not really getting any traction on Instagram. My life is kind of blowing up right now. So let me just go ahead and pause on the Instagram piece and double down on my connections with people, because that's where my sales are coming from. Right. So allowing yourself to recalibrate instead of just canceling the whole launch, Absolutely huge. I've had many clients end up doing this and they'll get, you know, people into their program by adjusting their plan halfway through. And they're like, I'm so happy I didn't just cancel it and give up and quit on myself. Because that would have not only damaged my revenue, but just like really damaged my self confidence and my belief in myself. I showed myself that I can recalibrate, I can make a different decision halfway through instead of giving up. Right. And so, my friends, that is kind of the strategy, that is the tool that I have for you today about how to deal with your all or nothing thinking. So, you know, when you think about my personal example as well as my business examples, you know, with me and my house, which has been a pain point, I have been able to just walk through my home vision. I know what I want it to be someday, but I've broke things down into kind of like a good, better, best. In a way. I know what things make me feel the best. If it can't be perfect, maybe it's focusing on one room at a time or doing minimum viable effort. But it makes me feel more peace and joy in my home instead of just like totally just giving up and being like, we're just going to be living in chaos. Right? Which ultimately just makes it that much harder to get things on track in the future. And then in business, of course, you know, when you think about times that you have tried to launch something, you've tried to put something out there and you've given yourself permission to do it without all of the pieces being perfect, what you do is you open yourself to creating momentum and it helps you learn to refine over time. Imagine what our lives would be like, my all or nothing people, if we gave ourselves permission to refer. Fine. Over time, no matter what goal you're talking about, it doesn't have to be. We don't have the teleport button to take us from today to our ultimate big picture vision. But we can learn how to refine over time. So as you leave this episode today, as we wind this down, I want you to really think about and identify where is your all vision? Where are you doing this in your life? Where are you getting stuck in either personal or professional life? You know what? Where are you thinking to yourself, if I don't have the perfect version of this, I'm just not going to do it at all. Could be launching a program. It could be getting some help on your team. That's a big one. People will be like, oh, I can't afford it. And they're thinking they need to set aside thousands. And it's like, you know, you can actually hire somebody for five hours a month and it'll be like $300, right? That would be a really good example. What are the little things that you can do instead of just abandoning the plan and waiting until you can magically afford the all vision that you have in your head? Right? And what I'd love for you to do is apply these strategies this week, this week to start making progress. Catch yourself. Don't judge yourself. Don't be mean to yourself. But just notice, oh, like, I've been doing this a lot. And I'll say it out loud to my friends who hold me accountable. I'm like, you know what? I can see that I'm getting into all or nothing thinking right now. So I'm going to give myself permission to go to the freezer section at Trader Joe's, right? And feed my family that way. I'm going to give myself permission to just put three pumpkins on my porch and make it look cute and be good with it, right? So identify where this applies to you and start to play around with Dancing in the Gray because that is where you will learn how to celebrate your progress. And the better you get at that, the more you will like. Our brain loves repetition. Our brain loves patterns. And so if you can start creating the pattern of progress, it's going to build. You're going to create motivation, you're going to create momentum, and that is how you're going to start to really walk yourself right into that big picture vision that you've been dreaming of. My friends, I hope this has been helpful. If you like this episode, please do let me know. You can DM me on Instagram. I'm at. Hey, Steph Crowder. You can respond to any of the emails that I've sent you lately. And I just would love to hear. I'd love to hear if you identify with this concept of all or nothing thinking and what you took away from this episode. Definitely let me know. I will see you next week. We're going to be talking about Year on the Wall. You're going to have your chance to get your ticket. I cannot wait to do Year on the wall. 20:25 More details coming soon. And until then, I'm wishing you the courage and the clarity to go after what you love.