The Power of Perspective, part 1
In my last article on The Solution to Being Stuck, I said the first step in getting unstuck or creating change is to “see differently.” Several of you have asked for more information about this step, so I want to expand on what I mean and highlight potential obstacles.
At first blush the idea of seeing things differently; changing or expanding our perspective seems simple enough. So why do we find it so hard to do?
Well for one thing we’ve often become very attached to our viewpoint. We may adopt a “that’s my story and I’m sticking to it” mentality. We may even see “changing our mind” as a sign of concession (giving in) or weakness.
Another reason you may find it hard to “see differently” is that you’ve adopted patterns of thinking that contribute to keeping you stuck. In the therapy world these patterns are called cognitive distortions. I like to think of them as “twisted thinking.”
To help you identify and remove obstacles to “seeing differently,” I’m going to give you some tips on how to spot these thinking patterns and begin to “untwist” them if you’re ready to.
Todays tip is on recognizing All-or-Nothing Thinking. If you’re an all-or-nothing thinker, you tend to see things in black-or-white categories; or the extremes. You likely identify things as right-or-wrong, good-or-bad, true-or-untrue, fact-or-fiction, perfection-or-failure. You are used to living in a world of absolutes and may even feel at home there.
While there are places in life where this kind of thinking will serve you well, for the most part all-or-nothing thinking is distorting in nature. It leaves out all of the life that happens in the middle ground, leaving you a very restricted view of things. When your perspective is relegated to the ends of the spectrum, it’s easy to become rigid and get stuck at one end or the other.
Here’s a few examples of what all-or-nothing thinking looks and sounds like in real life. See if you hear yourself in any of these:
- When you realize you’re running behind; “If we can’t leave on time, there’s no point in going at all.”
- When your plan doesn’t turn out perfectly, you see it as a total failure.
- “If you’re not going to do it right, don’t do it at all.”
- You frame things not as “your” truth but as “the” truth; “That’s not what happened.”
- If you miss a work-out this week you think “I’ve completely blown my exercise plan!”
- “You’re either with me or you’re against me.”
- “I’m right and you’re wrong.”
If you find yourself reflected in any of these statements then “untwisting” your all-or-nothing thinking may be a powerful step toward “seeing differently.”
An Untwisting Practice for all-or-nothing thinking is thinking in shades of grey. Challenge yourself to evaluate things on a scale of 0-10 or 0-100. For instance, when something doesn’t work out as well as you hoped, stretch yourself to see it as a partial success (maybe a five) rather than a total failure (a zero).
Slow down your thinking so you can question the absolute conclusionsyour mind wants to make. This practice will help you see that you have a choice about where you place things on a spectrum; that you are not really restricted to the extremes. You can free yourself to “see differently.”