📖 5-minute read
All-or-nothing thinking (also called black-and-white thinking) sees the world in extremes. Perfect or ruined. Loved or hated. Success or failure. There's no middle.
It's exhausting because life rarely fits those boxes. Most days are 'partly good, partly hard'. Most people are 'sometimes safe, sometimes not'. Most efforts are 'a bit worked, a bit didn't'.
The antidote is spectrum thinking: percentages, 'and', 'sometimes', 'part of'. 'The talk was 60% good and 40% wobbly' is more useful — and more true — than 'it was a disaster'.