[00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to another episode of the So Here For It podcast. My name is Amy Mingin. Thank you so much for joining me today. Did you know that there are so many of you that tune in every single week? And do you know how grateful I am that I get to be in your ears and chat to you each and every week?
And it also makes my day every single time somebody new comes on in and goes, I listened to all the episodes in one go. So if you're here and you're new for your first time, welcome. Today I am talking all about the all or nothing mindset, because this happens with people with their food, with their exercise, with their businesses.
It happens in different aspects of our lives. And it is time, people, it is time that we changed it. Because you've probably had yourself one time say, Oh, well, I've had that piece of chocolate, so I might as well have another row. And then another row turns [00:01:00] into half the block and you might not finish the entire block, or you might not have another biscuit or you might not have another lolly, but you might go back later or you might go back the next day.
And you start to notice that this new habit or this new trend starts to happen inside of your life. And then before you know it, all the wheels fall off the wagon. I'm sure we've all been there. And we all think that we have ruined things by binging once or having a different mindset around things.
Now, I want to get things straight and clear here. There is no perfection when it comes to your health. There's no perfection when it comes to your food. And there's certainly no perfection when it comes to your mindset, because we are dynamic beings. I've said this before. Naturally we are wired for survival. So we're going to choose the easiest thing. We're going to choose the thing that feels the best for us in each and every time, unless we're consciously choosing something new. Unless we're consciously aware of what goal we're going for [00:02:00] in each and every decision that we're making, particularly in regards to our health.
So I want to make sure that today we start to overcome. And it doesn't mean that just by listening to this one episode that all of a sudden I wave a magic wand and you're out of your all or nothing mentality. But I guarantee you this, it'll at least give you a reframe. It'll give you something to consider and it'll give you something new, a new way of anticipating how life will go so that you don't have to be perfect all the time.
How does that sound?
This is how I live my life. And I would love for you to start letting go of the emotional aspect that you have around food and exercise, particularly if there's negative emotions around it. And let's just see life as something that we experience, something that we get to enjoy. And food and exercise and different parts of our life are going to bring different opportunities to us each day. So let's start with that.
Now I want you to have a think about [00:03:00] where you have played out the all or nothing principle in your life. I want you to think about it, like have a think about, all right, if we speak about it in a diet and lifestyle sense, you might meal prep on the Sunday. You've done your shopping, your meal prepping, and you've got everything ready for the week. And you have what's considered in your world a perfect week because you were so organized. Very, very easy to have the perfect thing in reality, once we're organized, right? Feels so good. Takes the stress away from the decision making on an everyday basis. However, your friend asks you out. Goes, Hey, come see a movie. We'll grab something to eat on the way. And then all of a sudden you go, yeah, I'm going to have the frozen margarita. Yeah. I'm going to have the extra taco and I'm going to put extra sour cream and guacamole, and I'm going to have the dessert tonight.
There's two types of people that show up in this scenario.
Person number one is the person who's living her life. She's [00:04:00] like, I know things like this happen. I don't get to hang out with this friend all the time. And I'm going to make choices that are in alignment with where I'm at right now. So instead of the sugary frozen margarita, she chooses the tequila with soda and fresh lime.
And she still gets a beautiful drink. She still gets to connect with her friend. She makes a better choice. And when it comes to the taco, she's just like, all right, I need extra protein. She orders extra protein on the side. She has a little bit of the sour cream. She has a little bit of the guacamole and shares it with her friend.
And then she's like, Hey, I really don't have dessert very often, but can we share it? I only want a couple of bites of it. And guess what happens here? She gets to literally have the cake and eat it too. She doesn't have to feel bad for it because she goes, I'm going to experience it. I'm going to have it, but it doesn't mean that I have to have all of it all the time.
Now here's person number two. Person number [00:05:00] two goes, Yeah, I'm having the frozen margarita. I've worked so hard all week. I deserve it. She has it. It's sugary. She doesn't feel so good. The tacos come out. She's like, oh my God, I really need extra stuff on top of this because I'm feeling that margarita.
She has the frozen margarita. She's like, oh, well, I'm not feeling that good now. Definitely, definitely need to have something else. Then she goes and has the dessert. But she orders her own dessert. She doesn't share with her friend. What's going on inside of her mindset is, Oh my God, I was so good all week. And now I feel like absolute crap because I've had this great big meal. It's more than what I would normally have. It's more sugar than I'd normally have. It's more calories than I'd normally have. Oh no, oh no, oh no. All the negative emotions come up. Can you see how the entanglement with the emotions and the food and the all or nothing mentality is actually sending us backwards.
Can you see that during the week, you don't need to be perfect. Can you see that on the weekend, you don't need to be perfect, that there is this [00:06:00] sliding scale of being dynamic and being okay. Having this okayness with who you are and how you're doing things. Now, there's a lot of talk about yo yo dieting, and I think this comes from the all or nothing mentality. Because the behaviors are driven from the emotions. I've talked about this, the self sabotage, go back and listen to that episode if you haven't listened to that, go back and listen to the one where I talk more about the consistency, the consistency patterns that we have.
And also listen to the one why change is hard because we are literally wired for survival. We're not wired to make changes all the time. So as soon as we start to make a change, the body thinks it's unsafe and we're going to grasp on something that's going to make us feel better. And sometimes it happens in the form of food. Sometimes that happens in the form of lacking motivation to go for a walk or to exercise.
But we can't rely on that to get results, can we? What we need to rely on is what is the goal that we have [00:07:00] set? What are the things that are actually driving behaviors right now, and being aware of it. And then if you do feel bad about something, have a way that you can start to be okay with yourself.
I think this is key here because some people, they're going to feel really bad about something. But how do you actually bring yourself back from that? How do you go and spiral out of control and get all guilt and shamey about it? And how do you actually start to feel more neutral in your body? I think this is key. This is a really big tangible takeaway for you because down in the guilt and shame category, I've talked about this in some of my episodes where I talk about emotions and the vibration of emotions, they are the lowest vibration emotions.
So if you're feeling guilt and you're feeling shame around your food, guess what you're feeding your cells, you're feeding your cells a lower vibration. So before you eat, before you drink, before you do something, I want you to take a moment, take a breath. [00:08:00] Be calm inside your body. Find a way to get calm.
For me, breath work is amazing. Being in nature is amazing. Doing yoga, going for a walk, any of these styles of things. Some people might need to journal. Some people need movement in order to process and other people need stillness and it's going to change day by day. So find a way that's going to help you feel more calm. And then ask yourself, Okay what am I actually feeling right now? Because the vast majority of people have no idea what actual feeling is driving their behavior. So if you can start becoming more aware of exactly what is driving your behavior, you are more aware of your emotional state, you're then more aware of how to make changes.
And then you can tangibly take action. Rather than keep feeding this all or nothing mindset. Cause the all or nothing, it's not actually getting you results. It's actually going to make you go backwards in the long run because of the low vibration emotions. When we're in a higher [00:09:00] vibration state, think about it this way. That first scenario of that first woman. Who's like, yeah, I'll just have a little bit of this and a little bit of that. She's not making herself sacrifice anything. She's moderating. She's going, I want a little bit of that dessert, so I'm going to have just a couple of mouthfuls. As opposed to, Oh, I'm not allowed it at all. i.e. all or nothing approach. Cause think about it down one end, somebody is completely self sacrificing and she's cutting herself off from everything that she ever liked and enjoyed. And at the other end, she's giving herself all of the things and overdoing it and binging and overindulging.
And it's like, Hmm. How do we moderate that? Let's go, all right well, where's the emotion? Where's the behavior? Because at each end of the spectrum, it's kind of one and the same. It's just a flip of the coin, right? In the middle where we moderate ourselves is actually where self love is. Health is self love. Looking after yourself is self love. Being aware and kind and considerate of yourself is self [00:10:00] love. So it starts with some of this inner work. It starts with the self reflective work. It starts with you being aware of where your nervous system is before you eat, while you eat, after you eat.
Think about the people who you're hanging around. I heard this video the other day that people can sometimes be a vacuum to your energy. And think about it. There are some people that within minutes of being around them, you're like, Oh, I got to get away. And then there are other people who are more like magnifiers, and they feel like sunshine and it's so helpful and beautiful and amazing. You feel so full and incredible when you leave their presence. So think about that. Are you meeting these people who you don't really want to hang out with anyway, spending money that you don't really want to spend and then eating food or drinking drinks that make you feel like crap. And then you feel like you're in that negative spiral.
If you're going down that road, you can choose another choice. This is the beauty of it. So rather than go into a guilt and shame pattern, [00:11:00] say, all right, this is how I feel. How am I going to choose my next move? And go from there. Because once you're choosing from your next level place, you're going to start making bigger changes for yourself.
You're going to be able to give yourself a little bit of the thing and moderate it, but you're also going to mostly stay on track. And this is key. This is key for you to not only survive, but to move more into thriving. This is the difference between somebody who becomes self regulated. Self trusting and who makes bigger moves in this world.
Because once you are trusting yourself, you're willing to bet on yourself. You're willing to take risks because you know that you can pull it off. Whereas if you're going into that all or nothing mentality, you're either all about it or you're totally not. And think about what that does to your self esteem. It doesn't build trust, does it? When you bring yourself into the middle, somewhere close to the middle, doesn't mean you don't dynamically move. Let's say that we're moderating. So [00:12:00] sometimes you're going to have a little bit of a higher high. Sometimes you're going to have a little bit of a lower low, and it's going to drive your behavior.
And then you start to become aware of the emotions, knowing that emotions only last for about 90 seconds. So can you just be aware of yourself, name it for what it is, let the process move through your body and then make the decision afterwards. Because so many people are making these very quick rash decisions based on how they're feeling.
And this doesn't necessarily come from that sacred yes or no place. It's often coming from a place of stress or fear or judgment or criticism. And this is all towards self. So I want you to think about this. If your inner voice is the main voice that you ever hear, would you want to be friends with you?
And now that you're aware of your inner voice, how can you now change it so that you speak more kindly and considerate to yourself? [00:13:00] Because the more compassion that you have for these different parts of yourself that might in the past have been all or nothing, the more your nervous system can calm down, the more your emotions can feel more neutral toward positive, and the more positive behavior that you'll easily step into.
So change isn't so hard when you're in a positive state. Change is easier once you start to trust yourself and you build the trust by being consistent. You build the trust by disentangling those emotions, particularly the negative emotions around your food, around your exercise and how you live your life.
You know something that I teach all of the women inside Catalyst, and it sometimes takes like quite a few goes for women to really get onto this track of not only trusting themselves, but being okay with if there's a slip up, or if there's a decision where they feel like, you know, they didn't feel so good about that decision, or they feel like an old version [00:14:00] of themselves made that decision, rather than feeling bad about it. I just say to them this, get back on plan. They're like, Oh, do I have to start back at day one? Like this, this is not the 75 hard. We're not here to punish ourselves. We're not here to say, Oh, I was a bad girl. We're here to love ourselves. We're here to do the thing that makes us feel great in the moment.
What makes us feel great is getting organized, is sticking to the plan, and being okay with the fact that sometimes life happens. One of the ladies says that sometimes she has to choose a life meal, and that might be that she's gone to Grill'd burgers with a friend, but she'll choose the Grill'd burger that has the best protein content, the best veggies for her. She'll choose the gluten free or paleo bun. There are things that you can do that take you out of the all or nothing mentality. If you've got to have a life meal every now and then it's totally fine. And you can jump straight back on track as soon as you can. [00:15:00] The most important thing here is to start to notice. Notice when this feeling of not good enough pops up, because that's usually one of the drivers of the emotion.
It's like, just as you start to get to a point where you're like, Oh, I'm getting my goal. It's like, Oh, the not good enough thing pops in. And that's when self sabotage happens. You might swing backwards for a bit. Don't lose faith in yourself because that faith that you have in yourself is the thing that keeps you going with your momentum, is the thing that keeps you on track with your behaviors.
So my suggestion is... if you've created a new year's resolution, if 2025 is the year where you're focused on your health, where you're focused on your wealth, because all of this is definitely applicable to your wealth. All of this is also applicable to business or your career, to your relationships. I know I talk about health and I talk about mindset and I talk about food a lot, but you can literally take what [00:16:00] I'm saying and apply it to whatever pattern you are playing out the all or nothing inside your life.
When you think about how much better it's going to feel inside your nervous system once you are showing up for you every single day, everyone else around you will notice. They'll say something's changed, what's going on here. And this is what's going to help you build up those sustainable habits. And it happens daily. It's all these little tiny micro moments that build up towards the macro moment. So if you want long term results, keep showing up every single day, show up as the version of you who already has it. And this is what I mean by this. If you were to, we'll go through a quick exercise. If you were to imagine in six months time, you actually got the goal of what you want right now.
So I want you to imagine what the goal is that you're going for. It could be in any sector of life. Now imagine that version of you and [00:17:00] how it feels to have that goal. Now, if I imagine the goal that I'm going for, that version of me, she has a sense of relief. She has this sense of like leaning back in an armchair. Of, it's all worked out. Everything's working out for me. She has innate trust. She believes in abundance. She has a smile on her face. As opposed to if I swung all the way to the other end, and all I focused on was not having that goal. The other version, she's stressing out. She's wondering when it's going to happen. She's trying to scramble to control outcomes. And that just isn't fun. Inside the nervous system that sets up fight or flight, that sets up a stress pattern. How does one fit extra into our vessel, if we're already a wound up rubber band, if we're already feeling so stressed, how do we ever bring in something new?[00:18:00]
And this is what I mean about the body is wired for survival. So if we start to unravel this survival tactic and say, you know what this version of me is a version of me who already has this, and this is how she feels. And we practice feeling that way. This is key. We practice feeling consistent. We practice feeling like we have our goal.
We practice these daily habits. This is the key to building consistency in your life. This is the key to you overcoming the negative emotions. And this is also the key to building those healthy, sustainable habits in any aspect of life.
So I'm going to bring it to a close and I feel like this is the perfect segue. Thank you so much for joining. This is, at the time of recording, the very first podcast that I've recorded for 2025. It feels like such a beautiful and expansive year. I feel like there's a lot of expansion that will happen in a lot of people's lives this year. And [00:19:00] if you're needing a hand with some of this expansion, I highly recommend having a look at my Vision 25 workshop.
I'm going to link it in the show notes. You can also come on social media, send me a DM. I'll send you through the link. If you want to join, it's $22. It will change your life. It will help you tune into this next level version. It will help you get really, really clear with the parts that were holding you back, integrate them so you can move forward.
Thank you so much for having me in your ears. And as always, if you can please share this with a friend, rate and review, it helps me reach so many more people just like you. Until next week, I will see you soon.
