Must It Be All or Nothing?
That depends on the situation.
Have you ever noticed that when someone decides to lose weight, start a new hobby, or make a large change in their life, they go all in? They throw their full literal or metaphoric weight into the action in an all-or-nothing shot at achieving some goal.
Why? Society and its many expectations are the likely culprits. Every commercial diet program, from Jenny Craig to Weight Watchers to Atkins tends to be all or nothing. Buy out products and stick to our regime with laser focus or fail.
Another interesting culprit might be the montage in TV and movies. You know what I mean. That stirring, inspirational music as you watch the protagonist train and go from novice to intermediate to expert in an impossibly compressed span of time? In the end, they are leaner and buffer, wiser and stronger, and the like.
All or nothing. You give your all, every iota of your attention and intention, or else you get nothing. But must it be all or nothing?
Everything in moderation
If you go on one of those diets where they “prescribe” your meals, and you follow it closely, you’ll lose the weight. The results are likely to be impressive. However, the moment you stop eating only what they offer, the weight likely will come back.
Why? Because the all-or-nothing approach of that program doesn’t do anything for your habits. You didn’t change the way you really eat, exercise, or whatever. So, in the end, you return to where you began.
In many instances, all-or-nothing skips steps and neglects to alter important elements. You jump in headfirst to get results, but often there are small steps that lead to the big results.
You can take all the dietary supplements and follow all the fads you want to lose weight. But to keep it off, you need to fundamentally change your habits. How, where, when you eat, exercise, and stress management are all factors that protein shakes and pre-prepared meals don’t address. I know, I’ve traversed that path myself multiple times.
Moderation also tends to miss a step. Exploration and examination. You get an idea, see a way to get from here to there, and launch right in – only to realize something is missing. Recognizing and acknowledging this is how you determine what moderation entails.
It’s not a lessening of action as much as it’s a check for balance. Moderation can make the difference between acting on impulse and acting on information. While the former can and does work, the latter is more sustainable and less uncertain.
All or nothing
You can dive into a pool of water without checking its depth, but you risk seriously injuring yourself that way. Or, you can check the depth first, enter the water with more caution, or take some other step to avoid injury while still getting into that pool of water. That’s what moderation is in the face of all or nothing.
Of course, since one-size-fits-all never fits all, there are times when all or nothing is the approach to take. A perfect example I’ve seen is quitting smoking.
Full disclosure – I was never a smoker. But my wife was. When she decided to quit, she quit cold turkey. She made the choice to stop smoking, decided to not do it anymore, and has been smoke-free ever since.
I have multiple friends I’ve seen attempt to quit smoking by cutting down from “x” number of cigarettes a day to “y”. Using nicotine patches, switching to vaping, and employing other stepping stones to quit. The result? Every single one of these people is still a smoker.
All or nothing seems to be the only way to actually, factually, quit smoking. My wife isn’t the only one I know who this worked for.
So, sometimes all or nothing is the answer. However, you and only you can determine that.
How?
Mindfulness
You’re the only one in your head, heart, and soul. You, and you alone, know what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, your intentions, if your approach is positive or negative, and what actions you do and don’t take.
Because you are the only one in your head, heart, and soul, you alone can make the choices and decisions to shape your life. Circumstances, environments, other people, places, and random things can and will have an impact on these. But you ultimately choose and decide when all is said and done.
This is active conscious awareness in action. Making choices and decisions is your superpower. That’s mindfulness. You decide and choose who, what, where, how, and why to be.
Sometimes this is easy, other times not so much. Circumstances, life happenings, other people, environments, and many factors you can’t control will impact you. But when it comes to being you, the power to take control via active conscious awareness – mindfulness – belongs to you alone.
Whether you use moderation or an all-or-nothing approach, you can employ mindfulness to alter your life’s trajectory, choose a given path, or take no action at all.
Can you see that it doesn’t always have to be all or nothing?
This is the six-hundred-sixty-eighth (668) exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are my ideas for – and experiences with – applying mindfulness and positivity to walk along a chosen path of life to consciously create reality.
I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world and empower as many people as I can with conscious reality creation.
Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-post and share this.
The first year of Pathwalking, including expanded ideas, is available here. Check out Amazon for my published fiction and nonfiction works.
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