Welcome to The Masterful Coach podcast, with Molly Claire, where coaches learn skill mastery, business mastery, and life mastery at a whole new level. If you’re ready to create a meaningful coaching business that makes a difference, you’re in the right place. And now your host, master coach instructor, Molly Claire. Hey, Coach, so great to be with you today. I hope your business is moving along. I hope that you are navigating the ups and downs, the ebb and flow of what is known as “the business building process.” And as always, I hope that as you’re building your business, you are really using it as an opportunity to grow internally. And remember that that’s really what it’s about. Building a business is about becoming more of who you’re meant to be, more of who you want to be. And I think it also really offers us an opportunity to fulfil a great mission and purpose in our life. And so I hope you are feeling that. I hope that’s the energy that you have behind your business. And of course, always, I hope that you are remembering how your business and this mission fits in to the big picture of your ideal life. So that is my hope for you today. And I’m really excited to connect with all of you, as we talk about this problem of “all or nothing thinking” in yourself as you are building a business. And I know this topic is not new to, probably any of you listening here. We see how our clients get into this; we see how this comes up for us. But I want to offer you this episode today and a little bit of space to take a look at where it is coming up for you specifically, how that is impacting you. And to give you a little bit of space and perspective, with the hope that you will be able to really experience something new in your business and not feel so up and down with the all or nothing thinking. Before we dive into that, those of you that are joining us in the Coaching Collective, we cannot wait to be with you. I know I did a bonus call for some of you that already joined—so amazing to meet you. And we just really look forward to helping all of you build a meaningful business that supports your ideal life. So, we are ready for you, we are preparing. And I also wanted to let those of you know who are really new to building your business, just kind of putting together your funnel, getting your first few clients, maybe converting those clients to free clients—oh, I’m sorry, converting those free clients to paid clients, right. That’s the direction we want to be going. And also, those of you who are maybe just coming up on those first renewals. I have a very intimate group that I just did in January, and I will be doing one more, and enrollment for that is open. It is really just a very small enrollment process. You will fill out an application, everyone in the group is hand selected, and we start mid-April. So, it is just around the corner. You can apply on my website, www.mollyclaire.com. Or you can always email [email protected] and the amazing Christina will take good care of you. So, all right, let’s dive in. All or nothing thinking, what does it mean? Sometimes we call it black and white thinking. It is either this or it is that. It’s often this way that our brain goes to the extremes of only giving us two options of what might happen or how to think about something. And those two options are usually polar opposites. Think about for all of you where this comes up for you in general in your life. When do you go to black and white thinking? Often this happens in our relationships, especially a relationship that we’ve maybe been struggling with for a while or has challenged us. This can be the case in parenting. This can be the case in our business, as we are working toward our goals. And some of the very common thoughts that I hear with this is the extreme of: “I’ll never be able to do this. I will never be able to build a business. I can’t do this. I’m not that kind of person.” And the opposite end of this is: “I’m capable of all of this. Of course, I can build a multi-million-dollar business. They have done it, so I can do it too.” Even though the second option that I offered up to you seems to be the most powerful, and I agree, it’s good to step into that energy. It can become very problematic if you experience going back and forth between the two of these and experiencing a lot of emotional upheaval. Another common place I see this coming up is within money. I hear a lot of coaches wanting to knock it out of the park and make what they would consider a lot of money. And oftentimes, as they move toward this, coaches create a lot of pressure, they experience a lot of compare and despair. And sometimes this can swing them the direction of: “I don’t really care about money; I just want to help people.” And I want to acknowledge that, if that is true for you, and you want to help people and money is a side thing that you believe will come and it genuinely doesn’t matter to you, that is an okay stance to have. So, I don’t want for a second to come across as me believing that you should think a certain way about money, or how much you should make. But what I do want to offer you is that when I see this swing for people, many times that swing to; “I don’t really care about money, it doesn’t really matter to me.” Sometimes a piece of that is kind of quitting on that idea of making money because of the struggle within it. So, I just want you to be aware if that is that all or nothing thinking for you and what’s behind it. The last one I want to mention—something I hear all the time is: “I can have it all. I can have this perfect balance in my life, or my business and my family, those needs are not competing, I can do it,” to, “forget it, I’ll never figure this out. I just can’t do it. It’s too much.” How many of you relate to this? I definitely have related to this all or nothing, swing from one side to the other thinking. It’s very common. It’s very normal for us. And usually, especially with coaches, this happens for us. Because we do want to go big, right? We want to believe we’re capable. We want to believe we can make as much money as we want. We want to believe that we truly can create the personal life and business balance that we want and that it is possible. And when we go for that, and when we don’t experience what we think we will right away, it is very easy for us to swing all the way to that other side of: “I’ll never figure this out. I just don’t need to make money anyway. And I’ll never be able to have the balance in my life, I might as well quit.” So just take a minute to notice what is coming up for you, as I’m putting this out there. My guess is that whether it’s one or all three of these, or another variation of this, you probably see this pattern for you as you build your business. And I want to talk with you about why this is problematic. And a few things to think about to help you move forward. So, one way this can be quite problematic for us is that already, as we’re building a business, there are so many emotions that we experience. And as we are growing ourselves, as we are truly shifting our identity into something that is bigger than we’ve ever experienced before, it is a lot of emotions up and down. And when we have this all or nothing thinking happening, in a way that we’re not aware of it, that we don’t make space from it, it can make these roller coaster emotions of highs and lows even bigger, and it can make the impact on us even bigger. Another way I see this showing up and being quite problematic for coaches is that we can spend this time in fighting for the bigger belief or giving up on it all together. And we don’t spend quite enough time in that middle space of working toward what we want, believing we will get there, kind of this bridging space where we’re moving toward what we want. And so while it’s amazing to step into those powerful big thoughts of: “I’m capable of all of this. I can figure it all out. I can do everything that I want.” Sometimes if you notice that going there is also having this auto effect of moving you to the other end of the spectrum entirely, it may not be as useful for you. You may not be spending enough time in that middle space where steady growth happens. And the other thing that I’ve really alluded to many times is you are more likely to end up giving up on your business. The more you have this all or nothing thinking swinging from one side to the other. It is going to be oftentimes very emotionally tiring for us. And oftentimes, even that experience of going from one end to the other, we make that mean many things. We take that on and we exacerbate those emotions by maybe believing, “This isn’t quite for me, maybe I really can’t do this.” And so just notice for you, is all or nothing thinking making the roller coaster highs and lows bigger for you, harder, stronger? Are you possibly not spending enough time in that middle space? And if this continues for you, whatever your all or nothing pattern is, if it continues for you, what do you see in your future? Do you believe that you probably will get exhausted, that you will give up? Notice how that could impact you. All right, I want to just share a few things before we wrap up this short and sweet episode. A few things to do. Notice where this comes up for you. I’ve already put some options out there. Go ahead and write down those places where you see this all or nothing thinking coming up. Also notice how it’s impacting you. The next thing you want to do is decide what you really want in your life and ask yourself without judgment. Now, here’s why this is helpful. If you’re going from: “I’m going to make all this money,” to, “I don’t really care about money.” There’s a big question in there as to how much money you want to make and why you want to make it and how it fits into your life. And again, in any way that you’re trying to shoot for the stars and create something big, you want to find out, is this big shoot for the stars dream actually my big shoot for the star stream? Or is this someone else’s? Because the more clear you can get in what you want, the more easily you’re going to be able to regulate that emotional roller coaster. And the more easily you will be able to have thoughts that aren’t in the all or nothing thinking realm, but rather are grounded in you and where you are headed. And finally, my last tip for you is always remember to question all of these thoughts that you’re having from one end to the other. And find out how fear is impacting those thoughts. When you’re going to this place of: “I’ll never be able to do this, or maybe I shouldn’t do this, maybe I don’t care about money,” is fear impacting those thoughts on both ends of the spectrum/ So this is what I’ve got for you. Take all of this and notice where this comes up for you. Notice how different it will be if you can minimize the swing from side to side and find that powerful place in the middle where you are aligned and moving steadily toward what you personally, you, as a coach, want in your life. I look forward to talking with you next week. Those of you interested in joining me for a magical 90 days and an intimate experience, make sure to apply on my website or email Christina, [email protected]. Thanks, everyone. I’ll talk to you next week. Outro: Thanks for listening to The Masterful Coach podcast. You can check out www.thecoachingcollective.com, for info about the ultimate program for coaches building a business. To find out more about Molly, you can visit www.mollyclaire.com.