All or Nothing Day

This cognitive distortion sets an unreasonable rule in which any outcome less than 100% equates to 0%. All-or-nothing thinking is a common type of cognitive distortion. In 1939, a young and relatively unknown New Jersey band singer named Frank Sinatra recorded a new song called "All or Nothing at All." The record initially flopped, selling fewer than 8,000 copies. But "All or Nothing at All" would endure, and in retrospect, music critics see the 1939 recording of the song as an early milestone, not just in Sinatra's career, but in American popular music as a whole.

All-or-nothing thinking refers to thinking in extremes. You are either a success or a failure. Your performance was totally good or totally bad. If you are not perfect, then you are a disaster. This binary way of thinking does not account for shades of gray, and can be responsible for a great deal of negative evaluations of yourself and others.

This just means that your thinking has gotten twisted up and is based on inaccurate information or assumptions. All-or-nothing thinking is often based on things we were told as children, which we've accepted as facts, reinforced, and internalized. One brownie doesn’t erase the success I’ve had with my diet!