The Tyranny of the OR

I was recently reading the book Built to Last --successful habits of visionary companies by James Collins and Jerry Porras when I came across a section entitled "The Tyranny of the Or".

Their thoughts (being a book about successful businesses) is that successful businesses have shifted their perspective from:

They can have change OR stability.
They can be conservative OR bold.
They can have low cost OR high quality.
They can have creative autonomy OR consistency and control.

To: figuring out how to have "and" instead of "or"s

They can have change AND stability.
They can be conservative AND bold.
They can have low cost AND high quality/
They can have creative autonomy AND consistency and control.


Black and white thinking is easiest -- and since companies (successful or not) are just groups of people (successful or not), we can apply the same thinking to people, as well.

Have you figured out how you can liberate yourself from the tyranny of the OR?

Have you been able to:

Eat the food you love AND lose weight.
Eat when you are hungry AND be guilt-free.
Weigh whatever you weigh right now AND know you are making progress toward your weight goal.

When a person sees only one path or another, life can feel very difficult. Either you are doing what is "right" or what is "wrong". Diets are like this -- you are either "on" your diet or you are "off" your diet. If you fall off the wagon at lunch, chances are you will scrub the diet for the day and start again tomorrow ... or the next day...or next week...

When you reframe your thinking to add "AND"s into your thought process, you can open up how you choose to look at the world. Pancakes and syrup for breakfast doesn't mean you are "off" your diet. It means you decided to have pancakes and syrup for breakfast AND you will make a decision about lunch in a few hours.