The Ultimate Gift You Can Give to Those You Love

Yesterday I spoke about dealing with Impostor Syndrome and how to get back to work when it starts to creep in. 

Quick refresher: Your job is simply to notice it, thank it for popping in, and then get back to work creating anyway.

And, yesterday also happened to be Valentine’s Day.

Stay with me here, the two are related…

How exactly?

Well, I came across a tool from Tony Robbins recently (similar to the one I outlined above) which he calls “the 90-second rule.”

By using this 90-second rule, you are able to produce what TR regards as the ultimate gift that you can give to those you love.

Side note: I need to start naming the processes I use. Way more street cred.

Anyway, it was not lost on me how effective this little 90-second rule can be when it comes to Impostor Syndrome or any other time we find ourselves experiencing less than stellar thoughts, and so I decided to share it with you today.

Here’s Tony…

How to Shift Your Thinking with the 90-Second Rule

1. Whenever I start to suffer, I give myself 90 seconds to stop it so that I can return to living in a beautiful state.
2. As soon as I feel the tension rising in my body, I catch myself. And the way that I catch myself is really simple: I gently breathe and slow things down. I step out of the situation and start to distance myself from all those stressful thoughts that my brain is generating.
3. Once I’ve detached myself from these unwanted thoughts, I start to focus my mind on finding something to appreciate.
4. It doesn’t matter what you appreciate. What matters is that by shifting your focus to appreciation, you shift it away from the unwanted thoughts.
5. If you keep doing this with real consistency, you actually rewire your nervous system, training your mind to find the good in every situation, so your experience of life is one of thankfulness and joy
6. Living in a beautiful state no matter what is the ultimate freedom and the ultimate gift that you can give to those you love.

Ah, there’s that word ‘consistency’ again. Hello, old friend.

And again, how awesome is that final line:

“Living in a beautiful state no matter what is the ultimate freedom and the ultimate gift that you can give to those you love.”

The next time you find yourself noticing an unwanted thought, give yourself (and those you love) the gift of the 90-second rule and see how quickly you can get back to baseline.