How to quieten your pesky Saboteurs

“Stress and unhappiness are always a choice. Any negative feelings you experience are because you’ve chosen to listen to your Saboteurs.”

Just as the pain of touching something hot only needs to be experienced for a split second before we get the warning and take action to stop. Disappointment over a setback or a mistake is only useful for about 10 seconds until we switch to curiosity over how to learn from it. And feeling stressed over an important presentation or deliverable is of limited benefit until we start preparing.  About 10 seconds worth!

The next time you find yourself in a negative feeling or reaction for more than 10 seconds try to;

1) Pause, ask yourself if you’ve got the message and if there's value in staying in the reaction.

2) Laugh at your saboteur and ask it to step aside.

Credit: Shiraz Chamine, Positive Intelligence