The 90/10 Rule

Whether you are already living your authentic life, or in the pursuit of it, you will inevitably experience challenges, disappointment, and tough times. There is no escaping them or the emotions that come along with them.

You’re not supposed to escape them.

The experiences, despite sucking while going through them, teach us about ourselves, allow us to uncover new skills, and bring new opportunities to us–they make us stronger and help us move closer to our authentic life, assuming we see the lessons they are presenting to us.

The emotions we feel during these experiences are normal and to be expected–they are meant to be experienced. It is ok to be sad, scared, disappointed, or defeated, but you shouldn’t stay in those emotions.

My friend Ryan Russell shared with me his 90-10 rule on my podcast, On Our PRST, and it is a rule you should live by.

Ryan is a husband, father, entrepreneur, designer, creator, professor and so much more–he is the type of person who makes everyone around him better and feeling important. Ryan is also a fighter–he was diagnosed with a stage 4 glioblastoma last year and is currently undergoing some futuristic treatment to beat his tough diagnosis. If anyone had the right to be stuck in negative emotions, it would be Ryan.?

But he’s not.

If you were fortunate enough to have a conversation or spend some time with him, you’d never know he was sick.? And the reason you’d never know is because of his optimistic attitude, positive energy, and love for life. The secret for maintaining his high frequency and positive energy is his 90-10 rule.

Ryan’s 90-10 rule keeps him positive and optimistic about his diagnosis and outlook on life, maximizing the time with his family and friends, and being present to experience life 90% of the time.

90% of the time he is annoyingly optimistic, upbeat, and positive.

With the other 10% he allows himself to be sad, scared, mad, frustrated, or whatever emotion he is feeling at the time. Instead of suppressing these darker emotions, he allows himself to experience them, process them, and then get back to his natural positive state.

10% of the time he finds himself down, angry, scared, and frustrated.

The 10% is just as important as the 90%—but it’s even more important that it stays at 10% and doesn’t begin to steal from the 90%. Once the balance begins to tilt the other way it can become a slippery slope.

Ryan doesn’t beat his glioblastoma without the positive energy the 90% affords him and you won’t beat whatever challenging experience you might face either.

It’s important to remember that the energy we put out is what we attract. By maintaining a high frequency and keeping our energy positive the majority of the time, 90%, we attract more positive energy and experiences to us. But we can’t ignore the lower frequency emotions we feel when experiencing tough times–those emotions, up to a certain point, help us grow. But spending too much time down in these emotions begins to attract more lower energy to us, keeping us down longer and eventually stealing from the 90%.

I wish I could tell you the pursuit of your authentic life will always be positive but that’s not how life operates—and you know that.?

Instead, you should feel those lower frequency emotions when they show up. Process them. And don’t allow them stay too long.

Get yourself back to your 90%.

See you tomorrow and keep pursuing,

JC