(2 minute read)
“Never make a permanent decision based upon a temporary emotion.”
Every now and then we’re presented with a little life hack which has the potential to re-frame our thinking and subsequent behaviour.
During an interview between former Chief Business Officer at Google X, Mo Gawdat, and Damian Hughes of the ‘High-Performance Podcast’, one of these hacks was shared.
According to Mo Gawdat, and supported by the research of neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor, negative emotions have a duration of only 90-seconds within the human body.
You know them, despair, frustration, anger, helplessness.
Once the barrier is breached, these negative emotions can flood in. When they do, your body reacts and there’s an immediate surge of hormones.
Then, after about 90-seconds, they’re gone. What happens next isn’t driven by emotions, but by choice!
Sure, you can sustain the emotion by replaying the story over and over, or you can take a breath and respond from a different place.
As simple as this may sound, it became a lifeline for Mo Gawdat.
After losing his son during a surgery he was faced with a reality no parent should have to navigate. Yet, in the depths of his grief, Mo decided to build something with his pain, to solve for happiness.
In his brutally honest and open interview with Hughes, it was revealed that high performers aren’t immune to pain, nor do they avoid it. Rather, they learn to work with it.
Mo Gawdat shared his practise of how he’s learned to move through, and beyond, negative emotions, starting with 3 key questions.
- Is it true?
- Can I do anything about it?
- Can I accept it and move forward?
Mo refers to this as his ‘flowchart of happiness’.
This lovely life hack acts as a reminder to us that between any external stimulus or event, and our response to this, we retain the right to choose how we will respond – and not simply react to circumstances.