Photo: Help by Kosta Kostov

Motivational author and speaker Dr Stephen Covey has developed the “90-10 Rule”. The ’10′ refers to the 10% of our life that happens to us – the circumstances beyond our control. The ’90′ represents the other 90% of life that is under our control – how we choose to react to those circumstances.

Imagine if your alarm clock fails to go off and you over-lay. You have to fill up with fuel and there are huge queues. You hit all the red lights possible, and you’re stuck in traffic, meaning you are going to be late for work. You can’t change that, but you can decide how to react to it. Do you let yourself get out of control, or do you accept that sometimes these things happen, and find a better way to deal with it?

The ‘90-10’ rule makes perfect sense. But for me, I prefer to think of us as 100% responsible for our actions. If something upsets or angers us, that’s how we have ‘chosen’ to respond.

It’s not that we should try and repress these emotions, but sometimes it’s good to step back and take a wider perspective. How we’ve initially reacted is not the only way to deal with the situation.

Also, I think that for something to happen to us, or for us to be aware of it, we must be on a similar “frequency”. Not in the sense that we are to blame, but on a subconscious level, we have attracted it with our thoughts, beliefs and actions.

The way to move forward is to think and act more positively. How many times do we stop ourselves from trying something new, because of our fear of failure? If you “knew” that you would succeed today with every action you took, what could you accomplish?

If there is something important coming up in your day, why not take a few minutes and focus on how you would like it to develop. Visualize the outcome you want, and imagine yourself succeeding. Even if things don’t go exactly to plan, know that you will be able to cope with whatever happens. You always have coped up until now, and with a little extra focus, you could see positive changes.