90-Second Reset

Monday, August 3

When an event triggers a chemical response in your mind body, you have 90 seconds until that flushes out of your system.

For example, someone criticizes your work, it triggers insecurity/anxiety in you. Your body releases a rush of cortisol and adrenaline, your breathing speeds up and your chest tightens.

What happens next is up to you, and it depends on the story you tell yourself.

If you feed it a negative story (“I knew I wasn’t good enough.”), you trigger another wave and restart the cycle. 90 seconds later, the clock resets. This is where most people spiral. It’s rarely the initial event that destroys their day, it’s the story they keep hitting replay on.

But if you tell yourself something different, something better (“That’s not an attack, it’s just a perspective.”), your body can calm down. Once those chemicals have gone through the process, your body can get back to normal.

Moment + 90-second chemical response + Your Response.

You are responsible for one part of the equation. If you want to get better at dealing with difficult moments, learn to tell yourself a better story about yourself and about the moment.

You get to choose if you recover or if you spiral.
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Keep chopping wood. 🪵🪓

-Kevin