The 90/10 Principle of Life

After reading my sister's post on anger management, it reminded me on an article I read about being in control of our feelings. It was an article by the famous author Stephen Covey, who wrote best seller "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People".

So what is this principle all about ? Well, the 90/10 stands for the percentage of control we have in our life. 10% of life is made up of things which happen to us, things that we are not in control of... e.g. the plane is delayed, a driver on the road cut us off in the traffic, bad weather on the day you plan to go to the beach etc...

... and 90% of life is decided by how we react upon those situation. These 90% of life is what we determine it to be, based on our very own reaction. We have full control over these 90% of life. Now let me quote a simple example:

Scenario:
You are having breakfast with your family. Your daughter knocks over a cup of coffee onto your business shirt.

Now this is the 10% of life which you have no control over, what happens next will be determined by how you react.

Reaction 1:
You curse. You harshly scold your daughter for knocking over the cup. She breaks down in tears.

After scolding her, you turn to your wife and you blame her for placing the cup too close to the edge of the table. A verbal battle follows between you and your wife.

You storm upstairs, feeling all angry. You change your shirt and went back downstairs. You find your daughter is still at the kitchen table. She has been busy crying to finish her breakfast. She does not have time to get ready for school and misses the bus.

Your wife must leave immediately for work. So you have to take your daughter to school. Because of that, you are late for work. You drive 120km/hour in a 80km/hour speed limit zone. A on duty traffic police stops you, wasted another 15 minutes of your time and gave you a traffic fine.

After arriving at the office 30 minutes late, you realize you forgot your briefcase. The day has started terrible. As it continues, it seems to get worse.

When you arrive home, you find your wife and daughter not talking to you. The whole day sucks.

WHY ? Why did you have a bad day ?

a) Did the coffee cause it ?
b) Did your daughter cause it ?
c) Did the policeman cause it ?
d) Did you cause it ?

The answer is "D". Because of how you reacted in the morning. Now what if you have reacted differently ?

Reaction 2:
Coffee splashes over you but you gently say to your daughter: "It's okay, sweetie, you just need to be more careful next time."

Grabbing a towel you go upstairs and change your shirt. You grab your briefcase and come back down in time to kiss your daughter and wife goodbye. Your daughter get onto the bus happily, your wife goes to work and you too leave home as they do.

You arrive in the office 5 minutes early and cheerfully greet the staffs.

Notice the difference ? Two different scenarios, both started the same but ended different.

Here are some ways to apply the 90/10 Principle:

If someone says something negative about you, do not be a sponge. Let the attack roll off like water on glass. You do not have to let the negative comments affect you.

If you are told you lost your job. Why loose sleep over it and get frustrated ? Instead, use that worrying energy and time to find a new job.

I believe that we always have a choice in life. Something happens to us, we can choose to be angry or we can choose to ignore. We can choose to be sad or we can choose to be happy. It is entirely up to us. So make the right choice.