Mindset

While breakthroughs in the healthspan revolution are making it possible for people to live longer lives, it’s important to remember that it’s not the number of years that matters most — it’s the quality of those years. You could live to be 120 years old and be the picture of perfect health until the day that you pass on, but if all of those years were spent worrying, being angry, or regretful, then is it really worth living longer?

Suffering is a part of human nature, as we have a two million-year-old “fight or flight” brain that evolved to protect us from saber-toothed tigers. The tigers are long gone, but our brains are still programmed to be fearful. It overblows everyday struggles, often turning small bumps in the road into matters of life and death.

But what’s absolutely fascinating is that we have 100% control over our minds. In fact, there are many tools that you can use to direct your thoughts away from a place of fear, and into a place of abundance and gratitude. As Life Force author and peak performance strategist Tony Robbins says, the quality of your life is the quality of your emotions — and below you’ll discover a simple tool to keep those emotions in check.

Use Your Mind to Control Your Emotional Home

In order to change your mindset from a negative place to a positive one, you need to understand where your emotional home is. Your emotional home is the place that your mind always goes back to time and time again, regardless of the external environment. In other words, your emotional home is your emotional pattern when things are good, and when things are bad.

And being aware of your emotional patterns (and changing them, if necessary) is important because where you’re living emotionally ultimately determines what your life will be like.

For instance, if you’re wealthy and successful in your career, but your habitual emotions are ones of feeling inadequate and unfulfilled, you’ll have an insecure life. If you have a wonderful family, career, and home but are constantly comparing yourself to others and wanting what they have, you’ll live a life of envy.

This emotional pattern follows you like a shadow until you consciously and deliberately draw a line in the sand and change it.

The 3 Decisions

Luckily, there are three conscious decisions you can make to change your emotional patterns for the better. These three, simple decisions are what Tony Robbins has used throughout his entire life and career to direct his own mind away from fear, so he can instead use it to help others and make an impact.

Decision #1: What will I focus on?

If you focus on the worst-case scenario of any situation, your mind moves into a place of fear. If you focus on the best-case scenario, you’ll feel confident. It doesn’t matter what the outcome is — your feelings are created by what you choose to focus on.

Decision #2: What does it mean?

As soon as you focus on something, your brain has to decide what it means. Is God punishing you or challenging you? Is this person insulting you, coaching you, or loving you? Is life happening for you, or to you? The meaning you choose will radically change how you feel, and ultimately control the quality of your life.

Decision #3: What am I going to do?

This is the most important of the three decisions, as it either leads to taking massive action or accepting the situation as it is. As you can imagine, the people who choose to take action (which is often the harder choice) usually have a very different outcome and life than those who settle into complacency.

Think about a difficult situation in your life that you didn’t handle very well. Now, think about it through the lens of these three decisions. Would the outcome have changed? What would things be like now?