The 50/50 Principle

This past year has been amazing. Lots of growth, lots of new opportunities, lots of goodness. And, it’s also presented a lot of personal challenges in my roles as mother and Life Coach growing a new business.

Even though I’m a Life Coach myself now, I’m still a student learning from my own mentors and coaches, and I’m new to running my own business.  My mentors push me to grow in ways I don’t always want to sometimes and they really know how to get me out of my comfort zone. I love this about them! And, it’s hard.

I learned a cool principle about life from my mentor and Life Coach, Brooke Castillo. It’s called the 50/50 principle.

My students love it when they learn this principle because it generates a lot of relief about realistic expectations toward life and what it means to be human.

50% of the time our brains will react to our circumstances

 and will feel bad. And, 50% of the time,

our brains will react to our circumstances

 and will feel good.

No two people experience the 50/50 in the same way, even if they are faced with the same circumstances.

I work hard to be curious about my 50/50 and to try and not judge other people’s 50/50.

I sat down with my favorite pen and notebook and wrote down my Top Ten BEST moments of 2019.

Then I wrote down my Top Ten WORST moments of the year.

It was fascinating to see my year through the 50/50 lens and gave me a well-rounded perspective of the good and the bad.

If we only focus on the good, it can create escalated frustration and unrealistic expectations about how life is supposed to go when bad things happen.

If we only focus on the bad, it can create problems with missing those beautiful moments that are readily available to us which increase our capacity to experience true joy.

Here’s my list:

Top 10 Worst Moments

1. Re-modeling our downstairs bathroom and having to tear out and re-do the floor tile twice.
2. Not being able to do the Magnolia Half Marathon in Waco,Texas because of a tonsillectomy and injured hip.
3. Recovery from tonsillectomy, so hard.
4. My favorite fern died and I don’t know why. . . I’d had it for seven years.
5. Stressing over my upper division Statistics class and bombing a couple of the tests. (I passed with a B- ultimately, but it was a true nail-biter.)
6. Cleaning up a serious dog poo accident on my son’s bedroom carpet because our pupper got into our neighbor’s peach tree droppings and binged beyond what her tummy could handle.
7. My son Joseph’s Usher Syndrome diagnosis.
8. Joseph doesn’t feel comfortable skiing anymore because of the blindness setting in.
9. Going to the skin doctor every three months and having skin cancers frozen off every time.
10. shoveling snow and slipping . . .

Top Ten Best Moments of 2019

1. Finishing our downstairs bathroom remodel. Whew! It looks amazing.
2. My daughter going to her dream college and not having to go into debt for it.
3. My son placing First in the 100 Fly and the 500 Free at one of his swim meets.
4. Seeing Joseph go from hating swimming to a big smile on his face placing 2^nd in the 200 Breast at his swim meet.
5. Transitioning my teenage boys to public school and watching them hit the ground running both socially and academically.
6. Becoming a real Life Coach and knowing I’ve found my true calling in life.
7. Weight balancing with Intuitive Eating and dropping my Hashimoto’s Disease diagnosis.
8. Celebrating my twenty-seventh wedding anniversary with my husband and taking our teenagers with us, having a fun photo shoot together, knowing these are special times and they won’t last forever.
9. Watching Mandalorian on Disney+ with my family and geeking out together on how well they nailed Baby Yoda.
10. Performing my favorite holiday song, O Holy Night on the guitar for the first time in front of audiences, knowing my voice would do exactly what I wanted it to do.

If you’d like to write your own 50/50 list,

I invite you to do so because for one thing,

it’s just fun!

But not only that, it’s eye-opening to see all the good,

and it’s empowering to see that you made it through all the bad.

This is what the 50/50 is all about – perspective.

Invite some grace into the process of writing your list.  Light a candle and sip some tea while you do it.

I’m excited for this New Year and the sense of possibility that comes along with it. Join the newsletter here for all the good stuff coming in the new year. 

I can’t wait to see what is in store for all of us.

Sending you lots of love always,

Danielle xoxo