The 60 Rule for Emotions & Problem Solving

Transcript

welcome back to self-help today we are going to be talking about the 60 rule [Music] so i'm going to lay out the 60 rule real quick for you the 60 rule has to do with rating how intense your emotions are on a scale of one to one hundred so one being you know not intense or severe at all and 100 being the most intense severe experience you've ever had with this particular emotion right so it's this full spectrum of emotion intensity so the 60 rule comes in with this hard cutoff of a rating of 60. the idea is that anything rated 60 or below should be regulated with a certain set of strategies anything above a 60 you're going to need to do what's called distress tolerance which will be covered in the next video so this video we're going to focus on this one to 60 range and what you can kind of do in that range to help yourself consequently when cam was in high school any he'd rate the girls from zero to 100 any girl under 60 he knew that he could go after him anything above 60 he knew that was out of my league yeah for somebody like me that's awesome i laughed too hard and i think so in this 1 to 60 range there are a ton of different strategies you can try we're going to highlight a couple and what i'm going to do is i'm going to leave some really nice resources for you guys in the description section and i will also encourage you to comment with some of your favorite resources or strategies to regulate your emotions when they're in this 1 to 60 range so yeah there's no silver bullet no things work for different people try them all out 100 i'll just list off a few of my favorites um practicing mindfulness is one that i really like and that's something that'll be covered very soon in some future videos another one is even that idea of like the first video where you're observing and describing and labeling your emotions so that's another thing that'll help the one that i chose to really focus on for this video though is one that i think you will like and it is problem solving i love problems sometimes i just create them just so that i can go solve them stir in the pot oh yeah i love it this is an effective strategy when the situation is the problem not necessarily when another person is the problem or when something that's completely out of your control is the problem but when the situation you're in and you have a little bit of control over that that's when this is going to help because when it comes down to it sometimes changing the situation in whatever way you can is the best way to regulate your emotions so that's like i'm let's say i'm getting frustrated okay and i'm just like oh i just you know red triangle named burt i'm just i'm starting to get upset and i go you know what i'm angry right now i need to go take a walk is that that's changing the situation didn't fix the problem but it did adjust the situation in a way that allows me to scale down pull back and take that breath or two right and sometimes that might be the only thing you can do especially if you're in an argument with someone else and you can't change or like force them to see it your way even though i'm right always in that scenario it would be helpful then to take a walk that's problem solving right interpersonal relationship problem solving at its finest for problem solving especially when we're considering emotion regulation there are six steps you can follow we're going to start with number one so number one is describing what is problematic about the situation so you're taking a look at the situation and you're really pinpointing where the problems are coming from the second step is to define the obstacles you want the problem to be solved so you need to understand what is in your way or what is stacked up against you from solving it often at work because i i do problem solving for work right i say what's the perfect state and then i ask why can't i be there right now and then you focus on that there's no need to focus on anything else except for what is keeping you from being where you want to be this moment yep what is keeping you from the solution exactly that actually segues perfectly into number three which is defining what it is you want or what the goal is and it's important here to define what you want as opposed to what you don't want because it's easy to come up with all these things of what we don't want but if we're always focused on what we don't want we're never actually going to be super clear on what it is we do want and when we get there so knowing what you want number four is brainstorming a lot of solutions what's fun about this is that anything goes and when i do this with clients we sometimes get real crazy of like oh well i could build a rocket ship and go fly on the moon and create a habitat there and then that would solve my problem can we role play this yeah all right wait what's the problem okay the problem is you're having a hard time connecting in your romantic release so the situation then for example's sake will be that you have this sibling they really bother you and get under your skin okay so they're bothering me uh i can i can leave and not talk to them okay um i can tell them how i feel i can try to change how i act toward them i can think of them as a different person yeah i can go behind my bed and with a small pocket knife cut a a tally mark into the drywall every time they bother me i thought you're going somewhere else for that yeah actually let's cut that out yeah i don't know what that one was about but anything goes so make a voodoo doll make a voodoo doll i tell my parents every time they bother me yeah oh good that's smart i can write them a strongly worded letter and then never actually send the letter yeah burn the letter yeah we're coming up with great ideas yeah and you should be paying me so this is just to illustrate that really it just it's a brainstorming session where you're just coming up with any idea for a solution and anything goes i understand what is problematic yep i describe the obstacles and then i know where i want to go you know what you want i know what i want and then i find solutions and then you choose a solution that is feasible and seems like it is actually going to be an effective method to solve the problem okay okay so it really just comes down to like looking at your list of everything you thought of in your brainstorm session and say okay looking at this list this option looks like it's you know going to be the best option for me and the most effective right now and then i do it that's number six you implement that solution or you actually carry it out okay and again this is just one possible strategy and in the description below you're gonna find some of my favorites and feel free to comment and tell us what your favorites are yeah as always thank you guys so much for watching be sure to watch the next video where we're actually going to talk about what to do when you rate your emotional intensity above a 60. see you then