The 70 Percent Rule: Rewiring Your Brain Out of Survival Mode

In school, in sports, in work, it was always about striving for more, no matter the cost. And the conditioning from the past doesn’t just disappear when we grow up. It shows up in how we approach the healing path. When we’re living with chronic illness, fatigue, or symptoms that won’t resolve, that same voice often says, try harder, do more, push through. But here’s the paradox: real recovery often begins when we stop striving for 100%.

Recently, I was interviewed by Raelan Agle, whose youtube channel has helped thousands of people find hope and recovery through Mind-Body approaches. We spoke about the cultural pressure to always do more, and how that very mindset can keep you stuck in survival mode.

In this short 60-second clip from our conversation that I share below, I talk about one of the simplest yet most powerful shifts you can make on your healing path:

💡 Do only 70% of your best.

Yes, you read that right. Give yourself permission to not do it all. To not wring yourself dry in the name of healing.

This doesn’t mean giving up on the practices or tools that support you. It’s not about abandoning hope or effort. It’s about taking the edge off the self-pressure; because when you’re constantly pushing, your nervous system stays in a state of survival. That state is adding layers of stress, instead of moving you into the parasympathetic state.

When you choose 70% instead of 100%, you send a new message to your brain:

• Your value isn’t measured by how much you achieve.

It feels counterintuitive at first, even “wrong,” because the cultural training runs deep. It’s written on the walls of gyms, “No pain, no gain”. It’s celebrated in workplaces. It’s woven into our identities. But it was never designed for the health of human beings; it was designed for productivity.

To recovery fully, we have to undo those patterns. We have to unlearn the habits that were meant for a workaholic culture, not for our wellbeing.

So the next time you catch yourself forcing, striving, or pushing, remember this: You are more likely to make progress by doing 70% of your best than by doing 100%.

Try it as a small experiment. Keep doing the practices, the tools and techniques you’re already doing, but soften the pressure. Let go of the extra 30% of perfectionism. You might be surprised how much your system responds.