It’s 2 o’clock in the morning. You wake up with a bit of a start. Maybe you had a dream in which you were highly emotional (angry or sad or afraid). No problem – it was just a dream. You’ll go back to sleep, right?

Maybe not. Maybe you’ll spend the next 3 hours turning things over in your mind. Your thoughts will be going in circles, you’ll solve exactly nothing, and if you do go back to sleep at all, you’ll still be exhausted when your alarm goes off at 6:00 AM.

This is rumination. A nasty kind of thinking that goes nowhere, makes you feel bad and leaves you drained.

If this sounds familiar, and it does to most of the leaders and entrepreneurs I’ve worked with over the years, I’d like to offer a 3-step process to help you come out of rumination.

The three steps correspond to three different powers that we have: the power to take ACTION; the power to change our THOUGHTS; and the power to redirect our ATTENTION.

The first step is to take or identify one action that you can take to deal with your situation. You can arrive at this action by asking yourself “what’s one tiny action I can take that could make my situation 1% better?”

The secret to this first step is to keep it small! Don’t try to conquer the world. Think of one tiny action, like one phone call, one email, one small change you could make that will make the situation 1% better. That’s it! One percent. If you can, take that action right away, even at 2:00 AM. If you can’t take it right then, right it down and commit to taking that action right away the next day. This will calm the sympathetic nervous system whose job is to get you going.

If that first step does the trick for you, great! No need to go to step 2. If it doesn’t, the second step is to ask yourself “how can I change the thoughts I’m thinking about this situation so that I feel more hopeful?” Typically, our thoughts run around like a rat in a maze. There is no exit from the maze. The purpose of this step is to create an exit by focusing on possibility. The best way to do this is to think long term.

Let’s say I want to launch a bold new initiative that’s going to cost me $200,000. I don’t have that money now. I can ruminate on the all the reasons why I don’t have that money. Or I can focus on the possibilty that I COULD get that money. I add the word “YET” at the end of my thinking. I don’t have the money yet. The word “yet” gives hope.

Changing one’s thinking is another good way to calm the mind at 2:00 AM. If that works for you, great. If it doesn’t, then on to the third step: redirecting the attention. You’ve gone through ACTION, you’ve reframed your THOUGHTS, and now it’s time to redirect your ATTENTION. To what? I suggest the breath or sounds. You can attend to the breath by making your exhales twice as long as your inhales, say, inhale for a count of 4, exhale for a count of 7 or 8. Or you can listen to all the sounds around you. The world is quiet in the middle of the night, but if you listen carefully, you’ll hear all kinds of sounds, like wind, crickets, ventilation, even your own breathing.

The next time you find yourself caught in the quicksand of rumination, try these three steps. Identify one small ACTION you can take; make your THOUGHTS more hopeful by focusing on longer-term possibilities; and redirect your ATTENTION to the breath or to the subtle sounds around you. There’s a good chance that you’ll be back asleep quickly, and wake up refreshed.