Have you ever said or thought these things?
“I guess I just have to suck it up,” or “I feel horrible about the progress I’ve made.”
Maybe it’s “I just don’t know how this is all going to work,” or “I’m just never sure what to say.”
Sometimes my clients also say things like, “I think once the kids go back to school, I’m going to feel way better,” or “once I get that promotion, I will feel amazing in the future.”
So, let’s talk about feelings. I want you to think about your three most common feelings that you feel on a daily basis, or the ones you feel most often. To be clear: not the feelings that you think you should have, or that you want to feel, but the feelings that you DO have.
I have a list of feelings that I often pull out and will show my clients (you can find this list HERE.) When I put this list in front of a client, all of a sudden they are able to get super specific with how they feel, instead of using the same ten words all the time to describe how we’re feeling. I feel worried. I feel stressed. I feel happy. I feel sad. I feel excited. Basically, there are about ten common “feeling” words I hear. But when I pull this list out and there are probably 200 words on it, they can get super specific with how they feel and why they feel that way. All of a sudden, they can answer the question, “do you know why you feel that way?” Oftentimes they may reply that they don’t know. But if they are able to get super specific on what the feeling actually is, they can often identify the thought. I encourage you to consider all of the options out there for feeling words to describe exactly what it is. Once I pull the list out, these are the top few that I hear: frustrated, overwhelmed, confused, or burnt out. “
In thinking about your top three feelings, what actions or reactions are those top three feelings leading to or what inactions? For example, when you’re feeling overwhelmed with everything you have on your plate, what do you usually do? If you’re like most people, you become what I call paralyzed. You don’t actually do anything. If you have that feeling of overwhelm, you decide that maybe it’s a great time to just empty the dishwasher. You don’t want to do anything more taxing than that. So, you may empty the dishwasher versus tackling the project creation or writing out the presentation.
With your top three feelings, what kind of work life or home life are you creating? Is that creation the way you want it to be? Are you reaching your personal and professional goals? Are you leveling up or do you even have the brain space to figure out how to create growth or how to feel relaxed?
Now that you’ve identified your three most common feelings, I want you to write down the following: What are the three feelings you want to feel each day? What do you wish those top three feelings were? Here are some things I have heard: “I want to feel fulfilled, patient, present, relaxed, energized, passionate, brave, capable, and valuable.” If you were feeling those feelings, what would you be doing? What would your action look like? What would your day look like? And would you be closer to your goals?
Here’s an example: I have a new client. We just started working together. This client has been working to grow her business for two years. She has a beautiful website. She even has a handful of clients. But that’s not getting her the success she wants. She’s looking for the money and has a desired impact that she wants to make on the world. She came to me asking for me to help her define her ideal client and to really get her going. She said to me that she didn’t know what her problem was. She felt that she should know all this by now. What we quickly discovered in the first hour of working together and by doing this exact exercise, is that she felt like she didn’t know enough to create the successful business that she wants. She didn’t know enough about the back end or the front of her business. She realized that she still had to do more learning in order to best serve her clients. Which ultimately led to the fact that she felt like an imposter.
Have you guys heard this phrase “imposter syndrome?” It’s like the old adage “fake it ‘til you make it.” But she didn’t feel that she wanted to fake it ‘til she made it. She was really, truly feeling like an imposter. And if you’re feeling like an imposter, you’re definitely not feeling worthy enough or valuable enough to help those who need you. And this can really come out in every interaction you have. It definitely was coming out in her interactions because I was watching and observing her. She wasn’t showing up as the person who had a thriving business, who wanted to help thousands of people.
Those feelings she was having weren’t serving her. They were not triggering the actions that she needed to take in order to give her that successful business she was looking for. So, I asked her what would trigger the feelings that would trigger the actions that would help her move the needle to help her get more clients, more money, and more control. She pulled out the feelings list and she said, ”well, if I were feeling capable, worthy and committed, I think I’d be showing up a lot differently. I would show up offering value and from a place of confidence.” YES!
Those feelings, though, of capable, worthy, and committed, they were available to her right then in the moment. And guess what? All she had to do was change her thinking.
I offer you this thought: I have everything I need right now to succeed. I don’t need to read another book. I don’t need to study more. I don’t need to have another conversation with my colleague. I don’t have to get another opinion on how to do something. I just need to do it because I know I can.
I want you to think “I am capable and most importantly, I want to do this,” not I should, or I could. I want to do it. So maybe you want to feel inspired. If you want to know why you’re feeling anything you’re feeling, all you have to do is ask yourself, “what’s the thought that I’m currently having that’s causing these feelings?”
If you’re feeling excited, it’s because you’re having a thought that is exciting to you. And if you’re feeling sad, it’s because you’re having a thought that’s creating sadness for you. Ask yourself, what are you feeling? And name the feeling. Then ask yourself, what are the thoughts that I’m having or the thought that I’m having right now that’s creating that feeling? I hope that you really do this because this is one of the most powerful things you can do, knowing what’s causing the way you feel and knowing that you can have any feeling you want. If you can find a thought you believe will create any feeling that you’re having, or that you don’t want to be having, you can change it. You have the power. That’s the good news! You get to create the result by staying in-check with your thoughts and feelings and actions.
For instance, if you said to me, “I want to feel driven.” You need to believe that feeling driven is something that’s created internally, not externally. Meaning, it’s not created by what’s happening outside in your life and whether or not you have a motivating reason for that drive, but it is created from within. So sometimes people say, “well, I don’t really need to make more money,” or “I don’t really have to get that promotion. I’m just kind of not driven to do it.” It’s not the promotion or the money that is going to drive you. It’s your thought that’s going to drive you and that comes from inside you. Remember, it has nothing to do what’s going on in that outside world. It has everything to do with the thought you’re choosing to feel and the feeling you’re wanting to have. Everything you feel is a choice.
You need to take the time to identify how you’re feeling.
- Ask yourself what your three most common feelings are and what results those are getting you. Do you like those results?
- Ask yourself if you want different results. What are the feelings you need to be feeling? And would those feelings trigger the action you need to take to get that result or accomplish the goal?
- Check in with your brain. Find the thoughts that you need to have in order to feel that, no matter what’s going on in your life, whether that be Covid, someone sick, the dog, the weather work, drama management issues, your server being down, or a deadline looming
You can have any feeling you want, even with all those things happening in the outside world, because it all comes from within, you have to believe a thought that will trigger a feeling that serves you and triggers an action to get you where you want to go.
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