How To Put Your Needs Over Your Feelings
I went on the search for something real.
Traded what I know for how I feel.
-The Avett Brothers
Our emotions, our current state, our feelings are very powerful. In fact, for most of us, they are likely what drive many of our decisions and actions, some of them terribly important.
One of the reasons that our New Year’s resolutions have a failure rate between 80 and 90 percent, depending on the source, is due to our feelings winning out.
We don’t feel like going to the gym today. We don’t feel like cooking at home. We don’t feel like we are making enough progress. We don’t feel like spending our time on ______ anymore.
We know what we need to do. We know how to get where we want to go (at least generally). But all too often, our feelings win out.
These could be feelings associated with sadness, fatigue, frustration, disappointment, or fear. This is not meant to imply that the feelings are not real, or that we are somehow weaker for having them or allowing them to exist.
Our feelings simply win more often than they should, keeping us from the very things we value, desire, and have committed to. And they are too fickle and too varied to count on when it comes to building anything lasting and important.
When feelings win out in our parenting, our marriage, or our relationships, negative things can happen. People may not like to admit it out loud, but we don’t always feel like playing with our kids, being patient, or doing any of the daily tasks that are required of us as parents. We don’t always feel like doing the things that we know we need to do to build a strong and healthy relationship.
Process saves us from the poverty of our intention
Elizabeth King
Those things we know we need to do or should do, our intentions, don’t always hold up. As much as we know, that well isn’t always full enough for us to draw on, because of the power or our feelings. We are tired, we are stressed, we are hungry, we are frustrated, our head hurts, we are sad.
We just don’t feel like it.
While we may mean or intend to do something, so often, we do not. Our intentions themselves are not strong enough to take us where we want, and often, need, to go.
What then?
We need a process (or a Practice — Seth Godin) that allows us to show up, do the work, get things done, hone our craft, strengthen relationships, take care of ourselves, and do what we know we need to do, that doesn’t rely on how we feel in a given moment.
Our processes, the ones that save us from the poverty of our intentions, are things we can commit to, over and over again, regardless of the outcome or the feeling of the moment. An example might include the process of reading and writing, on a consistent basis. Sharpening one’s voice and skill, over and over again.
Maybe it’s the process of getting up at a certain time, putting on your running shoes, and getting out the door. From there maybe we walk and then run, but we have a process that we follow, regardless of how we are feeling for the day.
Determine what process you can follow, for your thing, business, growth, skills, or personal life, absent of a specific outcome or production. Then stick with it. The proof is not in the pudding. The proof is in the process.
One way to help us stick with our process is to begin to see ourselves and call ourselves, whatever the thing may be that we are working towards. I am a writer, so I need to write. If I am a runner, what do runners do? They run. Are you becoming a baker? Go ahead, you are a baker. So what must you do? Bake.
Don’t worry about feeling fraudulent, or not having earned it. Earned it from who? Bestow the title upon yourself. You don’t have to be the World’s Greatest Baker, or even call yourself that. But you can believe it while you become it.
Decide What To Be And Go Be It
The Avett Brothers
I’m pulling for you,
Bryan
