Ignore Your Feelings – Enjoy Your Feelings
You aren’t your feelings.
You feel like avoiding a tough conversation, but YOU have it. You don’t feel like getting up in the morning, but YOU get up anyway. You want to smack someone, but YOU don’t.
Ignore your feelings.
Feelings are coddlers and bullies. Feelings want you to take the easy path and beat you up when you do. When you avoid a tough conversation, you feel relief. Later, you feel anxious.
You’re ready to lead your first meeting. Your feelings scream, “Run!”
You’re stuck when you obey your feelings.
- You don’t try new behaviors because you feel fake.
- You stick with the known because fear says, “Avoid the unknown.”
- You stay in bed because it feels good.
Enjoy your feelings.
How do you feel when you do something you should do, but don’t feel like doing? You feel relief, “I’m glad that’s over.” You feel proud, “I’m glad I did that.”
Ignore feelings that encourage you to take the easy way. You’ll be glad you did.
The best feelings come after you ignore your feelings. Ignore your feelings to enjoy your feelings.
You never gain confidence if you wait to feel confident.
I’ve been giving presentations all my life and I still get nervous. I enjoy the feeling after I’m done, not before I start.
The feeling you want to feel is waiting on the other side of the feeling you don’t like.
Tips:
- Feel your feelings, but don’t let them control you. Lean into scary aspirations.
- Use fear and anxiety as motivation for preparation.
- Just start. A small beginning is better than rolling over in bed.
- Stop criticizing yourself because you don’t feel like doing something you know you should do.
- Pat yourself on the back after you do something that you didn’t feel like doing.
What feelings do you need to ignore in order to get where you want to go?
Note: Ignoring feelings is not about burying feelings.
Bonus material:
Ignoring Your Emotions Is Bad for Your Health. Here’s What to Do About It (Time)
How to Control Your Emotions so Your Emotions Don’t Control You (Inc)
Good morning Dan,
You hit the Golden key! “Feel your feelings, but don’t let them control you”. We need to have control of ourselves before we enter into the unknown aspirations of doing something we have fear of, the first presentation in front of an audience, the meeting with the higher ups, etc.
Learning self control has kept me out of more trouble then I know or at least admit knowing!
I remember in 7th grade a classmate told me to “control myself”, that was the start of control for me, someone else had my attention with two words, seemed so simple, yet so difficult at times!
Thanks Tim. I love that you remember a story about self-control from 7th grade! Holy cow!
What’s interesting is the impact OTHERS have in our lives. We never get where we want to go alone. Also, we never know the impact we can have on others with just two words.
Ignoring feelings that do not empower or produce positive fruit/outcomes. Challenging feelings is important.
Thanks for adding your insights, Gerry. Challenge your feelings is something I hadn’t considered. In my experience this holds true for how I feel about people. I might be irritated, but after reflection, I’m over-reacting.
Loved your blog this morning because it challenged me to thing about this topic. Had to read it twice and still uncomfortable with it – maybe just my feelings getting in the way! I would like to hear your thoughts on how to determine when to act on feelings and when to ignore. I challenge myself to understand my feelings and know where they are coming from so I can make a wise decision on whether to ignore or act upon them – but I don’t always get it right. Thanks for adding the note. Burying feelings is self-destructive in the long term.
Hi Rob. You ask some great questions. I’m with you. The ideas in the post are uncomfortable. They run against the culture of “go with your feelings.”
Lets act with our mission/vision/values in mind, regardless of our feelings. Sometimes I want to sleep in, but I have a job to do.
It’s great when it feels good to get out of bed, but it doesn’t matter. You get out of bed because it’s the right thing to do.
Yes, feelings matter. But I don’t think they are the ruling factor. Hard stuff doesn’t feels good before you do it.
Well, I don’t think this is an adequate response, but it’s something to think about.
Dan, This is completely right on! I love the steps & find that #3 is the key for me….I know I am my own worst enemy & when I dwell on my feelings, nothing good comes of it. Yet 99% of the time, when I am able shift from #2 to #3 & take action, even if it’s just baby steps initially, good things happen….I might add a step 4.5, which is to reflect on how things went. That often leads to step 5 & a positive reinforcement of repeating the process in the future. Thanks!
Thanks Bob. I’ve been mulling over some ways to express #3 above.
Act quickly or just give up and stop thinking about it.
Act now or tell yourself that you aren’t going to do it all.
Get this done or just give up.
Let’s be honest with ourselves. The stuff we put off is just a weight that holds us back. Either do it or forget it.
The exception to this idea is creative work. It’s often useful to mull things over and come back to them later. But, if you’ve been procrastinating on a tough conversation or a follow-up call, do it or just tell yourself you aren’t going to do it.
Wow! Powerful and helpful. Thank you.
Thanks John.
Great post Dan! My vice president and I are fairly certain you have inside knowledge of our company on the challenges we face daily. One of the statements we constantly say around here is that our feelings are valid and a good indicator, but they shouldn’t be what drives our decisions. As a team we are working on building better emotional intelligence in our problem solving. Also, I often challenge myself and others to evaluate the “self-talk” tape that is running in our heads. Tip #4 is spot on! Thank you for coaching and encouraging us to reflect on these things.
Thanks Greg. It’s not unusual for people to write and say that I must be listening in on their conversations. Leadership challenges are everywhere and we often face similar challenges.
You know, #4 FEELS really important. 🙂 Why bother beating yourself up? What good does it do? There are plenty of times you don’t feel like doing something. But you do it anyway. You don’t need the baggage of kicking yourself while you move forward.
Nice clear discussion. Use your feelings but don’t let them use you. Too often now we see certain groups lead with feelings and emotions over facts and those groups even go so far (you can search and easily find many examples) as to say facts don’t matter, only feelings matter. That’s a dangerous pathway to make decisions with and move forward. That direction also presents many opportunities for “the feelings crowd” to be manipulated and controlled.
Thanks for the warning, Roger. Love your sentence, “Use your feelings but don’t let them use you.” Boy that’s good.
Spot on, Roger … thanks for putting it so succinctly.
I use my feelings as early indicators/flags/”notices” of how I can possibly be provoked by others, into reacting ilo responding artfully … and thus be able to properly anticipate/plan my choice of action/words should that potentiality become real. I make friends with these feelings, to put their cause at ease.
This is especially useful when confronted with the types that create a crisis so that they just confuse the hell out of everyone and be the only one to resolve it.
These “Dramatists” always start by inducing personal feelings into a group dynamic, and then manipulating individuals to agree to things or at least “follow” in a direction their pragmatic, rational minds otherwise wouldn’t go.
Because you’ve already “seen” the potential, you (usually) know how to short-circuit the dynamic with a few short sharp words or actions. IMHE.
Rurbane: This one is so precious: “This is especially useful when confronted with the types that create a crisis so that they just confuse the hell out of everyone and be the only one to resolve it.” I’ve seen so many of those crisis freaks in my nearly 40 years working, they come and they go usually with much fanfare. Ha ha, thanks for the confirmation.
Dan, I like all of your posts, but some of them are empowering, enlightening, and life changing…. this is one of them! Thank you so much.
Thanks Sara. I’m glad we’re on the journey together.
One of the things I have learned as a coach is that your feelings spring from your thoughts. In other words, the “story” you tell yourself about a situation is what produces those feelings. That narrative runs all the time, with or without conscious thought. So, to help yourself work with your feelings and still behave in ways you most admire or are most effective, you can learn to be more mindful of the story you are telling yourself. You can then work to deliberately change your thoughts. For example, in a situation where you are feeling afraid of taking action, you might challenge yourself with, “What’s another way to look at the potential of this situation?” It’s not magic or easy, but it’s far better than remaining at the mercy of feelings like worry, fear, apathy, etc.
You stay in bed cause it feels good. Then eventually awake only to feel terrible for oversleeping and messing up your day. Feelings definitely need controlling