F_____ YOUR FEELINGS
Feelings are hard to trust. They can come on strong and drive us impulsively to make decisions - sometimes good, but sometimes not so good - and then often leave just as quickly as they came. The longer I live, the more I experience the fickle nature of my own feelings, and the more I study those we consider champions in any area of life, the more convinced I am that more often than not, how we feel is a poor indicator of what we should do. That’s because winning requires us to live with the discipline and intention it takes to do what champions do, regardless of, and often in spite of, how we feel.
The truth is, many days you won’t feel like doing what winning requires. You’ll feel tired or bored or lazy. Challenging and unexpected circumstances will leave you feeling disappointed, frustrated, or downright angry. You’ll feel like taking the day off or just setting the controls to autopilot. Those feelings are all common and natural for each of us, but when you allow those feelings to guide your decisions, and in doing so allow them to negatively affect your effort, your attitude, and your performance…then you’re setting yourself up for a life of failure and regret.
Living with discipline and intention, on the other hand, allows you to put your feelings in their place. Yes, they do have value, and yes, they are worth acknowledging, but if you’re serious about becoming someone worthy of winning, you better make sure you’re the one driving the decisions here, not them. Here are three specific ways you can take charge of your experience, put your feelings in their place, and win:
1) Filter your feelings. Managing your fatigue, your boredom, or your frustration starts with developing the awareness to recognize what it is you’re feeling and how much control you're allowing it to take. Filtering your feelings means standing guard at the entry gate of your mind and checking the credentials of the feelings that show up there before you allow them to enter. If they are worthy, valuable, and productive? Then they are welcome to stay. If they’re harmful or destructive? Then they must be turned away. You are the gatekeeper of your mind. You can’t control who shows up at the gate, but you do control who you invite in.
2) Forget your feelings. Discipline has been defined as “choosing between what you want now and what you want most.” I love that definition. Most of us know what we want most, but our feelings can make us distracted and forgetful. That’s why developing our discipline is so important, because it helps us keep what we want most in the front of our minds, and helps us clarify what choices we have to make in order to achieve it. Discipline gives our deepest desires more of our attention, and in turn makes those flighty feelings, which usually encourage us to mortgage what we want most for something more immediate and less meaningful, easier to forget.
3) Fight your feelings. There’s no disputing that feelings can be strong and powerful, and sometimes simply forgetting that they exist is a lot easier said than done. Instead of going quietly into the night, sometimes they make an all-out assault, trying to storm the gates and enter by force. Defending your mind in those moments requires you to fight. You’ll need more than just some awareness and some discipline. When you’ve got something really important to do, but those feelings are flooding your mind? You’ll need some toughness, too. You’ll have to wrestle those feelings to the ground and maybe even choke them out altogether. These are the toughest tests we face against our feelings, and the ones that real success most often requires us to win.
I want to challenge and encourage you today to keep a close eye on your feelings. Don’t trust ‘em. They usually want what’s easiest, most convenient, and most impulsive for you…but they rarely want what’s best for you. So do what champions do. Live with the discipline and intention it takes to put those feelings in their place. Filter ‘em, forget ‘em, and fight ‘em, if necessary. Take charge of your experience today...and win.