You Get To Decide How You Want To Feel

Welcome to expand your life podcast. This is Jc Jones and you’re listening to episode 31.

Welcome back everyone. I hope you’re doing well today. We’re going to talk about how you get to decide how you want to feel. How are you feeling right now? How have you been feeling this week? There’s a great quote. I want to share with you.

“Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”

How much have you been suffering this week? Have you been feeling stressed out, depressed, anxious, unmotivated, overwhelmed? Before we go any further I just want you to know you’re perfectly normal. All of those feelings are perfectly normal under the circumstances that we’re dealing with today.

Today’s episode isn’t about telling you you’re wrong in feeling any of those things because you’re not wrong. Those are all normal, natural human emotions that take place when big changes occur in your life, big changes occur in the world. So these emotions and feelings are perfectly normal. But I also want you to understand that they are also completely optional.

They aren’t necessary, they aren’t productive. The biggest thing I’ve heard since this COVID-19 outbreak is how you’re feeling overwhelmed and stressed out, out of control. All the things that gave you a sense of control before this occurred, just flew out the window. Your routines, your income. I totally get it. You know, I spent the first week or two feeling exactly like this. It took me a week or two to get to the point where I was tired of feeling this way. And so I decided to do something different.

So if you’re tired of how you’re feeling and you want to feel differently, I’ll share with you some things that might help.

The first thing is something I heard recently from Hal Elrod. It’s something that he has started incorporating into his day that I thought was really ingenious. And since I’ve started incorporating into my life, it has done wonders.

And that is to schedule time each day to stress out. And what I mean by that is, okay, so you find yourself throughout your day, stressing out and getting overwhelmed by all the things that are happening in your life or not happening in your life, depending on your circumstances. And you just dwell on those all day long. That’s one thing that will wear you out fast. So what he does is he schedules time in his day to stress out. To deal with all the things. And the rest of the day he’s not allowed to worry about it. Whenever those thoughts come into his mind, he’ll jot down reminders of things that he needs to deal with or think about or figure solutions out for. And he blocks that time out in his day to deal with it. This has been a total game changer for me.

I’ll tell you right now, every now and again, a tool comes around or an idea comes around, that just gives you that aha moment. Well, this was an aha moment for me because I was allowing my stress levels to get to the point where it really was just wearing me out. I had absolutely no energy or mental bandwidth to deal with anything. And incorporating this into my day, kept me focused on things that were productive. Kept me focused on things that were actually going to move the needle forward for my life and for my day, along with a few other things that I did.

And so that chunk of time that I set aside each day to deal with some of the stressors and issues and worries that were coming up in my life, I actually got more accomplished in that short block of time than if I had sat there and dwelled on it and worried about it all day long.

It was more of a focused session to deal with those things and figure out solutions rather than just dwelling on them. So much more productive. For those of you who don’t know who, Hal Elrod is, he is the author of the book, The Miracle Morning, and he also has a great podcast called Achieve Your Goals. You might want to check that out.

All right. On to number two.

The second thing that might be helpful for you is to set an intention for your day. What is an intention? When you set an intention for your day, you are deciding what your day is going to look and feel like. You’re deciding what you’re going to focus on, how you intend to show up for others. It’s your aim, your purpose, or the attitude that you want to commit to for your day. This allows you to create the day that you want, rather than allowing your day just happen to you.

It allows you to focus on your values, what you want to be, what you want to contribute to others and how you want to feel, how you want your day to feel. It focuses your attention on what’s important to you rather than dwelling on the things, the negative things.

How I do this is every morning after I wake up, I ask myself:

How do I want to feel today?

How do I want to show up for those I come into contact with?

Don’t make this more difficult than it needs to be. I find it best to just run with the first thing that comes to mind. In my experience this has served me the best. And once I decide how I want to feel for that day and how I want to show up for others, the next question I ask myself is:

What can I do to feel that way?

And what can I do to show up for others that way.

One action for each of those things. So if you want to feel more positive, if you want to have a positive outlook for your day, what are some things that you can do to create that for yourself?

Well, you could be more mindful throughout the day of the thoughts that you are having. And when you find yourself dwelling on negative things, refocus your mind onto positive things, you could think about things that you’re grateful for. That usually always puts me in a more positive frame of mind. So pick something that you can actively do to make sure that your intention for your day is a success.

So the same thing applies to how you want to show up for others. If you want to be more kind, decide on something that you would do that day when you come into contact with people that would show more kindness to them.

It can be something as simple as smiling and saying, hello, greeting people, thanking people. Setting an intention for your day focuses your mind on how you want to create your day. What impact you want to have and how you want to feel.

The last, the thing that I would recommend is to look at how you spend your time. Where are you spending your time? What is the value that you’re gaining from how you spend your free time?

I’m not going to give you specifics as far as one thing being better or worse than another, because that’s very, subjective. It’s very different for different people. But what I do want you to really become aware of is how it affects you. How it affects your thoughts and how you feel.

Whenever you feel yourself becoming depressed or anxious or upset about anything, evaluate in your mind what it is that started it. What created those feelings inside of you? Is it the news that you’re watching? The people that you’re hanging around? Is it the news that you’re watching the social media, that you’re consuming? The people that you listen to, the attitudes around you, your reactions to other people’s crap?

Really try to figure out what that is for you. Learn what triggers those feelings in you. The first step in being able to change those reactions is first noticing them. First knowing what they are. Recognizing them. Sometimes just the simple act of recognizing what it is will give you freedom from that reaction. It will help you take a pause before you react. Before you get upset or angry or depressed or anxious. It’ll give you that moment where you can say, Hey, this isn’t even mine. This is just a reaction to someone else’s crap. And realize that you can choose something different.

Sometimes that might mean staying away from those things. Sometimes it might mean speaking up, but whatever it is for you, become aware of it.

All right, I think I’ll end this week’s episode there. Be sure to check back next week, we’ll be talking about self-worth and the value that you place on yourself. So be sure to subscribe to the podcast so you’ll get updates and notifications when new episodes are released. Have a great week. Bye for now.