“People generally have more control over their actions than their feelings. But we can influence our feelings by taking action. Take one small step. Move the body first and the mind will follow.” James Clear
My husband spent a significant amount of time to locate a hotel with a pool and hot tub. When my husband went to check us in while we waited in the car, he came back with a cringe look on his face. "Oh boy!" I thought. "What is it?"
The hotel's hot tub sprung a leak this morning. Whhhhhhaaaaatttt? That was the whole point of choosing this particular hotel. I got my masked and semi stormed in with Amira trailing close behind. Obviously, there was nothing the staff could do. I would have left if finding an operating hot tub was easy. But I knew it wasn't so I decided to suck it up.
I fully expressed my disappointment, then I decided to smile. I didn't want to, but I did. Then I shared how I wasn't going to let not having a hot tub ruin our trip. I was going to have a good attitude and enjoy our special time together. Isn't this one of the many lessons that I'm trying to teach my kids; how to bounce back from disappointments.
James Clear put it so well. Sometimes we have to move to influence our emotions, not the other way around. It's the same when we are trying to develop a consistent behavior or habit. We have to do it, precisely when we don't feel like it. We may not FEEL like doing what we said we would do, but do it any way and all of a sudden we get into it then actually feel like doing "it." This also goes for our emotional states.
Sometimes we have to decide to Feel Something Different; we have to override our emotional reaction, so we can effectively respond.
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Cheering you on,
Asia