Blog

3 Emotions That Will Help You Grow

If you’re a do-er, like me, you’re probably thinking: Okay feelings are great. Now give me practical tips so I can get work done. Am I right? 

Yes, I get it. Some of us were not raised to understand and express our emotions in a proper way (growing up in an Asian household, we do NOT talk about feelings… so I can totally understand)

Yet, it’s crucial to understand our emotions and learn how to manage them properly. In fact, learning about feelings are actually quite practical and useful.

Because your feelings drive your actions, and your actions create the results you want in your life. 

Before we continue, I want to note that I’m using emotion & feeling interchangeably here.

Your Feelings Drive Your Actions

Action, inaction, what kind of action. They are the result of you feeling a certain way. If you feel scared, you will not hide or avoid. If you feel sad, you will cry. If you feel motivated, you will do the work. Your feelings dive your actions. It is how we function.

Even when you think you’re taking actions while ignoring your feelings, you’re actually feeling resistant. That’s why it’s so hard for you to move forward.

This is why it’s important to learn about your feelings, and it’s crucial to intentionally choose what you want to feel so you can take the right actions.

Embracing Useful Negative Feelings

Positive feelings are great. Feelings such as feeling excited, motivated, happy, relaxed. We have no problem feeling them.

But what holds us back is we don’t want to feel the negative feelings. Specifically, negative feelings that are useful and helpful for our growth.

We don’t want to feel frustrated, or stressed, or uncertain, or scared. But often, these are the very feelings we need to have as we’re learning and growing. Some people call this growing pain.

3 Useful Emotions That Will Help You Grow

FEELING COMMITTED

Feeling committed means having the willingness to give your time and energy to something you believe in. It is a desire to stick with a goal, a plan, or an idea until it becomes reality.

Feeling committed does not always feel good. It can feel rigid, harsh, and disciplined. But this feeling drives action. Feeling committed can help you achieve what you want.

How to practice feeling committed:

Intentionally choose to accomplish a goal. Whether it is big or small. Make it a non-negotiable to accomplish it. Have no excuses. Maybe it’s saving $1000 each month, or it’s working out every Saturday morning. Whenever you think about this goal, notice how it feels in your body. Practice feeling this way regularly.

The form you have selected does not exist.

FEELING VULNERABLE

A lot of people think feeling vulnerable means you’re weak. What they mean is feeling vulnerable means you’re exposed.

Dr. Brene Brown describes vulnerability as an “emotional risk, exposure, uncertainty.” 

Being vulnerable is putting yourself, your ideas, and your gifts out for others to see, at the risk of not receiving the feedback you desire.

It’s true that there is a risk. But what I’ve found in my business and personal life, is that whenever I put myself in a situation where I feel vulnerable, often what I get back in return is connection and understanding.

Vulnerability means sharing who you actually are, and there’s so much strength in that. As Dr. Brene Brown puts it: “vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity, and change.”

How to practice feeling vulnerable:

Let yourself be seen. Tell someone how you actually feel. Speak up and address a problem if you need to. Notice how vulnerability feels in your body. Do your fingers go cold? Do you feel a knot in your stomach? Describe the physical sensations in your body, and get more familiar with it.

FEELING COURAGEOUS

We can’t talk about vulnerability without also talking about courage.

Everyone wants to feel courageous. Yet, the feeling of courage doesn’t feel good at all. 

Courage is very closely related to fear. Courage means that you are afraid, yet despite that, you do it anyway. I have my fair share of experiencing fear and taking action to get me to where I am.

Feeling courageous means taking the leap to switch your career path despite the fact that you have to start from ground zero and that people would think weirdly of you.

Feeling courageous means deciding to let your friend know how you actually feel at the risk of losing your friendship.

How to practice feeling courageous:

Do something small that scares you every day. Maybe it’s starting a conversation with the person in front of you at the lineup. Or speaking up in your meeting at work. Practice the courage muscle so you can be more familiar with it, and do more of it in the future.

 

CONCLUSION

Feeling committed, vulnerable, and courageous. These are uncomfortable feelings that are useful for us to be familiar with. We need to create more of these feelings to drive the right actions.

These feelings are not easy. 

But we can do hard things.

We humans are so much more resilient than we think we are.

 

Cheers,

Shir

 

More Related Posts:

How to simplify and find your focus in your life

Are you someone who feels overwhelmed easily? Do you not know what you should be focusing on?

I was like that. Until I finally learned to simplify my life and find my focus.

Right now, as I’m working on my online business and taking on life coaching clients, it’s almost impossible for me not to simplify and focus.

The form you have selected does not exist.

Finding what’s important for you

To find your focus, you need to know what’s important to you right now. If you know this, you can make decisions easier and have more clarity about the next steps in your life.

1.List out different categories in your life

List out all the categories that are in your life right now. Some of the general ones include family, friends, health, finance, spirituality, environment (where you live etc.), career, personal development, etc.

Make sure all the things you do in your life can be categorized within these groups.

 

2. Rank the categories by importance

Rank the categories by the most important to the least important. Now, don’t say all of them are. Because if they are all important, than nothing is important.

 

3. Make decisions and take actions based from this list

For example, if you rank your family as more important than work. Then you can decide to miss your work seminar to attend your brother’s baseball game.

It’s important to make sure you are honest about your rankings. Make sure the categories by importance is actually how you feel. I give you the permission right now to understand that there’s nothing that “should” be more important than the other.

Everything is your decision, and what you choose to think about it. Also realize that everything comes in phases, what’s important to you right now may change over time as you evolve and move onto the next chapter of your life.

Do what you need to do and what feels right for you.

After you know your focus, then it’s time to simplify the rest.

Do you feel stressed and overwhelmed in your life? Here are some ways to simplify your life and find your focus so you can work on personal development goals and living intentionally. Daring Living Blog #daringliving #personaldevelopment #intentionalliving

 

3 Ways to Simplify Your Life to Focus on What’s Most Important

1. Simplify your relationships

Consciously choose who you are spending your time with. Be assertive (straight forward) about what you’re trying to communicate.

Drama. Toxic relationships. Complaining. Judgements. Gossips. These are all very  complicated and negative energy to be around.

Also, stop trying to “fix” other people’s problems or forcing them into doing what they don’t want to do. If other people really want to change, they have to be the ones to take ownership and realize that on their own. You simply can’t take responsibility for that.

What if you can just let them be themselves, like how you can be yourself. Instead of trying to change others or make them see you a certain way, what if you can simplify the relationship to building genuine connections and be interested to learn about them and hear what others have to say?

 

2.  Simplify Your Thoughts

We get on average 60,000 thoughts/ day. Isn’t that crazy? But not all of these thoughts are necessary useful and not all of them are serving you.

I teach my clients on thought work a lot. I teach them how to manage their thoughts and process how they think. SO they can always choose a better thought for any situation.

One simple way to declutter and manage your thoughts is by writing “thought pages.” Start by writing down everything that’s on your mind on a piece of paper. Just let it all out. I do this every day in my journal.

Then, look at it. Decide which thoughts you want to keep, which ones you want to let go of, and which ones you want to change. It’s a very useful way to declutter your thoughts and simplify them to keep the ones you want.

 

4. Simplify Your Decisions

We spend a lot of energy every day making decisions. Sometimes it’s fun. Sometimes it’s frustrating. If you really want to go to the next level, excel in your career, and go to the next level in your life, then you need to stop making decisions for what’s not important to you.

Make decisions ahead of time

Plan your tasks the week before. I plan all my tasks and meetings for the week every Sunday so I don’t have to think about what I need to do every day.

Lay out your clothes the night before, so you don’t have to think about what to wear every morning when you wake up.

 

Minimize the option of making decision

This is why Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg wear the same outfit every day. They don’t want to think about what doesn’t matter to them.

I recently got into the habit of eating the same oatmeal for breakfast every morning. Because I don’t care about what I eat, I only want to carry on with my routine and start my day right. 

 

Conclusion

Know what’s important to you and use that as your focus in this phase in your life. Simplify how you handle relationships, what you choose to think about, and how you make decisions every day.

This is really how you focus on what truly matters and design a life you love on your own terms.

 

Rooting for you,

Daring Living Shir Signature #daringliving

 

 

 

 

The form you have selected does not exist.

 

How do you simplify and find your focus in your life?

How to Deal with Expectations

Hey friend, let’s talk about expectations. Expectations from your parents, from your partner, from your boss, and from your peers. 

If you’re a millennial in your 20’s – early 30’s, this is a phase where a lot of us are still navigating through life, trying to figure out what we want to do, and learning about what’s important to us.

(more…)