Day 11: Your Feelings Fuel Your Actions
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Just like your circumstances don’t create your feelings, they don’t drive your actions. The things you do, and things you don’t do come from the way you are feeling.
Also, it’s important to note that your thoughts don’t drive your actions either. It is how a specific thought feels in you that will drive what you do from it. This is why you can have the same thought as someone else, but do different things.
When you feel confident, determined, excited or focused you take very different actions than when you feel doubtful, unsure, dread or scattered. The reason it is important to examine how a thought feels in your body is because that feeling will drive specific actions.
Uncovering what that feeling is will give you insight into why you are doing certain things and not doing others. Sometimes the nicest looking thoughts lead to feelings that don’t drive the actions that we want.
It is especially important to find out if you BELIEVE your thought and that it creates a positive feeling in your body if you want to see positive actions come from it.
For example, if you actually believe the thought “I can never do this,” but you try to think “I can do this” it is unlikely that you will take action to do whatever “this” is. Because the feeling you get from “I can do this” is probably disbelief, fear, unwillingness. Which will all drive very different actions that when you actually believe you can do something.
When you believe the thought “I can do this” you will probably have feelings of confidence, determination, excitement. Which will lead to a whole new set of actions.
The goal of the model is to understand how your thoughts are playing out in your life. Discovering the feeling that you have and the kinds of actions you take or don’t take based on that feeling will give you tremendous insight.
Reflect
- What kinds of feelings do you often have?
- What are the top three positive feelings you experience on a regular basis?
- What are the top three negative feelings you experience regularly?
Ask God to reveal anything He has to say to you about this.
Take Action
Spend 5-10 minutes downloading your thoughts in general or about a specific circumstance in your life.
Take one of those thoughts and run it through a model.
Now think of a feeling you want to feel instead about the circumstance. Brainstorm some thoughts you could think about the circumstance that might cause that feeling. You don’t have to believe these thoughts yet. Just find some possibilities. Often you need to work your way toward a thought before you can actually believe it. Watch the Foundational Video below to learn how.
Spend some time praying about anything that has come up.