Welcome to the Habits of Success podcast where we talk about different habits and how you can use them to change your life. My name is Ian Warner and I'm your host and today we're going to be talking about how actions dictate Your feelings and how to make that happen. How to really be a person who is not necessarily run by your feelings, but is controlled by things that you have more control over.
But before we get into that, make sure you leave a review for the podcast. And also, if you want to jump in and jump into Habit Mastery, make sure you go to course.thehabitstacker.com and you can go ahead and do that. but let's get right into it so one of the biggest things that i learned as i was getting better at track and field was that to be successful At almost anything, you have to be the type of person who is not necessarily controlled and swayed by your feelings all the time.
Because the thing about feelings is, and I'm saying this as an emotional person. I think I'm much more emotional than logical, but I understand that I have to allow the logic to override the emotion a lot of time. Because what happens is... Doing things that you need to do to be successful at anything. I don't care what it is.
it's hard it's not it's not easy that's why everybody's not successful at everything right because if it was easy to do it everyone would do it but there are these challenges that keep coming up and These things wear on your feelings. And eventually, you get to a point where you're like, I don't feel like doing this anymore. I don't feel like continuing with these challenges. I don't feel like continuing to push through this crap.
And it's easy to quit at that point. And then you guarantee you're not going to succeed, right? So I first want to just paint a picture of what it looks like when your feelings run your life. When your feelings run your life. Most of what you do is dictated by statements like, I don't really feel like doing that right now. Or I feel like eating this. It's always a feeling.
that you're looking for and searching for in order to take action so if your alarm goes off at five o'clock in the morning and you don't feel like getting up you don't and you say well i don't feel like it so i'm gonna keep sleeping and if you don't you feel like eating certain foods or whatever you don't want to stick to maybe a diet you set or whatever it is you don't feel like working out you just don't do it but
Anybody who has been consistent at anything, whether it's being consistent with working out or consistent with maintaining a certain diet or consistent in certain patterns in their relationships, they will tell you that. It's not about the feeling in the moment It's about finding a way to get started on that thing and then after getting started the feelings about it begin to change
But when you let your feelings run your life, the problem really is that you don't have a lot of control sometimes over your feelings. But you know you can control your actions. And here's what I mean when I say that. you go to sleep at night you wake up the next day you really have no idea how you're gonna feel you don't know like you hope that you feel good you hope you feel well rested but there are some times you have a great day you get your full eight and a half hours of sleep you
You know, you were hydrated and you still wake up and you feel like crap. Now, you did everything right, but it just didn't work out. Now, does that mean that you should say, well. I don't feel good, so I'm just not going to do jack today. Like, no. You still have to get up and get your day started and do what needs to be done. But...
Your actions are something that you actually can dial in and say, hey, I can't control the fact that I don't feel great. But what I can do is tap in, dial in, and make sure that I get a good workout in today. You can control that thing. So when you decide to finally allow your actions to run your life, you stop really caring about what I feel in the moment. So if you're like, hey, I need to read for 30 minutes every single day.
On days you don't feel like reading for 30 minutes, you still read for 30 minutes. On days that you don't feel like working out, you still get a good workout in. And through that, you actually feel more accomplished. And it builds even more confidence. Because what happens is... You can say, man, you know what? I really didn't feel like working out today. And I got a great workout. That was one of my best workouts. And you have more confidence.
I've talked about this on previous podcasts. At all times, you are either losing confidence or gaining confidence. There's no in-between on this. There's no black and white. There's no sitting in the middle on this. It's black and white. You are either gaining confidence by being consistent and following.
through on your habits or you are losing confidence by skipping things. So every time someone says, ah, you know what? I don't feel like working out. I'm just not going to do it today. I'm going to sit on the couch and watch Netflix. They're losing confidence. They like in some way, shape or form, you are losing some confidence.
but when you say no I don't feel like doing it but I might get up and get this working you gain confidence so by being someone who is controlled by your actions you just continue to gain that confidence Now, you might be asking, okay, that's all great. I actually agree with that. But like, what do I do to actually get this right? So there's three things that you need to get right.
The first is you need to have a must-do list not just a to-do list see a to-do list can have a hundred items on it that You know you actually can't get done today, but when you have a must-do list Now, you know, you have things that you have to get done that day. So that provides some motivation to say, OK, like I.
Working out is on my must-do list. It is so good for my physical health, mental health, spiritual health, emotional health. Everything is better when I work out, so I make it a priority. So I don't allow my feelings to get in the way of that priority because it's a must-do for me. Now, for you...
Maybe writing for 20 minutes is a must-do. Maybe writing for an hour is a must-do. So if it is, then put it on that must-do list. So no matter what is happening, no matter what could distract you or get in your way, you know you have to get that done. And again, that helps your...
dictate what you feel instead of allowing it to be the other way the other thing you can do is purposefully do uncomfortable things so when I always talk about is having cold showers the reason I love cold showers is because I love warm showers. I love hot showers. Hot showers are life for me. And because I like them so much, it's comfortable, right? You get in, you're nice and snuggly, but a cold shower is uncomfortable. It is awful to be in them.
But when I get out of them, I feel amazing because I'm forcing myself to do something that's hard. Like if you think about fasting, it's kind of the same thing, right? You fast for seven days and you... you're doing something that's uncomfortable most people just eat all the time especially grown a world right people are snacking constantly so when you do something that you know
is going against the grain and purposely hard for you you're making yourself uncomfortable and you're getting used to being able to do it anyways because that's what it requires right you can't fast for seven days if you're controlled by your feelings because the second that belly grumbles you're going to be in the fridge smashing some the first thing you can get your hands on or getting a bag of chips right but
And the same is true with cold showers. If you're like, well, I'm going to let my feelings control my actions. Well, there's never a day you feel like having a cold shower, but you still force yourself to do it. Anyway, and that's how you get strength and you, again, build confidence and you get much better at allowing your actions to dictate your feelings. And then the last thing you can do.
is simply think long term. And this goes for all habits, right? You have to be able to think about what you want in the long run, not what you want now. So when I get in that cold shower, a lot of times if I focus on how bad it's going to feel, I'm not going to want to get in. But if I focus on... The feeling I'm going to have when I'm done. I focus on how beautiful it's going to be. And how good. How much energy. I get such a rush of energy when I get out of them.
when i think about that oh it's no problem right it's easy to get in and do what i need to do um and this is true of so many different things like workouts if people knew what their body would look like After 15 years of not working out and only eating crap They probably would work out Right? Like, we allow these things to creep up on us because we're not thinking about the long-term consequences for our life. So, again, let me review here.
Three things we got to do. We need a must-do list every day. We need to do uncomfortable things on a regular basis, and we need to think about the long-term plan. That is how you become a person who is allowing their actions to dictate. How they feel instead of letting their feelings run their life. Again, if you want to dive in more on strategies for building habits, make sure you go to course.thehabitstacker.com. Jump right in.
The course is going to teach you everything you need to know top to bottom on how to build excellent habits. And the course is called Habit Mastery. So make sure you go check that out. And again, this podcast has been a blessing to you. Make sure you share it with a friend. Show some love to a friend who you know is needing to build good habits and looking for different ways to do that. So make sure you share that with them. And lastly, if you want to get in on.
a habit tracker to make sure you're tracking what you do each day make sure you go to the apple app store and type in habit stacker and our app will come right up and you can download that for free and jump right in. So if you need anything else, just holler at me again. My name is Ian Warner. You can reach out to me at ian at thehabitstacker.com.