Importance of Checking Your Emotions, Specially with Goals and Resolutions

Last week I talked about the 3 convincers— logical, physical, and emotional.

I revealed that without logical or physical evidence, your emotions can convince you of all sorts of things, even things that are not true or harmful.

Catch that and the related episodes here.

This is one of the most important things you can know about yourself.

Your emotions will pull you into all sorts of commitments

1. They will convince you to set goals that are unreasonable and difficult to achieve.

2. They will convince you that a goal will be fulfilling, when in reality, you’ll be left feeling empty after achieving it.

3. Or your emotions will convince you the goal will be as enjoyable to work on as it was to set.

What’s more…

Your Emotions will even pull you out of those very commitments

A. While working on one goal, out of the blue, an inspirational rush will convince you a different course of action is the one to take.

B. Even more, you’ll be motivated to push hard one week, only to find yourself burnt out the next.

C. More importantly, those emotions may convince you to take steps that won’t get results, or make progress slower than it has to be.

Kinda messed up how we’re built!

One minute, emotions are inspiring us to go after something, the next minute, those very emotions are doing things to keep us from going after it.

Then we feel bad for not sticking with the commitment “the emotions inspired us to take and at the same time kept us from taking!”

If you ever wondered why people do crazy things, this should shed some light.

Though, we’re not so crazy if you think about it

That’s because we have two mechanisms that are in a way working against each other.

You have a wanting mechanism that creates wants. It’s only job is to create wants, and will run amuck creating endless wants and desires one after another.

Then you have a mechanism that evaluates the want. It’s job is to ensure the want is inline with your beliefs, fears, and habits, and if it is not, it will create resistance.

In a way, you have two opposing mechanisms releasing emotions to do opposing things — whether to act or not act.

This is why it’s so important to check your emotions with logical and physical evidence* Are you sure next year will be different than prior years? If so, what will make it different?

* Are you sure this goal will truly be fulfilling? How can you ensure your wanting mechanism isn’t running amuck? * Are you sure the inspirational rush isn’t there to pull you away from another goal you’ve already set?

The challenge of being human is knowing when to trust your emotions and when to not. It’s not easy to know the difference, but that’s when looking for logical and physical evidence helps. A rule of thumb that’s helped me is when I’m flooded with emotions of confidence and excitement, it’s a sign that I should slow down and logically think the decision through.

When I’m standing in doubt, I should look for physical evidence to trust myself to handle it.

If you only go based on what you’re feeling in the moment, then you’ll be led in circles

One moment you’ll have emotions of inspiration, the next moment, emotions of resistance.

And you’ll just go back and forth between the two, without moving in any direction. Well, this concludes the tread from the last few weeks, and thus, marks the last post of the year.

Hope it helps you stay on the straight and narrow in the New Year. Make sure to like, subscribe, and leave a comment, so you are notified of new episodes. Happy Holidays and talk to you next year.

Kam