How do I want to feel today? & How I get to feel it.
Do you ever wake up and ask yourself; How do I want to feel today?
Or do you wake up and jump straight into thinking:
“What must I do today, ugh, I don’t really want to do that, I’d love to do more of X but I just don’t have the time or energy”
Then it’s straight into the daily routine.
How you feel is then in the hands of what happens to you, who you meet, who you speak too, what you do from your to do list.
What would happen if you asked yourself: How do I want to feel today?
The reality is that we can’t control what hits our inbox each day, we can control how we show up and how we want to feel.
Today’s article is all about – You – and how you can control how you show up and how you want to feel.
What it feels like when you start your day
Do you show up, dreading the day?, excited for the day? Lots of unwanted noise in your head? You have a fuzzy head, you've got your to do list in your mind, you get up and get on with it.
All day everybody else is happy with what you've done; you've pleased your family, you've pleased your clients. Then you collapse in the evening and go to bed.
And it's the same thing the next day. Until you start to think, is this it?
A pattern is formed.
The old unconscious pattern
Very quickly, a pattern is established where we are great at our jobs, we think of others, we please others, we service others and then we sleep. And this pattern continues.
And what's wrong with that? Well, nothing. It gets results.
But something's missing.
Joy? Happiness? Control, our conscious decision as to how we actually want to feel and how we show up .
The new conscious pattern
How do you want to feel today?
Yes, you get to choose!
By asking yourself this simple yet powerful question, you have to focus on you, your feelings and what you want.
If the answer is happy – great, what’s stopping you from being happy?
If the answer is full of energy, what’s stopping you from having more energy?
The answer I am hearing a lot right now and I have also said it, is “I don’t know, I’m too tired, I have too much to do and don’t have to focus on anything more”.
For all those answers, the most important steps are:
Focus on you
Focus on how you want to feel
Acknowledge if you are not managing to feel that way
Work out (on your own or with help) what is specifically stopping you from feeling that way and take one step to remove that block
Why is it important to focus on You?
Well, there comes a time when that old unconscious pattern doesn't work anymore.
There comes a time when we wake up one day and we are grumpy. We're grumpy with our family. We're grumpy with our partners. We're grumpy with colleagues. And sometimes we snap at others and we are then racked with guilt afterwards.
Then we move on to the next thing.
We start looking at ourselves to work out what the problem is, but often we look at ourselves as managers, as parents, as partners and are harsh on ourselves and say, “Ah!, you're not doing a good enough job you're a rubbish manager,” We start blaming ourselves.
We haven’t focused on ourselves as human beings.
I did this for many, many years. In my 20 years working in law firms and in companies, and having two children, I longed for the weekends and next holiday for the short-term fix.
The truth is, as humans, we all have batteries of energy. We need full batteries to function. If our batteries are flat, we can’t function effectively. When we focus on ourselves as human beings, our first question becomes – how full is your battery? We need to recharge our batteries as a priority and then choose how we want to feel. It’s impossible to feel anything other than exhausted and deflated when we have flat batteries. We can’t do anything on a flat battery and it’s frustrating and unfulfilling.
How to recharge your battery
When we want to recharge our batteries, we often think of holidays. We think of doing more things that we enjoy doing. And that's all great. But actually, the first step to sustainably working out how to recharge your battery, is to ask yourself, one key question:
What are my needs?
I know this is going back to basics but as human beings we all have basic needs. But how many times do we sit down and ask the question?. What do I need in my life for me to wake up in the morning and say, I feel replenished, I feel my battery is completely full. How often do you ask yourself – what are my needs?
Unless we know what our needs are and we spend the time trying to work it out, we're always going to be looking for the next holiday or for the weekend for a quick fix. But this won’t recharge our battery to full.
Top 10 ideas to think about when focusing on your needs:
Water: How much water do you need to drink each day? Yes, this is an easy one but it is so often overlooked, especially when we are running around thinking of others. I set a timer on my phone to remind me! (yes, I am that bad at remembering!)
Food: What kind of food do you need each day and how often? How often have you got to the end of the day and thought, ugh, I forgot lunch……?
Sleep: How many hours sleep do you need each day? Where do you keep your mobile phone at night!?
Exercise: What kind, how many times a week?
Alone time: Do you need time alone? If yes, how often? How long?
Time with others: Do you need time with family, friends, pets? How often? Phone or in person (where possible!)?
Prayer/Meditation: Do you need to make time for prayer, meditation or mindfulness practice? If so, how long and how often?
Nature/time outside: Do you need time outside or around nature?
Music: Do you need time to listen to or play music?
Creativity time: Do you need time for art or something else?
Once you've come up with your list of needs, now, be truthful to yourself and ask yourself, how many of these things, am I actually doing in a week? Let close friends, family, children know about your needs so they can support you. It might also inspire them to think of their needs.
And that's where we need to start.
How do you want to feel today?
Choose two crucial needs to focus on this week. See how you feel at the end of the week. Be kind to yourself, it’s ok if you haven’t been able to address all your needs from the above. Know that you are just not ok if you don’t. You are not wrong, you just need to focus on your needs. Once you focus on your needs and recharge your battery, you are a strong self.
Ask yourself each morning, how do I want to feel today? What’s going to help me feel that?
Once I prioritised my needs and took action, it’s amazing what opened up for me. I now choose how I want to feel each day. I am able to focus more, be more creative and make decisions in a powerful way rather than make decisions to just survive the day or week.
If you need one top tip for you to recharge your battery, please book a free curiosity call with me.