Why You Have To Take Action Before You Can Feel Better!

Well, hello there my friend.

It is Jonathan Doyle with you.

Welcome to the Daily Podcast.

It is good to be with you.

Oh boy.

It's below zero again, outside.

I'm in the studio.

It is warm.

But I tell you what, well, just looking forward to, uh, looking forward

to some serious spring and summer here in the Southern Hemisphere.

If you're on Instagram, make sure you come and say hello.

Uh, to me at, uh, j Doyle speaks.

Why?

Because, uh, you'll see what I get up to each day.

Yesterday I play golf every day and, uh, trust me, I work, I start every

day around 3:30 AM 4:00 AM but I play golf in the afternoons and yesterday on

Instagram, you could see me out there.

Uh, playing some golf, and the sun was good.

It was glorious, but today it has returned to below zero.

So let us press on my friend with resilience in the face.

Of these environmental hardships that, uh, that, uh, can upset the ship of our

life on the stormy seas of its journey.

Everyone's like, my gosh, how much coffee have you had?

All right, listen, I got something good for you today.

Something really good.

Yesterday we've been talking about, um.

You know, with some great quotes from Karen Horney, and today I am sharing with

you some, uh, really interesting quote from a guy called Harry Stack Sullivan,

and one of these just jumped out at me.

People always say, how do you manage to do like 365 podcasts episodes a year?

How do you find content?

Well, a lot of the time, life just jumps out at me and

suggests something that's useful.

Something that I won't even wanna share with you and hope is a blessing to you.

And then I often just, uh, have a real interest in what some of the great

men and women and thinkers have had to say, and hopefully try and distill

that in a way that you can use.

And today this one jumped out at me.

I wanna share it with you.

Let's unpack it briefly and send you on your way.

So Harry Stack Sullivan.

Uh, this psychotherapist had this to say it is easier to act

yourself into a new way of feeling.

Then to feel yourself into a new way of acting.

One more time.

It is easier to act yourself into a new way of feeling than to feel

yourself into a new way of acting.

There is a lot in this.

I have been saying to people for many, many years, if you wait, if you wait

around, if your criteria for action is, I will do X when I feel like it.

Then you can often be waiting an extremely long time, if not permanently, and you'll

discover that the important things that you say you want in your life will not be

happening because you've been unable to take action because you've been waiting

for these feelings to happen first.

So.

I'm thinking of someone like Mel Robinson whose five second rule.

You know, you may have come across that concept of activation energy, that so much

of the time you will simply not feel like doing whatever it is that you need to do,

but you've just gotta make yourself take that first step and then things follow.

So listen to this again.

It's easier to act yourself into a new way of feeling than to feel

yourself into a new way of acting.

So I'll give you an example.

Like let's just say you're really depressed and you know you don't wanna

go anywhere and nobody wants you to do anything, and you just absolutely.

You know, you just wanna be sitting on the couch and it's all too much,

but a friend manages to drag you out because the team that you both follow

is playing in a final and you're like, no, I don't want to go out.

I just, you know, and you're sitting there thinking, well, if I, if I felt like it,

if I really, if I was feeling better, then I'd go, but you don't go right.

But they drag you out.

And if they finally make you get to the stadium and you sit there and,

and you're like, oh, fine, I'll go if I have to, just to make you happy.

And you're sitting there and the crowd's getting excited, and then the game gets

more tense and you're sitting there and you're like, just, oh, this is ridiculous.

Why did I even come?

But it gets down to the last few seconds.

Then the scores are tired.

But just with like two seconds to go, your team wins.

The stadium erupts, and then you get swept up and you stand up and you're like, yes.

And you're like, I say to people, imagine what are you doing at that moment?

And the people, what do you mean what am I doing?

Well, think about that thought experiment.

What would you be doing?

At that moment, they're like, well, you know, my hands are in the air and

I'm excited and I'm hugging strangers.

And the point is that it's extremely difficult to be depressed at that moment.

Why?

Because your entire physiology has shifted.

This is an extreme example, right?

Like you could say, well, I could still be depressed.

Yeah, I know you could be, but it'd be harder, right?

Just work with me on this example.

But it's this feeling of being swept up and your body moves differently and

your breathing patterns are different, and your face changes and you're

interacting with other people, and all of a sudden your feeling state is

dramatically shifted because of the way that you have physiologically acted,

and this is the point that he's making.

It's easier to act yourself into a new way of feeling.

Then to feel yourself into a new way of acting.

I remember years ago when I wrote my first book, I, I talked about how I would be up

early and I was cycling at a pretty high level, and I'd be out every day on the

bike with a group of very good athletes.

And if I was ever feeling flat or down like at 4:00 AM or 5:00 AM or things

were hard in life, I found that once I was out on the ride and we were really

going for it, and you're out in nature and it was sunny and you'd feel better

and you'd have a coffee with people.

I just come away from it feeling phenomenal.

Now, I hadn't thought my way into a better mental state.

I hadn't gone.

Okay, Jonathan.

You know, if I'd been sitting in a room and tried to force my mental state into

something different, it'd be harder.

But physiologically I'd acted myself into a different way of feeling.

So listen to it one more time.

It's easy to act yourself into a new way of feeling, then to feel

yourself into a new way of acting.

So quick summary.

If you wait to feel a certain way to do the things that are important to

you, you will be waiting a long time.

You just will.

So.

What's crucial here is that we, we begin, we sort of get this basic principle

that there are plenty of times that if you want better results, you are

gonna have to act first and feel later.

Act first, and feel later.

And I don't know about you, but here is where you're gonna get stuck

because I think when we try to do this, we feel stupid, we feel silly.

Like, you know, there's this gap between what we feel emotionally and

what we need to do physically and.

For so many of us, the this sort of mental state wins out.

I'm not doing, that's ridiculous.

You know, it's like every time there's a wedding or something

like, well, I'm not gonna dance.

It's stupid.

Everyone looks stupid.

I was just thinking about this yesterday.

We had some friends, had a, had a, one of the kids got married a few six

months ago, and I just got into it.

Like as far as I'm concerned, I was like Michael Jackson out there.

I was just tearing that dance floor apart and it's like.

If I'd sat there and waited to, you know, I just had to do it.

I just get up, you know, and I'm married to someone, Karen, who's just the

most phenomenal dancer, so that always makes it hard 'cause she's so good.

But I'm like, I'm just gonna rip it and just got up there and got into it.

And once you start, once you start getting out there and moving, you

know, you're up there with a bunch of other completely uncoordinated

people and you're all good, right?

You're off.

But often it's this lag, isn't it?

I don't wanna, I don't wanna do that.

Why should I have to do that?

I feel miserable.

Yeah, I know you feel miserable, but do you want, how long do

you wanna feel miserable for?

Another hour, a week, a month, the rest of your life?

So I, I think Mel Robbins is right here on this activation energy that, that

sometimes you just gotta start, you just gotta go for the walk or, you know, do the

exercise or play the guitar or sing the song or do the thing that gets you into

the mental state that you need to be into.

And I, I just wish this was different 'cause I get that this is hard.

It's hard for me.

Like to go, I don't wanna feel this way.

I need to change how I'm feeling.

I need to do these things, and the feelings will follow.

All right, so practice this.

If you're feeling flat, if you're feeling anxious, if you're feeling

unsure and you need to feel a different way, then understand that

the kind of fake it till you make it.

Idea is partially true, that sometimes you are gonna have to act

first, believe first, move first, and then the feelings will follow.

All right?

So hopefully, can you find a practical way to apply that?

Is there summary in your life where you're not doing what you need to do?

Then please, if you just take one thing from today's message, it's simply that if

you wait to feel the way you need to feel to do the thing you need to do, you could

be waiting much longer than you wanna be.

And you're better off just going, well, this is hard, this is scary.

But I'm just gonna act and hopefully the feelings will

follow and I believe they will.

All right.

Is that useful?

I hope there's something in there just to help you to do this, and it's scary,

but this is the price we pay, right?

Yesterday's episode, the price of admission, right?

The price that we pay to an uncommon life is to do these difficult

things, so I. Here's something difficult I need you to do.

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God bless you my friend.

I hope that's been useful.

Get out there, act first.

Feelings of follow.

You got this and you and I are gonna talk again tomorrow.