All behavior is made up of the following three components: 

• What we do
• What we think
• What we feel

Did you ever notice that doing and thinking are always expressed as verbs, like “exercising” or “considering”, but that feelings are typically expressed as adjectives, like “frustrated’ or nouns, like “depression”.

Most of us believe that we choose our actions.  Some believe that we choose our thoughts.  Surprisingly few people believe that we choose our feelings.

A couple questions to consider:

1. Do feelings happen to us, or do we choose them?

2. Can using better words (in our self-talk) positively affect our behavior (and ultimately our level of success and happiness)?

A feeling is a response to a stimulus.  If we are responsible (response-able) human beings, one can argue that we should each be able to always choose our responses.  For most people, managing their feelings is tougher than it sounds.

In fact, choosing our feelings is tougher than choosing our actions, but we can control them if we know how.   How we act directly affects how we think, which directly affects how we feel.  So if we want feel better, start by acting in way that makes us feel better.     

Additionally, we can dramatically affect how we act, think and feel by using empowering conversation with ourselves.  We all talk to ourselves all day long (both consciously and sub-consciously).  So why not make our conversation a positive one?

If you are unusually busy, are you “overwhelmed” or “in-demand”?

The next time something or someone “makes you angry”, would your behavior improve if you told yourself you were “angering”?   

Would you act or feel differently if you were “frustrating” over a situation rather than being “frustrated” by a situation?

In each the examples above, the former conversation is that of a slave (someone who is response-unable).  The latter self-talk is one of someone in control of his/her thoughts and feelings.

The conversation that you have with yourself is the most important conversation that you will have today (and every other day).  Begin to pay attention to your self-talk.  Replace all the slave-talk with power-talk and pay attention to the effect this new conversation has on your behavior.

Copyright ©   Joe Zente  2010.   All Rights Reserved.

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