Photo by Sasha Freemind on Unsplash

I didn’t think my last blog post was a good read. I wasn’t feeling great that day. I was tired and had a headache. I wrote out my initial draft and then set it aside. I didn’t think I would go back to the piece at all. When I experience those crummy days, doing the little things can be hard. And oftentimes the way I feel distorts what is real and true: my written work is pretty good and people do get something from it. 

A few days later, I ended up editing the blog post because I was in a better place. It was a really good piece that I shared with my subscribers. My wife encouraged me to write about this experience. Let’s not let our feelings dictate who we are and the effectiveness of our gifts! Thoughts lead to feelings and feelings lead to behaviours. We ought to be careful not to let negative thought patterns reflect negative feelings, which lead us down a path to less-than-helpful behaviours. My behaviour in this instance was to disregard creative work that was well done.

Do we have control over our feelings, or do they have inordinate power over us? As Victor Frankl once wrote, in a paraphrase: “Between stimulus and response, we have the freedom to choose.” Of course, on the harder days I usually don’t feel great. My stimulus can be fear, anxiety, weakness, and low energy. Sometimes the harder feelings have power over me: when I work on a project or do something creative, because I am not feeling good, I cast the impression that my work is neither good.

To take control of our life and to live in freedom, here are three simple things that can help us own our feelings and not be overcome by them:

• Positive self-talk. We can tell ourselves that we can do it. We can tell ourselves we might be having a harder day, but that it won’t define who we are. We can encourage our soul by speaking as if we were its good friend.
• Engage the will. God gave us a will to choose: we can persevere through the harder days and continue as if it were still going to be hard. It’s not easy, and it might not feel good. But this shows the strength and resiliency of the human spirit and heart.
• Be gentle and kind. Yes, on those days we aren’t feeling the greatest, our creativity and energy might not normally be at its 100 percent. So, we can allow ourselves flexibility. Instead of doing this or that project, maybe we can work on a smaller task. It’s okay to cut back and go easy on oneself.

We can choose our response on tougher days: do not let the feelings control us, but that we control them.

This article is part of the Leadership section. Check out more entries here!