How To Train Yourself To Be In The Mood You Want

When you have major changes going on in your life, or you’re just frustrated about where you are, it’s easy to get trapped in a cycle of depression, bad moods and frustration. I know, I’ve been there … and when I’m not careful, I still get there more than I want to.

But lately I’ve had a particularly hard time, as I make some major (positive) changes in my life. I hit these moments where I’m in a foul mood, or I’m just feeling paralyzed, and I’m just stuck. Sometimes I just stew in that and stay there, but sometimes I actually get intelligent and pull my way out of it.

First Up: Using a Framework to Escape from Paralyzing Emotions

When we feel bad, it’s hard to “feel good” again. You can’t just wish yourself better, and when you’re in a stuck place, you don’t generally have the mental energy to pull out. Willpower doesn’t help, and “positive thinking” sure doesn’t help. But falling back on a framework of steps does help, because we humans function well when we have a set of steps to follow.

The reason for this is that steps take the emotion out of our situation and give us direction to simply act. Duck and Cover. Stop, Drop, and Roll. When you know with certainty what to do next, you’re in a much stronger position to take action, even when you’re panicking. (And it doesn’t have to be words, either – just think of Lamaze breathing, which expectant mothers practice well ahead of time so they can slip back into it during the stress of labor.)

You can call these verbal step-by-step tools anchors if you want, because they’re ways to anchor your emotional state to a time where you knew what to do and you felt prepared. The seven steps form the acronym ACT FAST, and I picked that because I felt that it was a pretty empowering term as it forces you to presuppose you have a workable course of action. So let’s dive in.

A: AGREE With Yourself That You Don’t Want To Be In This Mood Right Now.
C: CLARIFY The Mood or Emotion You Want To Move Towards
T: TAKE Responsibility For Taking Immediate Action.
F: “What Would I Need To FOCUS On To Feel this Way?”
A: “What Would I Need To ACT On To Feel The Way I Want To?”
S: “What Would I Need To SURROUND Myself With To Feel The Way I Want To?”
T: “What Would I Need To TELL Myself To Feel The Way I Want To?”

-If you ask yourself, “Why me?” or “What can I possibly do?” you‘re going to be paralyzed.
-If you ask yourself “What can I do next, from where I am, with what I have,” you’re going to put yourself in a position of strength.
-Ask better questions. Train yourself to be the sculptor of your moods, rather than being tossed about by urgency and externalities you can’t control

Read the full article at http://www.rockyourday.com/how-to-train-yourself-to-be-in-the-mood-you-want/

What are you grateful for today? Please share! If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

coded by nessus