When we plan our projects we often think of all the resources we need to make it work: the financial resources, the people, the time we will be investing in each stage and the results we want to obtain. But almost always an essential element escapes us that gives another dimension to our work, to our life. We don’t include in the equation our emotions.
We all have different ways of reacting when we experience triumph, defeat, and obstacles, and very few of us know yet how our emotional cycles work. And that’s how over and over we are victims of our emotions in an unconscious way. And suddenly we find our self saying phrases like: “I shouldn’t have gotten into this project”, “nothing I do goes well”, “what a stressful situation”, “this is too much for me”, “I’m alone with all of this”.
And we ask ourselves, “What happened? At the beginning everything had such a potential for success?” And of course it had the potential, and it still has it. The thing is that you didn’t think of planning one of the most important elements: How do you want to feel while developing your project? Do you want to feel joyful? satisfied? vital? creative? Do you want to go through it from a place of inner calm when you will be facing the storm of obstacles that every project brings? Or do you want to repeat the patterns of stress that take you always to that emotional extreme? You decide.
To define how do we want to feel doing an activity marks a big change in any process. It gives us a stable base and a a clear north to navigate the current even when the waters get a bit agitated. Not to lose the focus on this can really make a difference between a successful project (that makes us happy) or a failed project which happens either because we didn’t achieve our goals or because we had a very bad time achieving them.
It’s not about not feeling uncomfortable negative emotions, but it’s more about not staying in that emotional place too long, because the emotional goal is clear. And this clarity serves us as fuel to keep moving forward.
Emotions change our perception of situations. When you know how you want to feel, you stop being a prisoner of your emotional habits, and of the distorted perception you have of reality because of them.
I invite you to practice an exercise that I have been doing for a while. It is inspired in the Desire Map Book by Danielle Laporte. I did a video to facilitate the explanation. I do this exercise every morning and it helps me re-align with what I really want.
It allows me to bring into my everyday life this calm state of inner peace that I get into during the morning meditation.
Remember that if you don’t practice there won’t be any result. So start from now and you will see how your life starts to change. The quality of each moment will improve and you will feel happier and fulfilled.
And when the hard moment comes you will have a more clear north. And please share your experience with this exercise on the comments below. I love to know about your explorations.