I Feel, Therefore I Won’t

I don’t feel like it has to be one of the most damaging, demotivational statements out there.

It’s a real First World Complaint. It’s only in the past 100 years or so that man has had the option to do things he feels like. I do things I feel like all the time for example. Right now, I feel like having a second cup of coffee, so as you read the rest of this short post, I’ll be having that.

However I don’t feel like having a glass of water. But I’m going to, because I know that when I consume extra water during the day, I feel better generally (you will too if you try it). Tomorrow night at 7pm I’m going to go to training, and it will be cold, and I will have had a long day that started 12 hours earlier. I may not feel like training. I have a tremendous appetite for training, but like everyone else in the whole wide world, sometimes, I just don’t feel like doing it very much.

Now what the world will tell you is that you have to be in a certain emotional state to train. You have to be motivated. Go hard or go home and so on. But, you don’t. Sometimes, you’ll take a look at what’s on TV, and you will have trouble unglueing your arse from the sofa. That’s okay. You’re in good company with everyone else in the whole wide world.

So you might say I don’t feel like it. Those are 5 pretty powerful words it would seem. When people say them, what it tends to mean is I am not going to. What is the it in that sentence anyway? Maybe it’s tired, or sore, or something like that, but I bet you can’t put your finger on what not feeling like it is. but giving those feelings an it means there must be an opposite it– when you do feel like it. What does that feel like? Not tired? Not sore? I don’t think you can really answer that either. Do you need a perfect emotional state to do what you know is good for you? If you’re going through a rough patch in work, you might not see that emotional state for weeks at a time.

When you make a plan, or set a goal, you don’t include your feelings. You didn’t say I will train 3 times per week for the next 4 weeks, but if I don’t feel like it on any given night…

So strip the words of their power. You won’t stop saying them, and you certainly won’t stop not feeling like it. What I’m suggesting is that when you say I don’t feel like it, that you understand that what you’ve just said is completely meaningless in the context of your goals. You may find that you stop saying it altogether.