What many people don’t perceive is that action precedes emotion. In other words, what you do determines what you feel.

For example, when you go to the gym on a particular day, and eat a healthy diet, the next day you’ll get on the scale and see you lost some weight. You will feel really good about yourself. But what caused you to feel this way? What you did the day before.

You get home after a long day of work. You’re physically exhausted, but you feel really good about what you accomplished at work that day. Why do you feel good? Because of what you did that day.

You’re sitting at home on a Saturday afternoon. The atmosphere is as exciting as a slug race. You and your family are all bored. What do you do? You get in the car with your wife and kids and go to a movie, or go eat pizza or simply go for a walk in the park. At the end of the day, everyone gets home with a big smile on their face. Why? Because of what you did together that day.

Action precedes emotion. Your actions impact your feelings. What you do determines what you feel.

The mistake many people make is to wait to feel “up to” doing something before doing it. And if they’re not up to it, they start to think something’s wrong.

Feelings are very erratic, unpredictable and not to be trusted. You can feel very excited about something today and be totally disinterested in the same thing tomorrow. So what do you do? How do you keep up the excitement in your relationship, work, faith, or whatever other area in your life?

Using your head and not your feelings. Doing the right thing, and doing it well, even if initially you don’t feel up to it. Soon after, the feeling of doing it will come.

If I simply did what I felt like doing, there would be a lot of days that I would just stay in bed or do nothing. If I followed my emotions and not my intelligence, I would have already done a lot of stupid things and ruined my life. But I learned that action precedes emotion. I have to keep my emotions subject to my mind.

That’s why, when I don’t feel up to do something but I know I need to do it, I start doing it anyway because I know that later on after a couple of minutes the willingness will come, followed by good feelings.

Create the feelings you want through the actions you take. Don’t be a slave to feelings. Be their master.

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