This one from the Huffington Post – a blog on the idea that we sometimes need to act first to change how we feel. It’s the emotion-action lever in reverse, creating good vibes by doing something. The author, psychologist Shawn T. Smith, has the right credentials – he used to work for the Colorado Department of Corrections and the International Commission on Missing Persons in Bosnia, two emotional nerve centers.
As Shawn points out, it’s important to understand the action-leads-to-emotion principle to break out of the mindset that you can’t do something just because you don’t feel happy or confident. Rather the reverse is often true: get out there and do the thing you dread, and you’ll soon feel good about it. It’s a feel the fear and do it anyway deal.
Get it right and a virtuous cycle fires up. Where fear and anxiety can breed inaction, leading to more fear and anxiety, taking charge puts the emotion-action gear back into go-forward mode: take action, feel good, feel good and act again. Soon you’ll be feeling great and you will have done something! So get started today – it’s time to act happy.
