Have you completed your daily thought downloads?

Read through your thought downloads and pick one thought that stands out. (Or, if you haven’t done a thought download, write down one thought you’ve thought today.)

We’re going to take one thought and do a deep dive, so choose one thought that really stands out for you.

Now ask yourself this…

How does this thought make me feel?

Check-in with your body, take a deep breath and close your eyes.

Several different feelings may come up for you.

Do a feeling download. Create a list of all the feelings you experience from this thought.

Go ahead, list them all.

I recommend referring to a feeling list (like this) to get very specific about the exact feeling. Be more specific than I “feel bad” – this is too general.

Take a closer look at your thought and feelings.

Thought > Feeling, Feeling, Feeling, Feeling 

Describe what happens next when you feel each feeling. For each emotion, describe what happens next, what do you do, what actions do you take when you feel this way?

Thought
Feeling > Action
Feeling > Action
Feeling > Action 

Notice that the feelings produce different actions, or sometimes we do nothing and take inaction when we feel specific emotions.

For extra credit, isolate the exact thought that’s producing every feeling.

Thought > Feeling > Action
Thought > Feeling > Action
Thought > Feeling > Action

We believe that one thought produces our feelings but specific thoughts produce specific feelings. We have parallel thoughts to our main thought that produce many different feelings.

Let’s give it a try.

We’ll use one thought you may think now or have thought in the past.

“My boss is toxic.”

You think “my boss is toxic” and you experience a multitude of feelings:

Anger, resentment, you feel undervalued, fear.

Your mind takes it further and builds a narrative around this thought to make the situation rich in detail.

What’s really going on is the effect of all the additional thoughts you’re having around your main thought “my boss is toxic.”

Here are additional thoughts you may have:

“My boss gets away with bad behavior.” (resentment)
“My boss doesn’t value me or my work.” (undervalued)
“My boss is unpredictable.” (fear)

All of your thoughts and feelings create an elaborate situation for you, your brain creates a story that supports the way you think and feel about your boss.

This is normal, this is how our brain is wired, it’s wired to make connections and build narratives.

And it’s also important to know that your behaviors and actions are fueled by your feelings. In this case, anger, resentment, undervalued, and fear.

Here are some possible actions and behaviors you might take based on how you feel.

You might :

• Go home and yell at your partner
• Binge on chocolate all night
• Start planning your escape from your job

Get curious about your feelings because it’s your feelings that drive your actions.

Why is this important?

Because until we understand how our thoughts produce our feelings and our feelings drive all of our actions, we remain unaware of exactly what’s going on for us in every situation we experience.

As we become more aware, we can learn how to intervene on our own behalf.

Until we build a better understanding of this, we’ll remain unhappy, frustrated and disempowered.

Stay tuned, there’s more I want to teach you!

What’s your result? We’ll talk about the outcomes produced by your thoughts and feelings.

Often we don’t pay attention to what’s happening for us and our end results. When we understand how our thoughts and feelings are actually producing our outcomes, we can create a more intentional life – and this is life-changing.

Most of us do.

It makes sense. Our brains are wired to want to feel good and we use self-confidence as a gauge for what does and does not feel good.

We believe that having self-confidence will feel good.

We don’t like to feel discomfort or self-doubt.

But what is self-confidence really? Isn’t it just the absence of self-doubt? Self-doubt is simply the lack of confidence in oneself and one’s abilities.

We want more self-confidence when we feel nsecure and we judge whether we feel confident by the absence of self-doubt.

Some of us spend a lot of time and energy wanting to find more self-confidence.

Many of us feel like imposters in our work and want to feel better about ourselves and in our abilities. We try everything we can think of to avoid feeling the discomfort of self-doubt.

But self-doubt is like any other emotion, it is created by our thoughts.

And feeling like an imposter isn’t really an emotion, it’s a thought.

When we desire to have more self-confidence, we assume that something is wrong with us, that other people feel more confident then we do, or that other people or situations make us feel insecure.

But they don’t.

And the best news ever is this:

Nothing is wrong with you.

Confidence is created by your thoughts.

Do you want to learn how to feel more self-confident? I can show you how. Schedule a 15-minute mini-session with me to discuss how we can work together.

Your lack of self-confidence is about how you envision the future, whether you think you have the ability to succeed or fail in the future.

Lacking confidence is about how we anticipate we’ll feel if something doesnâ€t go as we planned.

When we try to avoid feeling discomfort, we have to limit and constrain ourselves. We have to avoid trying new things, we avoid anyone or anything we think might make us feel bad about ourselves.

The more you tell yourself “I lack self-confidence” the more you find in the world to avoid.

But you don’t have to feel this way

It’s your thoughts that create your feelings. And you need to recognize that your brain is often wrong. Sometimes your brain has thoughts about problems when there are none.

And sometimes it tells you to be afraid of something that will benefit you.

In order to have the life you want, you have to be willing to trust yourself and take risks.

You have to be willing to feel discomfort.

The secret to self-confidence is not feeling comfortable all the time.

Self-confidence comes from feeling discomfort and doing it anyway.

We think we need to have self-confidence in order to succeed at something but itâ€s the other way around.

We need to take action and be okay with experiencing any emotion (sometimes it will feel like a success, sometimes failure) in order to build more self-confidence.

Do you want to learn how to find more self-confidence?

I can help you with this.

Does your life feel out of balance?

Do you feel exhausted and stressed?

Are you anxious?

Maybe you’re feeling so depleted that it’s affecting your health and sense of wellbeing?

I hear you! 

It didn’t always feel this way, right?

Do you remember when you felt energized by your work?

Remember when you were in school? When you could work twelve hours a day or more and feel completely full of life, energy, vigor, and passion?

Do you miss feeling this way?

Why don’t you feel this energy anymore?

Well here’s the difference:

What is fueling you?

Is it energizing you or is it depleting you?

Most people live in a perpetual state of giving up or in a state of busyness and burnout. This state of “I can’t do this” or “I’m so busy” is exhausting.

Some of our busyness is “busyness for the sake of busyness.”

I”‘m just exhausted” is something you may hear yourself saying a lot.

What is exhausting you?

It’s our brain that exhausts us because we get so tired of listening to all our self-doubt, so tired of listening to the questioning, the constant dreading, the constant worrying.

So you say “I just need a break, it’s too stressful, it’s too hard, it’ too much.”

Living with discomfort

You may have a very low tolerance for any discomfort, any kind of discomfort means stop to your brain.

You may feel you need to go back and be somewhere predictable, somewhere less demanding, and less scary to your brain.

Do you notice that you are constantly working and so busy to the point of crazy, and you donâ€t produce your best work because your thinking is filled with worry and fear?

You work too many hours, you can’t pay attention when you’re talking to others. You only talk about work. You’re always rushing and stressed and overly concerned about everything that has anything to do with your work.

You miss lots of important things, including sleep because of work. You tend to overeat, overdrink, over-Instagram-ing to feel less stressed.

It’s not the actual amount of work that you have that produces your feelings, but rather the thoughts that provoke stress and ultimately, the burnout.

You’re using work as a way of buffering and not feeling.

You have the sense that if you could get acknowledged for your work or feel valued as a designer that the stress would be relieved, but this never happens because the stress is coming from your brain, not from your work.

What’s the answer?

If the answer is not taking a break and relaxing because you’re so exhausted, and if the answer isn’t completely burning yourself out and stressing and not accomplishing as much as you want to accomplish because youâ€re driven with fear and stress, what is the answer?

Burnout comes when you’re trying to outrun negative emotion when you’re trying to work hard enough to prevent that negative emotion. 

It comes from trying to trade this moment for a future better moment.

That never ever works.

You cannot outrun your negative emotion, and you cannot run into a future where there is better emotion.

The only thing that changes your emotion is changing the way that you think.

Do you feel burned out and want to get some help? I have the solution.

Do you show empathy for yourself?

As designers, we talk a lot about empathy.

A designer’s ability to empathize

In order to produce meaningful and successful outcomes, we need to know as much as we can about the user/customer/client.

What would your user/customer think, feel, do? We spend a lot of time understanding who they are and how they will behave.

As designers, our creative practice includes our ability to empathize with others.

What are the user’s needs? What do they want?

Our work extends beyond this to include:

“What does our team need to produce a successful outcome?”
“What does our boss or manager need?”

Our work feels personal to us despite its focus on satisfying the needs of others.

Your challenge as a designer

As a designer you often hear feedback and opinions of your work from others. And often, it’s from people who are not designers or who may not share your perspective.

Many times your work feels “judged” by clients, and even your own boss or manager who don’t seem to understand your perspective or your work.

How often have you felt criticized, undervalued, and under appreciated?

Many times you take criticism of your work personally. You internalize it to mean something about you and your value as a designer. You can’t separate yourself from your creative work.

You think “criticism of my work feels like a criticism of me.”

This is completely understandable, right?

Of course, this is the way your brain works. Our brain connects the two â€” “my work equals me,” in ways that feel amazing when your work is praised, but not so good when your work is criticized.

You may struggle with this repeatedly to a point where you lose some of the joy of being a creative.

Building awareness

Step back for a moment and become more aware of what’s going on for you.

Feel compassion for yourself. It may hurt to feel your work is not quite right for whatever reason.

But it’s okay. Nothing is wrong here.

Of course that’s where your mind goes. You can recognize it, you can empathize with yourself as you do for your user/customer.

But what situation is your mind creating for you? A pretty crappy one, right?

With compassion comes awareness. When you empathize with yourself you start to understand why you’re feeling this way.

Dig in. Experience your feelings without judging yourself. (And without judging other people.)

By showing compassion and empathy for yourself and allowing yourself to feel sensitive, without making it mean anything about you, you can make space for new thoughts about it.

Subtle shifts that allow you to not only feel compassion and empathy for yourself but also for your client, colleague, boss, and manager. You can see other ways of thinking when you make this space.

Add these thoughts to your creative practice:

“I will have compassion for myself as a creative. I will practice empathy for myself and will understand how I think and feel better than anyone else.”

“I understand how I think and I give myself permission to feel and practice new ways of thinking and being.”

“I will practice having empathy for the people who work with me and be cognizant of my role in making their words mean something about me personally.”

Do you want help and guidance to know what you’re thinking and feeling, and why? Do you want to understand yourself better?

Take a deep breath.
Close your eyes.

What’s the vibration you experience in your body. Do you feel anxious? Overwhelm? Frustrated? Tired? Calm? Confident?

Make note of how you’re feeling. What are the three feelings that you most commonly feel on any given day?

Tune in to your body.

What’s it telling you?

Top three feelings

Through close observation and awareness, I witnessed that my three most common feelings were anxiety worry and judgment.

When I kept track of my most common thoughts they centered around uncertainty, worrying about things in the future, and so many thoughts about my own shortcomings and judgment of others.

It’s important to know how you’re feeling because we take action based on how we feel.

What kinds of actions are fueled by feelings of anxiety, worry, and judgment? Certainly not the actions I want to take!

How do you want to feel?

Do you know that you can choose how you feel?

Thoughts produce feelings

Our feelings are produced from the thoughts we have. This is such great news! This means we can affect our feelings and emotions by becoming more aware of our thoughts.

My thoughts of fear and negativity towards myself and others kept me feeling negative emotions most of the time.

It’s okay to feel negative emotions sometimes. We don’t want to resist feeling negative emotions but we do have a choice, we have free will, to choose the thoughts we think and believe.

• What do you believe?
• How do you want to show up?
• How do you want to be in the world?

I want to feel self-confident, calm, and have compassion for myself and others.

So I practice recognizing when I have thoughts focused on anxiety, worry, and judgment, and I know that I can choose to believe other things.

Here are new thoughts I’m trying-on:

“I don’t know what will happen and that’s okay.”
“I’ll wait and see what happens.”
“I can handle any situation.”
“I can handle feeling any emotion.”
“I’m imperfect, we’re all imperfect and human.”

Practicing these new thoughts truly makes a big difference in my life.

Different feelings lead to different actions.

I encourage you to check-in with yourself right now.

Grab a cup of tea and a notebook and start writing down how you’re feeling, what thoughts are going through your head. Write it all down.

• What are your three top feelings?
• What are the thoughts associated with these feelings?

Do you want help and guidance to do this work? How can you take the actions you truly want? I can help.

Well… here’s the hitch ” I’m experiencing so much anxiety about it!

Part of my brain thinks I’m being ridiculous while the other part is making up stories in my head and creating drama.

Does your brain do this?

What’s going on?

I’m worrying over every detail and focusing on everything I don’t want. I’m obsessing over all the things that could go wrong. I’m doubting our choices and questioning the expertise of others.

Here are some of the thoughts looping inside my head:

• Remodeling is a nightmare
• Did we make the right color choices?
• Everyone knows you can’t trust contractors
• The project won’t finish on time
• The project will go over our budget

What exactly is anxiety?

Here’s Google’s definition of anxiety:

“Experiencing worry, unease, or nervousness, typically about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome. Wanting something very much, typically with a feeling of unease.”

Feelings, in general, are vibrations that occur in our bodies and are caused by thoughts, not circumstances.

Anxiety is a feeling of generalized worry, fear, apprehension or nervousness. It’s sometimes called a “cover emotion” because it’s very vague and unspecific.

Anxiety is an emotion that most of us will experience on a regular basis.

You might be feeling anxious right now and think “I’ll eat instead.” Other people drink alcohol to avoid it, while others overwork or spend too much time on social media to avoid it. It’s not the same for everyone.

Anxiety is one of those feelings that by pretending it’s not there, it becomes a much bigger issue.

I fear uncertainty

After sitting with my anxiety for a while, here’s what I’ve noticed. I fear the unknown and my brain is making up stories to show evidence that I should feel anxious about it.

Most of us fear uncertainty about the unknown.

If it’s not uncertainty and anxiety about a remodeling project, it’s about the work project that’s on a super-short deadline with the poorly defined specifications.

When we’re not sure we can handle any situation or experience any emotion, we try to manage and control our circumstances.

I want to avoid uncertainty, the discomfort of feeling disappointed or making a mistake, so I’m choosing to feel disappointment ahead of time.

I’m swapping out the possibility of feeling bad with simply feeling it right now. A kind of “failing ahead of time” or playing out a “worst-case scenario” in advance. Instead of thinking about how it will all work out, I focus on everything that could go wrong.

The remodeling is not making me anxious, my thoughts about it are.

The good news is I have control over what I think.

I can take a look at my thoughts about remodeling and explore other thoughts that will serve me better. Focusing on what I do want, instead of focusing on what I don’t want is key.

What if I just felt confident that everything was going to turn out great?

What to do when feeling anxious

Anxiety does not need to be eliminated because anxiety in and of itself is not the issue; it’s our resistance and our reaction to anxiety that causes us problems.

• Awareness. Allow yourself to feel the anxiety. Don’t avoid or resist it. Check-in with your body and recognize the vibration. When we observe something, the thing that we’re observing changes. Write down all of your thoughts. When you’re feeling anxious and you remind yourself the reason you’re feeling anxious is due to your thinking, then you can be curious about what that is.
• Self-compassion. Practice acceptance and being kind to yourself as you remain curious about your new awareness. It can be a huge relief just to know anxiety is part of our “human-ness.” Anxiety does not mean something has gone wrong. Anxiety means that you are an evolved human being interconnected with everyone.
• Gaining new insights and change. Be open to new perspectives. Look at other thoughts you can believe that are more closely aligned with your intentions. Anxiety is not a problem until we make it a problem by resisting it, by reacting to it or avoiding it.

Gaining insight

The new insight I gained about myself is this. My brain thinks: “I’m so uncertain about everything so I’ll just feel disappointed now.” 

Rather than feeling confident and then feeling disappointed if it doesn’t work out, which is a big emotional jump, I’m thinking” “I’ll just feel disappointed right now and remain anxious. That way if something goes wrong, I’m already feeling disappointed.”

I’m trying to avoid future discomfort by feeling it now.

What if I felt confident that everything was going to turn out great with the remodeling?

Confidence is just a feeling too. To be confident doesn’t mean you have to know for sure what the outcome is going to be.

There are lots of times where we think it’s going to be a certain way and it turns out differently. So I can choose feeling confident, which feels a whole lot better than feeling anxious and disappointed.

Do you want to learn how to deal with your feelings of anxiety?

I couldn’t see my future clearly and I was unhappy doing many of the day-to-day tasks to get through my work. I felt conflicted. Why did I no longer see the promising future I had always envisioned for myself? Why was my heart no longer in it? Or even more truthful (and confusing!): why was my heart half in it, and the other half not? Why was my gut telling me there was something else out there for me, something that was more in alignment with what I wanted for my future?

How our brains are wired

Our brains are wired to make connections and to create narratives to make sense of how we feel. My mind created all sorts of stories that I now see were not true. I didn’t know what to think. So I disconnected, I became less engaged in my life, and I didn’t pay attention to what was happening emotionally for me.

I can tell I’m neck-deep in overwhelm and confusion when I do the minimum required to get through the day. My mind thinks so many different thoughts at one time that my brain simply shuts down.

Are you in a state of overwhelm and confusion?

• Is your mind thinking fifty different thoughts at once?
• Do you feel stressed and burned out?
• Do you feel exhausted, disconnected, or even numb?
• Are you pretending you’re okay?

Living in a state of overwhelm and confusion is living without a clear intention.

When you don’t know what to do, you don’t do anything.

It’s typical to try numbing yourself with something that gives you temporary pleasure like eating, drinking, shopping, social media or anything that “takes the edge off” the uncomfortable thoughts and feelings you’re experiencing. It’s common to buffer, to do something in excess in order to avoid your emotions and feelings.

I indulged in overwhelm and confusion by buffering with overeating, over drinking, over shopping, and staying up late and obsessing about making things “perfect,” thoughts that truly rob us of our happiness!

It got worse before it got better.

The turning point?

I asked for help. I wanted change and I was in a perpetual holding pattern, so I found a coach (who was a designer too!) and she helped me gain new insights and perspectives on my situation and life overall.

Do you need help finding your way?