How to Make Progress on Your Goals While Feeling Down in the Dumps
Have you ever experienced a time when your negative emotion kept you from concentrating and taking action to move yourself closer to your goal? I recently had that experience. I received devastating news regarding a friend and found myself paralyzed by the negative emotions of fear, worry and anxiety. Although I had the ability to take action on my goal, I couldn't bring myself to do it. I kept telling myself I would take action when I felt better, more positive. While I was busy working through my negative emotional experience, the world continued to move forward and so I ended up falling behind. This experience allowed me to explore the importance of navigating goal achievement even while feeling down in the dumps. In this blog post I share with you some practical tools to use when your emotions and energy are keeping you from taking action on your goals.
Before we can address the issue of what is keeping you from showing up fully and taking action, we must first identify what it is that is keeping you from doing so. It is important to know why you're feeling negative. Is the negative emotion directed at yourself or it is something completely unrelated? For example, do you trust and believe that you have what it takes to achieve your goals or are you allowing negative emotion regarding something completely unrelated to impact your ability to take action? Are you refraining from taking action because you're tired, don't feel well, are upset over an argument with a loved one, or because you're in a place where life feels really heavy and hard?
When you are able to identify the source of your negative emotions, you are better able to direct your thoughts so that they serve you. Remember, you are not your thoughts. You are the thinker of your thoughts. Therefore, you get to decide which thoughts you're going to pay attention to and which ones you're going to ignore. So when you're feeling down in the dumps and not wanting to take action towards the achievement of your goals, ask yourself why. Based upon that answer, you can decide where to direct your thoughts and your focus.
As I consider my situation, the reason I was feeling negative was because I was responding to news about my friend. I was feeling fearful, worried, anxious and very, very tired from the hours of sleep l lost entertaining those negative emotions. When I finally came to terms that the situation was not going to go away and that I was going to need to figure out how to be productive while feeling all of the feels, I was enlightened to shift my focus outside of myself. I started to think about how I could help other people through this negative experience. I decided that if I have to go through this pain, it was going to be for a good reason. I was not going to let this experience be in vain. I was going to make sure it was going to help others, specifically you.
My experience helped me to remember that we are all experiencing some kind of pain: lost income, favorite store or restaurant closing, illness, broken relationship, unmet expectations, limited thinking, disbelief in ourselves, fear... It gave me perspective and allowed me to do a better job of meeting my clients where they were, especially those that were deep in negative emotion of worry, fear, and anxiety. By focusing on helping other people with their hurts and troubling circumstances, I was able to give my pain purpose. This helped me move forward and lighten the intensity of the negative emotions I was experiencing. It also gave me a reason to connect with others which is part of the process for achieving my goal of building my business. You, too, can help the people in your lives by sharing your experience. It is through sharing our stories, by being vulnerable, that connects people to us. Additionally, it can inspire them to keep progressing in spite of whatever it is that they are going through.
The second method for making progress on your goal while deep in negative emotion and energy is to get yourself to a neutral state. The way to get yourself into a neutral state is to distract your brain from experiencing the negative emotions by taking action. When we're busy in action, whether that is showing up for others or doing something productive, our brains are too busy focusing on what we're doing to expend energy on the negative emotion or circumstance. This method is a short-term coping mechanism to give ourselves a break from feeling the negative emotion because it allows us to pause the experience for a short time knowing that we will pick it back up a little later. PLEASE NOTE, this is something to do for a few minutes or a few hours. This is not a long-term coping mechanism. We cannot go over our emotions or under them. We must go through them. If we delay for too long, the negative energy will build much like a pressure cooker and there will come a time that the pressure has to be released or it will explode.
A third method for making progress on your goal while down in the dumps is to talk about it with another person. There is incredible power and wisdom when I “think with my mouth.” I am amazed at what new insights come to me when I hear myself speaking about what I am experiencing, especially when I speak about my feelings and the thoughts I am having. When I share what I am going through with others, I am no longer alone in the process. My counterparts are there to help, hold, support, and encourage me. As one person shared with me after talking about the negative emotional experience she was going through she said, “It doesn't feel so heavy now. Before, it felt like something was sitting on my chest. I don't feel it now. I am saying it out loud. This is better than cycling it through my head. My body feels less tense. The bracing for something bad to happen is much less intense.” If the negativity that you're experiencing feels heavy, paralyzing, and too big, please talk to someone; a friend, family member, teacher, coach, mentor, therapist or any person trained to help others with emotions and mental health.
If your negative emotion is something that is related to the way you perceive yourself, your ability, or your goal, chances are you're experiencing “unproductive” emotion. Mental Fitness Coaching considers emotions of envy, shame, pity, guilt, resentment, entitlement, desperation, and some fears as unproductive negative emotions. The thing to know about unproductive negative emotions is that they always lead to unproductive action. If you are in the energy of unproductive negative emotions of envy, shame, guilt, resentment or even entitlement, there is a good chance that the negative emotion is coming from some form of disbelief. Surprisingly, the antidote of this is not to get yourself to a state of belief, but rather to get yourself to the emotional state of courage, vulnerability, and discipline. This requires a small shift in your emotional energy so that you can make a shift in your thinking. Without this small shift, you're likely to start shaming yourself for...
not having a strong or more positive belief in yourself and
for not taking action that is necessary to achieve your goal.
When you're stuck in unproductive negative emotions, you will experience a downward spiral where you will produce more failure, greater shame, and significant distance between you and your goal.
The way to address the negative emotion around disbelief in yourself or your ability to achieve your goal is to take on the mindset of a person who is courageous, vulnerable, and disciplined. In other words, take on the mindset of someone who is willing to take action and risk failure for the sake of learning. This small shift is going from the thoughts of “I can't do it.” “This isn't going to work.” “I'm never going to achieve my goal,” to “I'm going to take this action in spite of what I'm feeling or even if it doesn't end the way I want it to.” It may be rethinking “I am a failure.” to “I am willing to experience failure for the sake of learning and growth.” Courage, discipline, and vulnerability is saying “I can do hard things and I can be with hard things.” “I can do things even while not feeling positive, joyful and happy.” Choosing to be vulnerable, courageous, and disciplined will create more for you than sitting in unproductive negative emotions of disbelief, envy, shame, pity, guilt, resentment, entitlement, desperation, and fear.
Being disciplined enough to trust the process and take action in spite of how you’re feeling will create results. When you’re so attached to the end result, it actually hinders your approach. This is especially true when you find yourself in unproductive negative emotion because you lack the energy or ability to see far out into the future where your goal lies. It is too exhausting to look long-term when you’re just wanting to survive this moment. When you consider what you can control, the circle of influence around your own two feet, you are more likely to be proactive in your approach. If you stay committed and focused on the process of taking one small action every day until you reach your goal, you will move past the unproductive negative emotion to a more productive one. When you’re able to focus on what you can do in the moment or how you want to be in the moment, the load feels lighter and more manageable. This is how you take productive action in spite of the negative emotions you’re feeling.
Of course, I am making the assumption that you want to move towards your goals regardless of what you're feeling, thinking, or the circumstance you find yourself. But, maybe you don't want to take action. Maybe you want to sit on the couch, eat popcorn and ice cream, and watch Netflix. Remember, taking action is always a choice. You can spend your day taking no action or you can spend it taking action. You ALWAYS have a choice. Action is never a “HAVE TO.” It is always a “GET TO.” You're always at choice when it comes to deciding whether you will take productive or unproductive action.
The thing I want you to take away is that when you're in a negative mood, you're still at choice with what you want to do about it. You can ask yourself why you're feeling down in the dumps and then decide what you are going to do about it based on that answer. Remember, you are the director of your thoughts and your behavior. Therefore, in each circumstance you find yourself, you get to choose who you want to be in it and how you want to navigate through it.
Good luck!
If you're struggling to make progress on your goal or if it is taking longer than you expected, schedule a consultation to see if coaching is a right fit for you.