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Why Feelings Fail You – And What Doesn’t
We've been told to honour our feelings — and mostly we've overcorrected, pandering to them at great cost to our motivation and discipline. Feelings do matter, but not for being effective.
There’s a stronger foundation; one you walk past every day. It’s the single most powerful tool you have as a human being. This episode is about that foundation.
We humans are linguistic systems. Our job is to maintain the integrity of that system. It’s the single most powerful thing you can do.
In this episode, I contrast two foundations you can build a life on: feelings and word.
One you didn't create and can't control – and is therefore unreliable, even flaky. The other is available to you at any moment, needs nobody's permission, and — used with integrity — builds something most people value: consistency and reliability without the cost of emotional effort. The secondary gain is self-belief and self-efficacy.
There's a task at the end to begin practicing immediately. You can check the results for yourself.
Come sceptical. Stay curious.
SHOW NOTES
This is the second of four episodes on humans and language. Episode 8 established that we live in a sea of language and that language doesn't just describe reality — it creates it. Episode 9 takes one class of that — the declaration, the "I will" — and shows what changes when you platform your life on your word rather than on how you feel.
Covered inside: the declaration versus the "internal weather report"; integrity as a scientific term (the bucket, the circuit, the balloon) and integrity with word; how integrity builds self-belief and self-efficacy; the science that shows how feelings follow action; how to be flexible and not use your word against yourself; feelings as information rather than commands.
Some terms that are used: integrity with your word; doing what you say you will do; how language creates reality; your power to create; drifting off-course and getting back on track; self-belief, self-efficacy, self-compassion, self-flagellation.
References & going deeper: David Barlow's Unified Protocol (feelings as information); Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Viktor Frankl on the autotelic personality; the Five Motivational States series on the flow state. There's an earlier YouTube piece on the "I will" shift — linked below.
Written companion on Substack under my name. Ways to work with me are in the links.
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By Neil BierbaumWe've been told to honour our feelings — and mostly we've overcorrected, pandering to them at great cost to our motivation and discipline. Feelings do matter, but not for being effective.
There’s a stronger foundation; one you walk past every day. It’s the single most powerful tool you have as a human being. This episode is about that foundation.
We humans are linguistic systems. Our job is to maintain the integrity of that system. It’s the single most powerful thing you can do.
In this episode, I contrast two foundations you can build a life on: feelings and word.
One you didn't create and can't control – and is therefore unreliable, even flaky. The other is available to you at any moment, needs nobody's permission, and — used with integrity — builds something most people value: consistency and reliability without the cost of emotional effort. The secondary gain is self-belief and self-efficacy.
There's a task at the end to begin practicing immediately. You can check the results for yourself.
Come sceptical. Stay curious.
SHOW NOTES
This is the second of four episodes on humans and language. Episode 8 established that we live in a sea of language and that language doesn't just describe reality — it creates it. Episode 9 takes one class of that — the declaration, the "I will" — and shows what changes when you platform your life on your word rather than on how you feel.
Covered inside: the declaration versus the "internal weather report"; integrity as a scientific term (the bucket, the circuit, the balloon) and integrity with word; how integrity builds self-belief and self-efficacy; the science that shows how feelings follow action; how to be flexible and not use your word against yourself; feelings as information rather than commands.
Some terms that are used: integrity with your word; doing what you say you will do; how language creates reality; your power to create; drifting off-course and getting back on track; self-belief, self-efficacy, self-compassion, self-flagellation.
References & going deeper: David Barlow's Unified Protocol (feelings as information); Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Viktor Frankl on the autotelic personality; the Five Motivational States series on the flow state. There's an earlier YouTube piece on the "I will" shift — linked below.
Written companion on Substack under my name. Ways to work with me are in the links.