I was coaching a client the other day about some things happening in his family life.
As with most clients, he wanted me to help him get clarity on what he should do.
And as I do when clients want to rush there, I told him that WHAT we do doesn’t matter nearly as much as WHY we do.
The exact same actions can be taken from completely different states of mind or feelings, and because of those different states of mind/feelings, we would have completely different experiences of that action-taking.
That feels awkward and wordy. So let me describe the visual I used.
I held up my pen and said, “These are the actions you take. You can come at those actions from a place of (1) ‘I want to do this thing,’ OR from a place of (2) ‘I don’t want to do this but I will out of shame or guilt,’ OR (3) ‘I don’t want to do this thing but I will because I want to be the kind of person who does this thing.’”
Depending on which motivation is driving that action, we will likely come out of the experience feeling either (1) pleased that we got to do something we wanted to do, (2) bitter or resentful that we had to do it, or (3) proud of ourselves and the decision we made to show up even when we didn’t want to.
So again, the action itself is not necessarily the most important thing to get clarity around first. The first thing is to get clarity around what thoughts and feelings we want driving that action.
And as usual, awareness is key. Just notice your thoughts and feelings as you’re making decisions — question your reasons for the actions you’re thinking of taking, and if you like them, go for it!
If you don’t like your reasons, take the time to sort out what feels like you being true the best version of you. I promise it’s worth that mental effort — because the thoughts and feelings driving our actions also drive the results we get and our overall experience of those actions we take.