• Find all blog posts on the topic here: My Inspirational Year.
• You can order the book here.
• Want an autographed copy (I have just a few left): http://lauraerdmanluntz.com/product/my-extraordinary-year/

Listen to the Live Stream I created on this topic:

The Power of Feeling Good

“Life is a selection, nothing more.”

Emerson

This month’s My Inspirational Year topic is so simple, it is easy to discount it. But don’t underestimate the power of something simple!

Are you ready?

When you feel good, you make better decisions.

You just do.

Think about it. What kind of snack do you choose when you are stressed out, exhausted and have a dose of fear in the back of your mind. When you feel that way, you grab for “comfort food” that is far from nutritious.

Now what kind of snack do you grab when you feel GREAT? Maybe you had a great workout, a fabulous chat with a friend who leaves you feeling like anything is possible or a great night’s sleep? You take the time to prepare a snack that is nourishing and feels amazing in your body.

When you feel good, you are stronger, more resilient.

Now extrapolate that out to life. When you are intentionally working on making changes in your life to live the life you really want, you are asking yourself to change, to do something new.

Maybe you are adding healthier habits, taking actions that have made you uncomfortable, learning to think in a new way.

That means making new decisions, ones that might take an extra umph.

When you feel good, you will have more strength to make those harder decisions.

I suggest you set up an intentional Feel Good Practice – actions that help you feel better to give you the strength to make the harder decisions.

Think of your Feel Good Practice as a proactive process for keeping you feeling good. Of course, you will have harder days, but you will then have access to tools that will help you feel better.

Really, everything in life either helps you feel better…or worse; stronger or weaker.
There is no such thing as neutral.

So while we are focused here on setting up actions that help you feel good, you will begin to notice actions that make weaker. In fact, you are probably very aware already of actions that leave you fearful or angry that then sabotage your desire for something you are creating. Are you ready to change that behavior?

Feel Good Practice:

Daily:

Do a little something every day that helps you feel good. It might only take you 5 minutes. The sole intention is for you to step into a place of “intentional feeling good”, if you will, when you do it. Maybe it is a cup of tea, a few minutes of inspirational reading or a candle in the bathroom as you shower. Do it with the intention of helping you feel good. It is amazing how powerful a few minutes can be!

Weekly:

Do a little something bigger each week for yourself. Perhaps a weekly class. (Ahem…yoga?) Or a chiro appointment, massage. Or maybe you drive some place to take a walk in a beautiful natural setting. I had a client who did “Wednesday lunch”. She had a list of friends with whom she would always say, “we should do lunch”, but never did. She started setting up dates with her friends every Wednesday for lunch. She had 3 months worth of these dates and at the end of the 3 months, she started over.

Monthly:

Once a month set aside a full day to take a retreat for yourself. Love to cook? Cook. Love to eat out? Eat out. Fill your day with activities that fill you up. And, yes, you can do this with kiddos in tow. I would do the activities with my kiddos I loved to do with them. We would swim or have a movie afternoon or go out to lunch or I would trade with another mamma and take an afternoon off to take a delicious bath and nap.

Annual:

Set aside a period of time (maybe a weekend or more) to stop life and breathe. If you can get away from your daily life during this time, even better. Get a hotel room in town or go to a retreat center.

Let it be a time to reflect on your life to see if it is the life you really want to be creating. Are you on the right track? What changes do you want to focus on over the next year?

Quickies:

Now, what do you do when you drop low, really low, when you feel like all you can do is sit on the couch and eat potato chips? We all have times when it feels like everything is falling apart and life is particularly hard. Sometimes these feelings hit us without any outside impetus. Our vibe just dives for whatever reason.

But, at those times, it often feels like there is nothing we can do that will help. We can’t imagine doing anything that would help — and we often can’t even remember we can effect how we feel!

During those times, we need actions that are crazy easy AND even preplanned, since we do not do our best thinking then. (And we are particularly good at sabotaging ourselves!)

Have a list of things you can do, actions you can take at that time. I find you only need 3-4 ideas.

Maybe a glass of water, a breath of fresh air, a friend you can call, it doesn’t need to be much because just ONE thing done to help you feel better will help you take another step to feel better.

Get your list created. Actually write it down and schedule the days into your calendar. Let the intentional “Feeling Good” start now!

Need a few ideas? Enjoy 10 Tips for Feeling Good: