Feelings are Like What Gets Stuck On the Bottom of Your Shoes

My cousin texted me this great video on YouTube of a man talking about how thoughts become feelings and feelings become actions. I loved it but told him I had a different take that I find more empowering.

You see, I subscribe to the belief that thoughts become actions and feelings then follow. For simplicity, I’ll dump thoughts into two buckets. One bucket is a rusty tin pail of thoughts that don’t help you. The other bucket is a pristine golden bucket of thoughts that are in line with your values and will help you become the person you aspire to be.

Alex Hormozi describes this well as, ‘You-today needs to act for you-tomorrow. Will you-tomorrow be happy with the decisions that you-tomorrow made today?’

So then, living with discipline looks like someone who separates thoughts into each bucket, proceeds to dump the rusty bucket out of the car window, and selects from the golden bucket to commit action in pursuit of the life they aspire to live.

Feelings would then subsequently follow both of the individuals who live with and without discipline.

The person who picks their actions like a raffle from the rusty idea bucket is then dished out feelings of remorse, guilt, ineptitude, and despair, ultimately injuring their self-esteem and taking the wind out of their sails.

Then there’s the person who dumps their rusty idea bucket and selectively picks their actions from the golden bucket of higher ideals. This person is given momentum. They’re served with ‘a stack of undeniable proof that they are who they say they are’ (another Hormozi-ism). They’re blessed with self-esteem. They’re gifted with results. They’re adorned with personal satisfaction and social proof from their peers.

As long as you can be mindful of your thoughts, sort them, act accordingly, and believe that feelings follow actions, then you never have to be captured by your feelings. You just have to start over at your next thought and act in accordance with how you want to feel later.

Value delayed gratification as if you’re choosing where to step on a walk. Because feelings are really just like what gets stuck to the bottom of your shoes.

If you choose to walk a clean path, your feet will stay dry, and your shoes won’t need much cleaning. If you choose to take a shortcut or step off the path for a moment, you may need to knock the mud off when you get home.

But maybe you make a really dumb or innocent mistake and step in a fresh wad of gum. It’s going to take some real intention to get the gum off of the bottom of your shoe. Or else you’ll be stuck with a nasty black tar on your tread and a little bump in your walk until you decide to throw those old gum-infested shoes in the trash.

So what’s a real and relatable example of something sticky from the shoe metaphor? How about getting crap sleep? This action can lead to both psychological and physiological feelings.

You’re going to be sluggish if you got crap sleep last night. But then you might also be upset with yourself if you pride yourself on getting good sleep (more like stepping in mud.)

The sluggishness (more like stepping in gum) MIGHT be remedied with some caffeine or a nap if you can, but the disgust with yourself can be more easily remedied with forgiveness and an agreement with yourself to get to bed earlier tonight.

Anyway, these are just some thoughts I had that might lead to actions that lead to feelings.