Measuring ‘Feeling Good’

How and when do you feel good about yourself? Your workouts? Your goals? Defining what “feeling good” means to you is the first step in evaluating the ways in which you can feel good/better in various aspects of your life.

Feeling good can be a physical sensation, an emotional state, a mental state or a combination of all three. Any of these states can be triggered in a moment’s notice. Think about how you feel in different situations and what affects you in what ways. For example, reflect on how you feel when you wake, after a run, after working out, after sitting in traffic, etc.  In any of these situations, how you feel comes from the act of doing, being, accomplishing, or a combination.

Ask yourself:  Why is feeling good important? Feeling good is certainly better than feeling bad. How we feel can shape our day. It effects how we are able to cope with our life, being productive, focused, and or handling what tasks lie in front of us. Maintaining a healthy physical state, emotional state, and mental state provides an overall sense of wellbeing and happiness which makes life much more enjoyable.

Let’s begin by looking at the physical part of feeling good. How do you know when you physically feel good? Is it how you wake up in the morning or is it because you performed well during a workout? Is it because you feel strong, fast, light, powerful, awake, and/or energized? Notice there is a variety of ways in which each of us decides what “feeling good” means to us. First and foremost decide for YOU what “feeling good” is and how you physically get there.

One way to feel good is to workout. For me, working out can mean a run, a hike, a bike ride, training at the gym, a yoga class, a walk, swimming, downhill skiing, skate skiing, etc. Part of my prerequisite for a workout is exertion. I need to do an activity where I feel as though I am exerting myself.   When my heart rate goes up, I sweat and I begin to feel alive.  This brings about a good feeling inside of me.  During these workouts, I feel strong, powerful, agile, and free.  Soon after my workout I feel centered, calm, focused, pleased with myself, and accomplished.  This is what “feeling physically good” is for me.  It is very important for me to begin my day with a workout because it allows me to stay on top of my daily game.

There are many other physical ways we can create “feeling good.”  For example, getting enough sleep, eating nutritiously, and hydrating all contribute to feeling good.  These topics were covered in my previous article: Energy.

It is also worth examining what makes you feel bad physically.  By knowing both sides of the coin you will feel more in control to create “feeling good” in your daily life.  Train/workout in a way that makes you feel good about yourself, where you feel successful and accomplished.  Refrain from evaluating yourself against others.  Your evaluation should only be comparative to yourself, and no one else.  Stay within to reap your rewards.

What about emotions?  Let’s stay in the camp of relating to your workouts, training and competitions. Certainly we feel and have emotions connected to our physical self.  So if we feel energized, most likely we’re feeling positive and happy within ourselves. There is a direct correlation between the physical and emotional world.  However, it has occurred to me and I’ve seen many people develop a negative emotion despite their positive performance. This is often the case when we have set our personal standards to an outside standard, which will never be optimal.  Avoid comparing yourself to anyone.  It is the beginning of the end to not feel good about you!

Here are a few tips to help you stay positive: Find something in your workout or training everyday that makes you “feel good.”  This will impact your training, goal setting, your ability to compete and most importantly, how your life goes. Next, have reasonable goals. I’m going to exercise today, get enough sleep tonight, have a day of rest because I’m over trained, or fuel my body with appropriate hydration and fuel. Setting goals that teeter on the impossible will set you up for failure. Your emotional state is delicate. Treat yourself and your emotions with care. Start your day off in the right direction with a physical good feeling to emotionally set the stage for a positive day for yourself.

Your state of mind is also key, and comes from the combination of your physical and emotional state. If you physically and emotionally feel good, most likely you will mentally feel strong. Mental strength truly is the key to your personal strength, endurance, success and happiness. It must be acquired through your physical and emotional states. It is virtuously impossible to be mentally strong when you’re down on your physical and emotional game. Your mental strength gives you the power to survive one’s daily life. I usually begin my day with the physical, building my emotional and mental state for strength for the rest of the day.

I’m sure many of you may go in a different order; maybe you start with your mental state, or emotional state. What is important is to find the state you can access the easiest to give you that “good feeling” to begin your day with. From there, I highly recommend playing around with the idea of developing the capacity to access your “good feeling” from any of our states. For example, let’s say you take a day off to rest to recover. On this day you may find that you are “feeling good” from your mental state by knowing a day off is going to benefit you tremendously. The more you are able to shift states to create your sense of well-being, the healthier and more functional of a person you will be in the world. Relying always on one state for “feeling good” can be very dangerous, and lacks flexibility. First, learn for yourself how you cultivate “feeling good.” Next begin to play around with “feeling good” physically, emotionally, or mentally.

Soon you will be happier, feel more satisfied with yourself and your life, so you can enjoy and live your life to the fullest.