10 Techniques to feeling great and putting negative emotions behind you

Everyone has bad days, days where you may be in a negative funk or maybe even depressed. These days may extend for weeks, months, or in some cases even years. This does not need to be the case.

You can start being the person you want to be today.

You can start taking actions to ensure that you reach your objectives today. 

This post has been inspired by the book Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy. Dr. David D. Burns provides the information you need to help you take yourself from a negative emotional state to a positive one. Some of his recommendations are identified below, for the full low down, I highly recommend reading his book.

“At the bottom line only your own sense of self-worth determines how you feel.” ~ Dr. Burns

Relying on achievements, fame, looks or talent only create pseudo-esteem. While they may make you feel better in the short term, how good you feel has an expiration date. Michael Phelps is a great example of this. He is the most accomplished athlete of this century with 22 medals. He has one of the most recognized faces in sports. Yet, with all of his fame, fortune, after the 2008 Olympics he fell into what he identified as depression. He barely left his house, he stopped swimming, and spent most days playing video games or sleeping. It wasn't until one day he made the decision to get out and go back to swimming that everything started to get better.

Do-Nothingism, according to Dr. Burns, “One of the most destructive aspects of depression is the way it paralyzes your willpower.” You begin to withdraw into your own world, and slow down or stop the activities you enjoy or know you need to do. Every time you choose to procrastinate, the more negative emotions reinforce your negative thoughts. This cycle will continue until you start taking action.

1. Change your thoughts- Taking simple actions to understand and change how you think can produce amazing results for how you feel. How and what you think leads directly to how you feel; which in turn affects what actions you decide to take. Write down the negative thoughts you have throughout the day. The simple action of keeping track and reviewing your thoughts on paper will provide you a true understanding of how distorted your thoughts are. To help with this review, you may compare your thoughts with the cognitive distortions many people experience. 

2. Talk back to your negative thoughts- When a negative thought pops up in your mind, immediately talk back to it. Remind yourself how wrong those self-limiting beliefs were, and feed yourself a positive message. Let your mind know that you no longer accept these false views of yourself and the world. This takes dedication to do it every time; the more you do it the easier it becomes. As time goes on, your negative self-talk will begin to disappear. 

3. Be around people- Often times people in depressive states will isolate themselves. It is impossible to break yourself completely out of depression alone. Being in isolation will only continue to reinforce a false belief of low self-worth. Take the opportunity to step outside and meet someone new. A great read to help out with this is Never Eat Alone written by Keith Ferrazzi, or Scott Dinsmore’s How to Connect With Anyone course. If you are unsure of the best ways to interact with others or to build a bigger group of friends, the BEST book you can read, and one I read every couple of years is How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie.

4. Associate with the right people- Being around people is a start, but you may already be ready for the next step. Being around the right people is the best way you can accomplish your ultimate life goals. According to Scott Dinsmore at LiveYourLegend “Who you associate with is the biggest life hack out there."  When you have a goal, the best thing you can do is to surround yourself with people who have already accomplished that goal. You will learn so much from them and it will make your desired outcome your new normal.

"Motivation does not come first, action does!" ~ Dr. Burns

5. Beat procrastination – Identify the task you wish to complete and write down the steps it will take to complete it. As you begin tackling the steps, reward yourself, cross them off, put a smiley face next to it. An old friend of mine would write all her things to do on post-it notes. After each task was complete she would take great satisfaction in crumpling up the completed task and throwing it away.

6. Schedule your day and review it – One way to start doing the things you need to do is to make a plan for your day. You can write a by hour plan for your day.  At the end of the day give yourself an honest assessment of how well you followed through with your plan. Of course there are always things that come up and obstacles you face. The big question is, were the obstacles that came up truly important or were they things you chose to do instead of the important. At first you may notice that it may be tough for you to stick to a schedule. That is normal, the more you do it the better and easier it gets. A great resource for planning  is Tim Ferriss’s The Four hour Work Week. He recommends setting simple and manageable goals. He regularly sets only two major tasks per day to accomplish. Even if you just do just one task per day, at the end of the week will have accomplished seven more actions than you otherwise would have.

7. Welcome Confusion – Confusion and failure are parts of life, it happens. Accepting that now is GREAT. Especially if you are learning something new. One of my mentors Dr. and Grandmaster Nam K. Hyong has always reminded me of the following, “Welcome confusion, confusion means you are learning.” Of course, itt is possible to not be confused and to still fail at a task. The best thing you can do immediately after you fail is,  remind yourself that failure is okay.and make sure you can soak each lesson learned from that failure. It takes a long time for people to get great at something, and to fail at something is a valuable experience. If you approach it from the right mindset, it can at times be pleasurable.

8. Predict Pleasure – Write out ten different activities that could lead to satisfaction or personal growth for you to do in the near future.  Immediately, write who you plan on doing the activity with (for individual activities “self” is sufficient). Then score each activity on a scale of 0-100, for how beneficial you think the activity will be. Following the completion of the activity write your own rating of the experience. You will often find that many of the activities you plan on doing will lead to more powerful outcomes. More importantly you can really hone in on your best experiences and replicate them!

9. Delete words from your vocabulary – Eliminate should or but from your vocabulary. Next time you use either word write down the phrase you said it in. “I should exercise but I don’t know which gym to go to.” If you should do something, then just do it. Whether that is taking a few minutes to research your local gyms or stopping by one. often times gyms will provide free temporary memberships. You could even just go for a walk or jog, you will feel better taking physical action. 

10. Do something physical - The power of physical activity is often overlooked as a powerful way to combat depression and negative emotions. When you work out your brain releases certain chemicals that make you feel happier and more relaxed. Let alone all the other benefits, of better health, stronger immune system, and having a sexier physique. Click here to watch an inspirational video of Amy Clover and how she fought depression and even suicide with physical activity.   

BONUS: Take action, reading this post is a good start but until you take action you will not get the results you want. We feel substantially better when we get up and do just about anything. After you take one positive action, take another. The more you start to change your thoughts and actions your emotions will have no option but to follow along.

For more GREAT ideas by Dr. David Burns, read his book, it is proven to help people at any stage of negative emotions.

Burns, David D. (2012-11-20). Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy. Harper.