A common theme that I see in my consults with prospective clients is that their life feels so flat.
Guys tell me that they don’t have anything interesting happening in their life. And that they don’t like how they show up; for their work, their family, and themselves. They talk about just going through the motions.
It makes you wonder, is your life flat because you drink too much? Or do you drink too much because your life is so flat?
It’s YES to both.
How To Shift Away From Feeling Your Life Is Flat
To get out of this loop, you need to look at your life in terms of emotional balance. Think of this in terms of four categories of emotions:
- POSITIVE: feeling happy, satisfied, excited, proud, anticipating
- NEGATIVE: irritated, frustrated, angry, sad, worried, guilty
- GRITTY: courageous, determined, disciplined, embarrassed
- PASSIVE: overwhelmed, indecisive, resigned
This flat feeling you’re stuck with is from an overweight of negative and passive emotion.
To get to a life with more positive emotions, you’re going to have to make an intentional choice to take on some gritty emotions. And you’ll have to relate differently to the negative emotion.
It’s just not possible to skip directly from where you are to a more positive experience, without going through some discomfort.
But here’s the good news:
The ‘bad’ emotion that you choose for yourself en route to something better is very different from the stale badness you just keep on accepting.
Embarrassment feels better than regret.
Courage feels better than shame.
Determination feels better than overwhelm.
Fear feels better than resignation.
Conclusion
You can spend the next few months feeling the same ole’ bad, and at the end of that time, nothing will have changed. You’ll still feel flat. You won’t be showing up differently. You won’t have lost any weight or started exercising or learned to trust yourself.
You could instead spend the next few months choosing some different bad feelings. And you would then be at a completely different place in your life.
You could be drinking less, naturally. You could be showing up hard, for whatever is important; your marriage, parenthood, your career, or even a hobby. You could be progressing towards feeling good.