I Care About You – But I Don't Give A Shit About Your Feelings

And before you click away thinking I'm just another hustle-culture coach telling you to power through everything, hear me out. Because the distinction I'm about to make is an important part of the foundation of personal growth work.

So many of us spend a lot of our lives taking action based on some of our feelings while ignoring others. And most of the time, we have it ass-backwards. We’re listening to the “I don’t feel like it’ feelings (which I lovingly refer to as my inner brat) and we’re ignoring the feelings that are actually giving us important information. 

If you want to make a change in some part of your life – if you want actual progress or a different outcome – you need to stop letting feelings run your life while ignoring the ones that actually matter.

The Feelings We Let Run the Show

I had an incredible writing teacher who once said, "Writers don't like writing. They like having written."

I have coached many writers over the years. It's torture for every single one of them to sit down to write. Once they start, they're good – but they never feel like writing.

So if they operated based on their feelings, they'd never actually write. They'd never finish the book. They'd never build the career they're capable of or that they dream of.

If I lived my life based on my moods and my feelings, I'd be a pretty crappy mom. 

Because being a good parent is more hard work than anyone ever tells you, and there are more days than I care to admit that I'm tired and I don't feel like it.

If I lived my life based on my moment-to-moment feelings, I would rarely get my ass to the gym.

 I pretty much never feel like working out, and I often DO feel like eating a Trader Joe's chipwich on a daily basis.

If I'd listened to my feelings, I wouldn't be doing my dream job — working with people to level up and live more fulfilling lives — because I was scared out of my mind not knowing what the hell it would look like or whether I'd be any good at it and diving head first into that fear? It did NOT feel good. 

BUT - I'm committed to raising great humans. I'm committed to having a strong, healthy body. I'm committed to myself and not letting fear get in the way. And I'm committed to you and what I know is possible for you.

So when it comes to my inner brat whining "I don't feel like it" – that moment-to-moment mood fluctuation that tries to keep me comfortable and safe – yeah, I don't really give a shit about those feelings. They're just noise. The inner critic doing her thing, trying to keep me small.

Here's What I Was Doing Wrong for 35 Years

For most of my life, I was really good at pushing through when I "didn't feel like it." I could white-knuckle my way through just about anything.

What I was absolutely terrible at? Actually feeling my feelings.

The real ones. The uncomfortable ones. The ones that carried information about what I wanted and needed.

I avoided disappointment like it would kill me. I pushed down conflict until I would eventually explode. Anger? I wasn't really allowed to be angry – except when I hit my breaking point. And then I'd feel shame because I had gone ballistic. 

I'd shove it all down, stay productive, keep it together. Until I couldn't anymore. And then I'd react instead of respond, and convince myself that I was the problem.

For years, I was terrified of failure so I avoided taking risks. 

I didn't have the hard conversations (even though they were with people I really cared about). I wouldn't ask for the raise (even though I knew I deserved more money). I wouldn't start a new career — even though the one I was in wasn't fulfilling.

I was so scared of the unknown and uncertainty and falling on my face, that I suffered (and I am NOT exaggerating when I say suffer) through unfulfilling jobs. 

All I could imagine was that I wouldn't get what I wanted. All I thought about was, "What if it doesn't work out?" There was no part of my brain that asked, "But what if it does work out?"

I knew I was holding myself back. But I didn’t know how to change it. 

Then I met a boy. We went on an amazing first date. Two days later, he left for a six-month MBA program. In Asia.

We wrote to each other every day for six weeks. And then he asked me to come visit him.

And I decided this was the moment. If I was going to have the life I desired, it was time for me to start taking some risks. And I was going to start by flying halfway across the world to see if I might be the main character in the rom-com of my dreams.

It was pretty much a total. disaster.

And it was one of the best experiences of my life.

Not because it worked out the way I hoped. It didn't. But because I let myself want something enough to risk being disappointed. I let myself feel the disappointment when it didn't work out. I didn't explode. I didn't shove it down. I just… felt it. 

And I didn't die!! 

That trip to Myanmar — that willingness to risk failure, to feel disappointment, to sit with the discomfort of things not going the way I wanted — that's when something started to shift.

The Two Types of Feelings (And Why Most of Us Have It Backwards)

Here's what I see with my clients all the time: brilliant women who will push through when they "don't feel like it" — and are equally brilliant at shoving aside their real feelings because they're afraid of conflict.

They'll override their exhaustion to make the deadline, but they won't let themselves feel disappointed when they don't get the promotion.

They'll force themselves to network even when they're drained, but they won't let themselves get angry when someone takes credit for their work.

They'll stay in relationships that aren't working because they're afraid of the discomfort of leaving.

There are two types of feelings, and we've got to learn the difference:

The noise: "I don't feel like it" when it comes to the thing you're committed to that would actually move your life forward. The moment-to-moment mood fluctuations. The inner critic trying to keep you comfortable and safe and small.

The signal: Grief. Disappointment. Anger. Exhaustion. Desire. The deep, uncomfortable emotions that we're terrified to sit with, so we "stay productive" and "keep it together" and wonder why we feel hollow inside even when we're crushing our to-do lists.

The noise keeps you stuck. The signal carries essential information about what you want and need.

And most of us are letting the noise run our lives while ignoring the signal entirely.

Choice, Not Reaction

If you want to get it right, you have to be willing to risk getting it wrong.

You have to be willing to feel disappointed. To fail. To sit with anger and actually listen to what it's telling you about your boundaries. To let yourself grieve what didn't work out instead of immediately pivoting to the next thing.

This is the real work: learning the distinction between reacting to your feelings and actually being with them in all their discomfort.

When you feel grief, you don't need to power through it — you need to let yourself feel it. When you're disappointed that something didn't work out the way you hoped, sitting with that disappointment will teach you something about what you actually wanted. When you're angry, there's likely a boundary that needs to be set or a truth that needs to be spoken.

These feelings aren't problems to solve or obstacles to overcome. They're information.

So the real question becomes: Are you letting your moment-to-moment feelings dictate your life choices while simultaneously ignoring the deeper feelings that would actually guide you toward what you want?

Do you let “I don’t feel like it” keep you in a job you don’t like? Do you let “I don’t feel like it” keep you stagnant…and then beat yourself up for not doing the thing you said you were going to do? Do you let “I don’t feel like it” keep you from doing the hard work that will get you to the place you really want to be in your career or in your life?

In other words - are you letting how you feel in the moment keep you from going after the life you know you want to have? All while ignoring the voice telling you that you’re so tired you can’t possibly say yes to another project…

Because that's the trap. We override our exhaustion until we burn out. We dismiss our anger until we implode. We schedule over our grief because "there's too much to do." We avoid disappointment by never risking anything that matters.

And then we wonder why, even when we accomplish everything on paper, we still feel disconnected from ourselves.

It's not about pushing through everything. It's about knowing which feelings deserve space and attention, and which ones are just noise trying to keep you small.

It's about being in choice rather than reaction. It’s about making life happen for you instead of letting life happen to you.

Ready to figure out which feelings are running your life? Grab my free guide to discovering and working with your inner critic - because the first step to stop letting "I don't feel like it" run the show is knowing what your inner critic actually sounds like.