Feelings follow Behaviour

Feelings follow Behaviour.

For a while I got puzzled by the thought of which follows the other. At first I thought it would make sense for one to take an action, then react by showing their feelings. Another look at the topic again, put some clarity on how I could look at this interesting topic.

However I thought of my own situation, trying to change behaviour came from the bad feelings I had. Without confusing myself, because I couldn’t control the feeling of talking on the phone, it led me to the compulsive behaviour of wanting to talk on the phone 24/7. I’ll share my Behaviour Modification story of three years ago.

I spoke to my husband about this change I so wanted to make and he agreed to assist and help me with my reinforcements and punishments. So for the next five weeks I’ll keep a journal of my everyday activities regarding my usage of my mobile phone. I explained to my husband about the reinforcements and punishments that had to be in place while I closely watch my change in behaviour. So on a daily bases we decided that the reinforcement might change. But since I do not enjoy travelling by public transport to school, we decided that, if I kept my end of the bargain I would get a lift to school or drive to school. And if not my punishment would be to take a public transport to school, and that would be on a daily bases. I also needed to come up with a substitute for what to do when I got bored. And that was to get an interesting book to read. So instead of wanting to talk on the phone I would read a book, I like the idea.  My weekly reinforcement would be all my efforts during the week and I would receive it on a Sunday. And that might be going out for lunch with my family, instead of cooking lunch or going to the movies on Sunday with a friend or my husband. My weekly punishment if I really didn’t do well overall for that week would be washing the dishes for the following week, every night after my classes.

Feelings and behaviour go hand in hand really.