“I feel like…” is the most common phrase that we use to dilute the potency of our emotions. The problem with the phrase is that we never follow “I feel like” with an actual emotion (fear, hurt, anger, sadness, joy). Instead we follow it with a statement or a judgment or a declaration.
“I feel” gathers traction when we follow it with an actual feeling. From there we can add on additional statements, judgments, or reactions, but until we train ourselves to fully own our feelings, we’ll continue to unnecessarily water down our best statements by collapsing our feelings and judgments and connecting them with “like”.
- “I feel like this isn’t going to work” becomes “I feel scared this isn’t going to work.”
- “I feel like they don’t like me” becomes “I feel hurt and think they don’t like me.”
- “I feel like we never get anywhere with this conversation” becomes “I feel angry that this conversation never goes anywhere.”
The alternative is to lead with “I think”.