Want to change how you feel about something? Do this.

Think of a current work responsibility that makes you feel worried. Now, consider a person who irritates you. And let's throw in there a situation in your personal life where you feel stuck too.

You know it's not very helpful to feel worried, irritated, and stuck. But how are you supposed to change how you feel? I'll tell you in this Two-Minute Tip. Let's dive in.

• Read the video transcript

  Well, I was recently on an airplane that was delayed. We were all sitting in there stuffed in this plane, and of course, the announcement comes on that, oh, we're going to be delayed a little bit longer. And so you can imagine the reactions in that space.

  There was a woman behind me who was noticeably frustrated and angered by the additional delay. She had been letting out the loud, audible sighs and now there were a few choice words coming out, and I could just sense the emotion coming from her behind me.

  Now, I was on my way back from delivering a training to a client on emotional intelligence, and so it was top of mind for me to be noticing and interpreting the different emotions around me. But what we often don't realize is that we have more influence over how we feel about a situation than we think we do. We may not be able to just come in and say, oh, I want to feel this emotion. That's not what I'm suggesting. But we can take it a step back and we can identify what are we thinking about this situation? What are we thinking about this person? What are the thoughts that are circling through our brain in this meeting that's irritating us? If we go back to the thoughts and we play around with maybe some new, more productive, more optimistic thoughts, that will immediately impact our feelings about the situation or about the person.

  Our thoughts heavily influence how we feel about a situation, and then the feelings drive the actions.

  nd so if you want to engage in a new way, you want to feel differently about a situation that has been kind of dragging you down, I want to encourage you to take one step back and to identify -- journal about what is it that I'm thinking about this situation? Or what am I thinking about this person that I'm struggling with?

  Go back to the thoughts, play around with some new replacement thoughts, and I promise you, playing around with those thoughts will drive new feelings that will also enable you to engage in new behavior and new actions moving forward. The magic happens in the thoughts.