In a short offering from 7 Good Minutes, you were invited to begin your day differently: to ask one question that quietly redirects the rest of your hours. In that episode, I encourage you to pause, breathe, and ask yourself a single, powerful question: “What do I want to feel today?” This simple practice is not just a morning ritual — it's a practical gateway to self-mastery that helps you become the author of your inner day before the world begins to write it for you.
Attention: Why the Morning Moment Matters
How you start your day matters more than you probably think. The first moments after waking are like the blank page before you begin to write. If you allow the page to be filled by notifications, hasty decisions, or autopilot reactions, the tone of the entire day is set for you. But when you intentionally choose an emotional compass at the outset, you steer your experience rather than being steered by it. This small habit is a core tool in the practice of self-mastery — it helps you notice, choose, and shape your responses with clarity.
When you ask, “What do I want to feel today?” you shift your attention from tasks and problems to the quality of your experience. That shift creates room for deliberate choices and opens the door to better alignment between how you want to move through the day and what you actually do.
Interest: The Power Behind the Question
“What do I want to feel today?”
This single question is deceptively simple. It is not a call to suppress reality, and it is not a demand to manufacture emotions that aren’t authentic. Instead, it is an act of conscious intention. By naming a desired feeling, you create an internal reference point — an emotional north star — you can check against every choice you make. That reference point operates quietly, influencing what you notice and how you respond throughout the day.
Think about it: if your intention is to feel calm, you will more readily notice opportunities to slow down, breathe, or say “no” to unnecessary busyness. If your intention is to feel curious, you become more open to questions, learning, and new perspectives. The question creates a filter that brings certain experiences into focus while allowing others to recede.
Desire: Why This Practice Advances Your Self-Mastery
Self-mastery is about more than managing behavior; it's about developing the skill to direct your inner life with purpose. That means becoming aware of your emotional patterns, intentionally choosing how you want to feel, and designing your environment and responses to support that choice. The morning question is a foundational practice for anyone pursuing self-mastery because it connects awareness to action in a single, repeatable habit.
When you consistently begin your day by choosing a feeling, you cultivate three essential capacities of self-mastery:
- Awareness: You learn to notice your internal state before automatic reactions take over.
- Choice: You practice choosing desired states rather than being passively moved by circumstance.
- Integration: You align decisions and behaviors with your chosen feeling, creating a coherent, lived intention.
How the Practice Shapes Your Attention
Choosing a feeling primes your brain for selective attention. You will naturally notice evidence that supports your day’s intention — not because you’re ignoring reality, but because your mind is now set to find alignment. This is attentional priming in action: what you put at the front of your awareness will begin to color your interpretation of events. Over time, that repeated practice strengthens your capacity to guide your inner experience, which is a central element of self-mastery.
How to Use the Question: A Simple, Practical Process
Here is a practical, step-by-step morning routine you can use starting tomorrow. Each step is short and repeatable, designed to fit even the busiest schedule:
- Wake, don't react: Before you reach for your phone, take two full breaths while still in bed.
- Ask the question: Softly and clearly ask yourself, “What do I want to feel today?”
- Listen, don't force: Pay attention to the first feeling or word that arises. It may be simple — “calm,” “curious,” “grateful.” Accept whatever appears.
- Anchor it: Name it aloud or write it down in a quick line. (“Today I choose to feel present and curious.”)
- Pick one supporting action: Choose a tiny action that supports the feeling — two minutes of breathwork, a mindful cup of coffee, a single prioritized task.
- Use it as a compass: Throughout the day, when you face decisions, ask whether this choice will move you toward or away from your chosen feeling.
This routine is flexible. Some days you will spend seven calm minutes on it; other days you'll spend seven seconds. The habit is what matters: pausing to decide your inner orientation before the world decides it for you.
Sample Feelings to Choose From
You may be surprised how helpful it is to keep a list of feelings you can choose from until identifying the right word comes naturally. Below is a long list to spark possibilities. Any of these are valid; there’s no perfect answer — only the one that calls to you in the moment.
- Calm
- Present
- Curious
- Energized
- Compassionate
- Grateful
- Focused
- Playful
- Steady
- Confident
- Creative
- Open
- Safe
- Connected
- Joyful
- Gentle
- Determined
- Balanced
- Hopeful
- Patient
As you repeat the practice, you will learn which feelings best support the kinds of days you want to live. That learning is a direct movement toward self-mastery: you discover what internal states enable your best choices and then cultivate them deliberately.
Use the Question as a Decision-Making Compass
One of the most useful applications of this morning practice is decision-making. When you encounter choices — small and large — you can silently ask, “Will this move me toward the feeling I chose?” This creates a quick, ethical filter that simplifies many daily dilemmas.
Examples:
- If your chosen feeling is calm, a frantic email may be better postponed, or you may respond with a short, measured note rather than a long one written in haste.
- If your chosen feeling is connected, you might choose an extra five minutes to call a loved one rather than scrolling social media.
- If your chosen feeling is focused, you might block 25 uninterrupted minutes for a priority task instead of multitasking.
Using the question this way keeps you responsive rather than reactive. It doesn’t guarantee that everything will go smoothly, but it does increase the likelihood that your actions will be aligned with what matters to you — the essence of self-mastery.
Handling Difficult Emotions (Without Denying Them)
Some people hesitate to adopt this practice because they fear it will force them to deny painful emotions. The opposite is true. Choosing a feeling is not about pretending or repressing; it’s about giving yourself a stable frame from which to meet whatever arises.
When hard emotions come — grief, anger, anxiety — the morning question can function as an anchor. You might choose to feel steady or compassionate, which helps you respond to difficulty with presence rather than spiraling. Choosing a feeling doesn’t invalidate the reality of pain; it invites a more conscious relationship with that pain.
Try this approach when a difficult moment appears:
- Pause. Take one breath to slow the immediate reaction.
- Name the feeling you originally chose for the day (or choose a new emergent feeling if needed).
- Ask: “How can I meet this challenge in a way that honors how I want to feel?”
- Act with one small step that aligns with both honesty and your chosen quality (e.g., taking a walk, setting a boundary, offering compassion).
This method helps you hold complexity: you can feel sorrow and still act with tenderness; you can feel frustration and still choose clarity. That capacity to hold multiple truths at once is a hallmark of mature self-mastery.
Journaling Prompts and Tracking Progress
One of the best ways to deepen this practice is to pair it with a simple journaling habit. Even a single sentence per day creates feedback loops that accelerate learning. Use these prompts to guide a short morning or evening entry:
- Today I chose to feel: __________
- One small action I took to support that feeling: __________
- One moment today when I noticed alignment with that feeling: __________
- One challenge that pulled me away: __________
- What I can do tomorrow to better support the feeling I want: __________
Track your entries for 7, 21, or 30 days and notice patterns. You might discover which feelings sustain your energy, which feelings lead to better decisions, or which external contexts make certain feelings easier to hold. That pattern-spotting is a direct practice of self-mastery: you learn from experience and iterate your approach.
A 30-Day Challenge for Building Momentum
If you’re inspired to make this a habit, try a 30-day challenge. Each morning for 30 days do the following:
- Pause for one deep breath before checking your phone.
- Ask, “What do I want to feel today?” and write one word.
- Choose one small action that supports that feeling and do it within the first hour.
- End your day with one sentence journaling about alignment or distraction.
At the end of 30 days, review your journal. Notice the subtle shifts — the moments when life felt more coherent, the decisions that came easier, the gradual strengthening of your inner guidance system. This kind of consistent practice is the engine of self-mastery: small, repeated choices that accumulate into real change.
Integrating the Question into Your Existing Routine
You don’t need to overhaul your entire morning to use this question. Here are simple ways to integrate it into routines you already have:
- While your tea or coffee brews, ask the question and say your chosen feeling aloud.
- During a shower, use the question as a moment of private intention-setting.
- Before your commute, take a minute to note the feeling and a supporting action.
- If you meditate, make the question the first seed of your practice for that day.
The key is modesty and consistency. A single moment of intention can be more powerful than a long, elaborate ritual you never actually do.
Why This Works: Psychological Principles Behind the Practice
The morning question is effective because it combines several well-established psychological mechanisms:
- Priming: Naming a feeling primes your mind to notice congruent experiences.
- Implementation intention: Selecting a specific supporting action increases the chance you'll follow through.
- Metacognition: Pausing to reflect enhances self-awareness, a core skill in self-mastery.
- Emotion regulation: Choosing an intended state provides a frame for responding rather than reacting to emotion.
When you practice these mechanisms daily, you strengthen cognitive and emotional habits that help you live with more intention, steadiness, and fulfillment. That is the practical heart of self-mastery: daily, learnable, and repeatable steps that shape your inner life.
Common Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them
Even simple practices can be derailed. Here are common mistakes people make and how to sidestep them:
- Waiting for perfection: You don’t need the perfect feeling to start. Start with curiosity and permission to experiment.
- Forcing positivity: Don’t treat the question as a demand to be upbeat. Allow authentic feelings to arise and choose how to meet them.
- Neglecting action: Naming a feeling without any supporting action is likely to fade. Pair intention with one small behavior.
- Skipping reflection: Without occasional review, you’ll miss learning opportunities. Journal one sentence most days.
These small course corrections keep the practice alive and prevent it from becoming another box to check.
Seven-Minute Morning Practice You Can Do Anytime
Here is a compact practice you can finish in seven minutes. It’s designed to be practical and repeatable, and it pairs perfectly with your commitment to self-mastery:
- (0:00–0:30) Wake and take three slow breaths.
- (0:30–1:00) Ask, “What do I want to feel today?” and notice the first word.
- (1:00–1:30) Say the feeling aloud and smile gently.
- (1:30–3:00) Do a short body scan — notice any tension and breathe into it.
- (3:00–4:00) Pick one tiny action that supports the feeling (e.g., two minutes of stretching, a 90-second mindful cup of tea).
- (4:00–6:30) Practice that action fully, without distraction.
- (6:30–7:00) Hold the feeling for a moment and set a simple intention: “When I notice a choice today, I will ask if it supports this feeling.”
Seven practical minutes like this recalibrates your nervous system and orients your behavior. Over time, these minutes add up into meaningful change — the essence of self-mastery.
Action: Your Invitation to Try It Now
Right now, take one breath and answer this question for yourself: “What do I want to feel today?” Allow whatever arises to be valid. If nothing comes immediately, choose curiosity and try again tomorrow. Commit to this daily check-in for seven days and observe what shifts. Track one small supporting action each day and notice whether your decisions feel more aligned.
If you appreciate guided, daily prompts, consider exploring short episodes that encourage these kinds of habits. The more you invite conscious intention into your mornings, the more naturally self-mastery will take root in the small choices of your life.
Conclusion: Small Question, Big Impact
As you practice asking, “What do I want to feel today?” you reclaim your role as the architect of your inner life. This question transforms mornings from reactive launches into deliberate beginnings. It gives you a compass for choices, a method for meeting difficulty, and a simple pathway toward self-mastery.
Begin where you are. In two breaths and one word, you can set the tone for the hours ahead. Over weeks and months, that daily choice compounds into a life lived with more clarity, purpose, and heart. What do you want to feel today? Try it tomorrow morning, and see how the rest of your day begins to change.
If you found this helpful, take one small action: try the seven-day practice, write one sentence in a journal each evening, and notice the difference. Let this be a gentle step toward the steady art of self-mastery.
Until next time, be kind to yourself and be civil to one another out there.
View the full video here: How One Simple Morning Question Can Transform Your Entire Day