Affirmation · “The Subconscious Says Yes”
The Feelings-First Filter
Run daily choices through your core desired feelings so you steadily choose actions that generate the way you want to feel.
In 4 lines: Keep your core desired feelings somewhere you’ll see them daily. At each choice, ask: “Will this make me feel the way I want to feel?” When off-course, ask: “What can I do right now to feel that?” Then do the small step.
What it is
This is the everyday, in-the-moment use of Danielle LaPorte’s Desire Map — the small repeated act that keeps the whole method alive between planning sessions.
Once you know your core desired feelings, you carry them as a decision filter: before saying yes, choosing how to spend an hour, or making any ordinary call, you ask a single question — “will this make me feel the way I want to feel?” (or, action-forward: “what do I need to do right now to feel [my core desired feeling]?”).
It is a feeling-anchored self-cue, used daily, that gently steers behavior toward the felt states you’ve named. It works the soft-autosuggestion territory: by repeatedly re-asking the question, you keep your chosen feelings top-of-mind and let them shape choices (The Inner Creates the Outer: the felt state is the operative criterion; The Inner Creates the Outer: you act, repeatedly, from who you intend to be).
The Method
A faithful rendering of LaPorte’s published guidance:
- Know your core desired feelings. This filter assumes you’ve done the upstream work and have 3–5 desired feelings declared (see the companion practice).
- Keep them where you’ll see them. LaPorte’s followers post them on a phone wallpaper, a mirror, a planner — the point is frequent contact so the words stay live.
- At decision points, ask the question. Faced with a choice — an invitation, a task, how to spend the next hour — ask: “Will this make me feel the way I want to feel?” Let the honest answer guide the yes or no.
- Or ask it action-forward. When you feel off-course, ask “what do I need to do right now to feel [my desired feeling]?” and take that small step. LaPorte’s stance: “you cannot choose what happens to you, but you can choose how you feel about it” — and what you do next.
- Use it as a brief daily check. Optionally, once a day, scan: did today’s choices generate my core desired feelings? What one thing tomorrow would? (Sourcing note: the decision-filter question, the “what do I need to do right now to feel ___“ prompt, and the “choose how you feel” framing are LaPorte’s published teaching, attributed and paraphrased; short phrases are quoted.)
Source & Lineage
Danielle LaPorte built this filter into The Desire Map (Sounds True, 2012; expanded 2014) as the daily companion to Core Desired Feelings and Goals with Soul.
It restates, in coaching language, the New Thought premise that feeling is the operative force, and functions like a values-based “litmus test” — kin to brief self-questioning cues and implementation-intention prompts used to keep behavior aligned with what one most wants.
Common refinements
Confusing momentary pleasure with the core desired feeling. “Feel good now” (a snack, a scroll) often opposes the deeper feeling you actually named (e.g. vital, proud, connected). Ask which feeling you mean.
- Using the filter to avoid hard things. Discomfort isn’t disqualifying; many feeling-generating actions are uncomfortable first.
- Forgetting the words. Out of sight, out of mind — keep the feelings visibly in front of you or the filter goes unused.
- Only screening, never initiating. Don’t just say no to misaligned things; use “what would make me feel ___ right now?” to actively choose better next steps.
- Treating feeling as the whole job. The filter guides action; it doesn’t replace it.