Turn Your Bad Days Around

Sometimes you just hit a crappy day where nothing goes right, or all the news is bad, or you just dont feel up for it. It took me a long time to learn the first step to turning it around:

1. Identify that its going badly and declare that out loud.

Somehow turning your observation into speech helps to make it real. Yes, the bad day is happening. Sometimes the number of bad things that have happened is not high, its just specific things that are particularly bad. On to step two:

2. Verbally list the things that have gone wrong so far and rate them. For example you lost some investment money but maybe you knew it was at risk. However, you didnt expect that biting call from your ex.

Rating the lousy things helps to put them in perspective. One biggie could be all it took to tank the day. Lets hit step three:

3. Understand that you can make a decision about how to handle this.

This is the one that took me forever to understand myself. If I have declared that the day is bad and I know why, now I can actually do something about it. I can, for example, give myself permission to wallow for an hour. You can easily lose hours in self pity or anger if you havent done the top three steps. However, if you follow these steps and give yourself permission to wallow in your feelings, its amazing how unappealing this choice instantly becomes. So then, step four;

4. Do something proactive.

You dont need to leap tall buildings in a single bound. A small thing can be big when the day is at low tide. For example, after that unexpected negative phone call, take a time-out and ask yourself, what can I learn from this? For me, this one question opens all kinds of doors. It allows me to take a step back and look at things from a different angle.

If I can learn even one thing from a bad day, it turns it around. Some things we can only learn from bad days but in truth there are learning opportunities all around us. The more you ask yourself what you can learn, the more apparent these opportunities become. When you ask this question all the time, good and bad days transform into easier or harder learning days.