Getting the Good from the Bad Days

While chatting with a friend over the weekend, she mentioned that routines are really important to her. They help her stay balanced and maintain good habits; overall, it affects her personal and professional life in a great way. 

But she also mentioned that the more strict she became with her routines, the more stifled and stressed she got. She used the example of following strict diets, and how it impacted the social engagements she said yes to. After a while, it felt like she was isolating herself. So she decided to ease things up and adopt a diet that would allow her more freedom and flexibility. 

Recently, I experienced something similar. I was having a low morale kind of day with a long list of things I had to get done. I usually have a to-do list that I work through during the day, so when I’m not feeling my best, it’s hard to get through it. After beating myself up for a few hours, I decided to forgive myself and took the day I needed with a promise that I would do better the next day. 

It sounds silly, but forgiving yourself is actually key to being productive because you’re not holding any residual emotions. It’s also unnatural to expect that you’re happy/positive/productive all the time. You need bad days to appreciate the good ones. But there are ways to get through the bad days without losing perspective. If you are reading this, after all, you are among the luckiest people in the world: you’re likely safe, you likely have a job or are in a position to get one, which also means have some form of education, and you’re online (almost half the world is not). 

So with a world that is filled with opportunity and the potential to create an impact almost anywhere - online or offline - how can we make the most of the days where we’re not feeling our best?

Here are some tips that can help:

1. Talk to someone

Why? Because your body wants you to.

In Kelly McGonigal’s TED talk about stress, she talks about the stress hormone, Oxytocin. When it is released in your body, it makes you crave physical contact, increase empathy and support the people you care about. Basically, the “cuddle hormone” makes you more caring. But the cool thing about Oxytocin, is that when the hormone is released in your body, it’s telling you to ask for support and to tell someone how you feel. It helps you notice when others are struggling as well and actually wants you to be surrounded by people who care about you. When you do this, it makes your heart physically stronger and allows you to recover faster from stress. 

Don’t underestimate the strength of the human connection. If you’re having a bad day, talk to someone, it’ll help. 

2. Do any act of kindness

Have you seen the episode of Friends where Joey says there is no such thing as a selfless good deed? And Ultimately (spoiler alert), Phoebe couldn’t find a good deed that didn’t make her feel good, so Joey had to be right.

But maybe that’s a good thing.

Good deeds aren’t supposed to be self-less, they’re supposed to make you feel good so you can do more of them and make an impact in the world. 

Find a way to put a smile on someone’s face. Give a compliment to a stranger, put a nice comment on someone’s IG post, text someone you care about, donate, etc. We can spend a few hours listing simple things you could do that will brighten someone’s day, and make your day a bit better. 

3. Get out of our own head: find an activity!

It’s really easy to get caught up in our head. Your thoughts can become real. You may be mad about a conversation you had or beating yourself up over something you did, either way, it’s in the past and that can’t be changed. Actually 90% of our daily thoughts are in the past, so it’s not your fault. It’s your body trying to keep you safe by creating familiar emotions that it knows how to process.

The good news is, it’s possible and relatively easy to break that cycle of thinking, even for a short while. Doing any type of physical activity is a powerful way to do this. Exercise helps reduce anxiety and can help you make better choices when you eat, all examples of how you can feel better.

But it doesn’t have to be exercise; do anything that allows you to lose track of time: paint, read, go for a walk, see a friend, go to the movies, meditate, volunteer - whatever works for you! 

4. Practice gratitude 

I’ve written about gratitude and will continue to do so. Not only is it the foundation of many self-help books, but it is the foundation of many religions as well. Being thankful for what you have, even if it’s very little, is a precursor to receiving more abundance in your life. It helps shift your perspective about how you can turn something sour into something sweet. Start by listing 3 things you’re thankful for in the moment you’re in, and pay attention as your body reacts in a positive way. If you do this every day, you can change your life (I’m actually serious). 

Listen to Tony Robbins talk about gratitude in a guided meditation format and listen to him here talking about it in an interview. Everyone can take 10 minutes to themselves, and what they do in those 10 minutes can change their day. 

5. Do simple tasks

Some of us feel the need to be productive all the time. And if you’re not, you feel like a day is wasted. And so when I have my bad days, I sometimes still try to do something simple that doesn’t require any brain power: laundry, dishes, vacuuming, cleaning, etc. Just find something on your to do list that you want to do. And if the answer is ‘nothing’, then choose something from the list above!

Just don’t worry about being productive all the time. Some days are harder than others and so try to live in the present on those days. A bad day is how our body tells us to take a break...so take one and be kind to yourself.