Getting through the really rough days

We all know about THOSE days. You feel a bit off. You make a big mistake. A colleague or boss is filling your world with toxin and then a customer phones you to offer some helpful abuse for a problem that you have no control over.

Add to the mix the need to deliver some bad news, a crisis of confidence and a deadline you can’t reach without forfeiting sleep and your desperately-needed gym session and you are seriously messing with your inner consonance.

On the flipside, as Roman poet Horace said, adversity “has the effect of eliciting talents which in prosperous circumstances would have lain dormant”. It just never feels like it at the time and in the middle of the crisis the last thing you would want is Horace prancing around in his robes reciting poetry.

Anyone who thinks they can have a completely hassle-free working life is delusional. It is far better to just expect the rough days and be ready to go to your Dealing with a Bad Day Plan as soon as you realise one is upon you. Here are some thoughts on how.

1. Talk to your biggest fan

This is bleeding obvious but plenty of people don’t do it. Almost everyone has someone in their lives that they know will always be on their side, no matter what – friend, partner, parent, sibling, mentor, or really supportive work colleague – whoever it is. On the days when you are struggling you need to call them or see them, and just vent. Getting things off your chest to someone who knows that you are great will release the pressure and give you perspective. They won’t mind. They are your biggest fan after all. That’s why you have each other. You would do the same for them.

Don’t bottle it up and don’t try to handle it alone. Humans are social creatures and getting the agro out is far healthier than boxing it in. Once you let it out, your brain starts functioning properly again and perspective returns.

2. Absurdification

I sometimes call this Fawlty Towering a day, in honour of the superb John Cleese comedy Fawlty Towers. If you allow yourself, you can find satire and absurdity in even the toughest circumstances. We need to take important things seriously but most of what happens in a workplace is not far from a seriously funny sitcom script. If you set out to absurdify a tense situation you might realise just how laughable the whole thing is. If you do it right, you can go from high stress to barely holding back the guffaws really quickly.

I probably shouldn’t admit this, but the first time I got out of journalism, quite a few years ago, I worked for a government department and had to write media releases for the first time. In the beginning the spin and the things bureaucrats actually said (think Yes Minister) just messed with my head. Most journalists who have made the conversion will know what I mean. Eventually, as a form of conversion therapy, I would write the real media statement and then write another satirical version after work, without the spin, just for my own amusement. From that, I found I could deal with any circumstance without stress.

When I went back into media the alternative, satirical media releases evolved into the Paradox column I wrote for Brisbane’s City News and Thirsty Cow at APN. Then I applied the approach to all of human life in the book Tall People Don’t Jump. I’m not suggesting for a minute that we treat the serious stuff flippantly. But framing a bad day in satirical terms can be a tonic. (And, yes, I know absurdification is not an actual word. Yet).

3. Be in control of how you react to the situation

I have written before about the insights of the great Viktor Frankl and his concept of the last human freedom – our ability to decide how we will react to any situation. Only we control this. Yet so often we just let others control it for us. It is easier said than done, but you can give yourself permission not to react negatively to situations imposed on you by others. As soon as we let someone stress us through bad behaviours or attitudes, we give their behaviour credibility and access to our precious emotional core. Why? Inside your head is all yours. You can decide who you let in there.

4. Believe that it gets better

One morning on the way to work I was listening to an interview with a guy who was retiring after doing the same job for 45 years. The man had enjoyed the job but the interviewer asked him if he had days when he didn’t want to be there. He replied that of course he did but he had always kept a reminder note on his desk that simply said: “There are always better days”. This is right of course. The bad days help us appreciate the good days and you need to believe the day you are experiencing is an aberration that will pass quickly. If you are having more bad days than good, you need to channel your positive energy into finding another job. Either way, there are better days ahead.

5. How bad is it really?

When I’m having a bad day at work I Google Malala Yousafzai and apply the Malala test to my day. Malala is an inspirational young Pakistani woman shot by the Taliban for having the audacity to campaign for the rights of young women to education. She survived – barely. And when she was well enough she started campaigning again. You can apply the same test with people like Helen Keller or Queensland quadruple amputee Matthew Ames. You read their stories, you look at the first-world “crisis” you are having at work and then ask yourself: “How bad is my problem really?”

6. Turn your emphasis to after work

Bad days actually end. When they do it is probably a good idea not to just go home and fret, and burn a night’s sleep. These are the days when you need something to look forward to – something fun and distracting. As soon as you know there is a bad day upon you, you need to get your mindset into a spot beyond the working environment, with people who will brighten your soul. Plan it and lock it in NOW. Do something spontaneous and know that beyond the dark clouds is some guaranteed sunshine. The default position in life is generally on the sunny side, thankfully.

7. Outsource your worry

I have always said to anyone reporting to me that if they are making a decision that will cause them to lose sleep, they need to tell me about it that day and, if I support the decision, I’m happy to take responsibility for it and relieve them of any reason to worry. Some people will worry anyway, but this approach seems to help in a lot of cases. Sharing a burden or outsourcing up the chain to give you peace of mind can do wonders for your sleep.

8. Treasure your mistakes

This is hard to do but it can be extremely energising to always set out to turn your mistakes into a positive. Journalists will tell you that their best contacts often come from stories where they made a mistake, but made the effort to fix it and really understand the gripe. Hairdressing legend Stefan Ackerie runs his empire with a mantra of “treasure your complaints”. When his company gets complaints they deal with them urgently, quickly make amends and ensure everyone involved learns from the experience. As a result, their complainants become their most valuable word of mouth advocates. The natural human reaction is generally to hide a mistake and become defensive. You will have a better day if you admit it and try to turn it into a positive for the future. This from Malcolm X: “Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance next time.” We are only human. If we were perfect we would be boring.

9. Return to an awe moment

Golfer Greg Norman used to talk about the rare days when he was in awe of himself – every shot went right, every bit of luck went his way – he could do no wrong. We all have awe moments from time to time, occasions when we totally nail something - a presentation goes just right, our tennis serve finds the groove, or we get a job against the odds.

There is a great technique taught in leadership courses to capture those moments. You have to spend a full 10 minutes with your eyes shut imagining a very slow walk through a well known and favourite place. At the end of the 10 minutes you put two fingers together really hard and concentrate with all your mind energy on the most euphoric moment of your life. If you really surrender to the process, you can squeeze the fingers together any time in the weeks and months that follow and feel the euphoria run through you. I don’t know the psychology behind it, but it works. And it can be very handy on tough days or if you are about to do something you are dreading.

10. The confidence crisis

Author Marianne Williamson speculated: “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.”  In an episode of the West Wing, during a really bad day, CJ Cregg wonders if the people running the White House are really the best the US has to make the big decisions.

Crises of confidence are normal. On some level most people think they are frauds – doing their best, making it up as they go along, hoping to make enough good decisions to hide the fact that they don’t have all the answers. I’m totally sure that new American presidents have a moment of panic when they realise they are actually in charge of the security of the free world.

Never think you are unusual if you have a day when you just don’t feel up to the job – people are relying on you but you feel like you are letting them down. Take heart from the fact that you wouldn’t be in the job if somebody didn’t think you were up to it. And your call on most things will be as good as anybody else’s. We are storing intuition from the day we are born. Just having lived makes you qualified to make a reasonable call in at least 90 per cent of situations.

11. Go counterintuitive

Finally, everyone tends to learn the hard way that you can almost never control someone else’s behaviour, no matter how bad it is. But you can control yours. Sometimes dealing with a bad day imposed by a toxic colleague requires totally counterintuitive behaviour – what Shaun Achor would call changing the social script.

If someone says something patronising, condescending or negative to you, your instinct is generally to get upset and even demand redress. The other option is to rewrite the script to a positive dialogue. Send a note thanking them for their feedback and asking their opinion on another matter. In fact, making a point of regularly seeking input from colleagues who seem to have a problem with you can quickly change the whole dynamic. Often the bile has come from the fact that the toxic person feels threatened by you or believes that their experience and input is not valued. As soon as you demonstrate that you value them, their attitude can quickly change. I’ve seen people become genuine friends this way, once they start to fully understand each other. I would never condone bad behaviour but sometimes you just have to go with the things you can control.

Final thoughts

Living is a tremendous privilege and having a good job and regular income remains just a pipe dream for millions around the world. Bad days are part of the fabric of being lucky enough to live a corporate life and vital to our personal growth and coping skills. Most times nobody dies or gets hurt. When you have a bad day, there is no point in acting surprised. People have been having them for centuries. If you expect them, keep the problems in perspective and have a well-rehearsed plan for dealing with them, they aren’t so scary. And sometimes when you think back on them later, they might even seem hilarious.

Comments in these posts are personal. Shane Rodgers is a business executive, writer and marketer with a keen interest in social change and what makes people tick. He is the author of Tall People Don’t Jump – the curious behaviour of human beings.