When Your Day Starts Out Badly
How not to let it go off the rails
Have you ever had one of those days? You know, the kind where something goes wrong at the beginning of your day and things just spiral down from there? I don’t think there’s anyone who can’t relate.
I could have had that day a few months back (actually quite a few months back). I got out of bed, had breakfast, and drank my tea, then sat down at my desk to write. My desk is in my bedroom, next to my bed, where my little dogs usually sleep while I work.
Jace jumped down, which isn’t unusual. But he went to the other side of the bed and started to bark. My grandson was still asleep in the next room. I stood up quickly and turned to rush to settle him down. That’s when the trouble began. I caught my foot on the power cord of my work laptop and it crashed to the floor, shattering the screen.
My first thought on seeing the screen was Damn
My second thought was, I need more tea. I got my dog resettled on the bed and went to the kitchen to get some. There was a time when something like this would have thrown me off for the entire day, if not several days. That doesn’t happen so often anymore.
I drank my tea and took care of some filing I’d been meaning to catch up on, waiting for Best Buy to open. Then I packed my laptop into my carry-bag and took it to the Geek Squad. They told me I’d get it back in two weeks, but that it was covered by my warranty.
Two weeks is a long time for someone who works exclusively on their laptop, but I fortunately have a gaming laptop, which managed to serve double duty. Ultimately, although this was an inconvenience for me, it wasn’t the end of the world.
Next, I went home and played with my grandson for an hour. He was potty training at the time and, though he tried to make it to the bathroom, peed all over himself and my floor. Again, not the end of the world.
After these incidents, I took my gaming computer into the bedroom, sat down at my desk, and started to write, dogs happily sleeping on the bed. I continued my day like any other day.
The truth is, we create our own bad days
This is a lesson I learned a long time ago. Things going wrong are part of life. We can react badly, or we can accept the event and move on. It’s rarely as dire as we allow ourselves to think it is.
It’s an evolutionary trait for humans to pay more attention to negative events than positive ones. Filtering out the positive in favor of the negative increases likelihood of survival in dangerous situations. That’s a good thing. In our everyday lives, it’s not so good.
Focusing on negative events breeds more negative events
When we inflate the seriousness of an adverse event, we set up a negative emotional environment for ourselves. In that state we’re more likely to make mistakes, to be clumsy, and to overreact to other things that happen in our day.
How many times, when one or two things have gone wrong at the start of your day, have you said, “It’s going to be one of those days?” How often have you been proved right? But what if it’s self-fulfilling prophecy?
We become active agents in our own misfortune in 3 ways
When we’re in a bad mood and thinking a lot about the thing that went wrong (like smashing a laptop screen), we’re not present. We aren’t paying attention. That’s when mistakes are more likely to happen. Instead of blaming them on our own inattention, we take them as confirmation that today is destined to be a bad day.
Our mood spirals down as things seem to go from bad to worse. We tend to start “stomping.” You know what I mean. Our actions become more forceful. We become more accident prone. Oops, look at that. You knew today was going to suck.
We become so focused on expecting to have a bad day that we overreact to even the small things that happen to everyone every day. A dropped pen becomes the excuse for an explosion, rather than the minor inconvenience it is. Bam! Worst day ever.
It doesn’t have to be this way
The brain’s initial reaction to any event happens in 12/1000’s of a second. That’s really fast. We can’t stop that reaction. Hence, when my laptop broke, my first thought was Damn. It’s what happens next that determines where we go from there. Here’s what I suggest.
Stop and take a deep breath. Maybe take two. Let them out slowly.
Accept the event as part of life. Difficult things happen to everyone.
Find something to be grateful for. It may be tough to focus on this in the moment, but do it. I’m grateful that both my dogs and my grandson are part of my life, even when mishaps occur.
Find perspective. I may have had a broken laptop, but I don’t live in a country in which rampant violence or starvation is an everyday part of life. My problems are first world problems.
Deal with the incident, then move on. Turn your attention fully to something else. I had the luxury of a little playtime with my grandson. Sometimes that’s not an option. The key here is to be fully present with whatever comes up next for you.
Acknowledge that without your negative input, the likelihood of having a bad day is actually no worse for you today than any other day.
Choose to have a good day.