bad-day

Have you ever had a day that just kicked your ass? That halfway through you look at the clock and think…how is it not over yet?

I’m really lucky. These days come few and far between and a lot of that has to do with my mindset and my intentional choice to choose positivity over any other emotion. So when days like this do end up happening I have to ask myself:

What’s really going on here?

On tough days it’s up to us to step back and say okay, what’s really making me anxious and stressed right now?

If it’s a long list, write it down. Look at everything that is messing with your mojo and next to everything that you listed write down an actionable step that you can take to make it better.

For example:

I’m stressed out because I’m overweight.

Actionable step:

Look into cool hiking trails by my house.

The trick here is that there are going to be somethings that you have no control over. Leave those blank for now-we’ll come back to them later.

For example:

Mom is sick.

Actionable step:

Leave blank.

 

Now look at your list and recognize the things that you can do something about. Hold yourself accountable for performing all of the actionable steps that you listed. Know that going on a long walk if you’re feeling health conscious will vastly improve tomorrow and make it that much less stressful than today was. Talking to a manager about an issue you’re having with a coworker will nip the issue in the bud instead of letting it grow into an ugly monster. Perform these actionable steps as soon as you can so that these stressors are out of your life hours or days after they appeared.

You’ll notice that you can do your part and go out of your way to take action for certain aspects of your terrible, no good day, but there hits a point where you don’t have any control and that goes for all of the things that are making you anxious that you couldn’t write an actionable step next to.

This is the trickiest part of a bad day. Sometimes the things that are making our day bad are out of our control and are in the universe’s hands.

The hard part is letting go of our need to control and uncontrollable situation. We can’t let that anxiety and stress get to us because then we lash out at our loved ones and strangers over things that are not their fault and we create a catastrophic domino effect where our bad day transfers on to somebody else.

Once we know that we have done all that we can do for a particular situation that is stressing us out and giving us the thought that this day isn’t as good as the others, then we have to let go and let the rest unfold.

We can’t hold on any longer because we might end up stressing out for weeks about something that ends up being completely okay. Or we end up stressing out for weeks about something that ends up not being okay-but we added fire to the flame by being stressed and anxious and spreading that negative energy everywhere we went.

We have to embrace our ability to let go. Let anything go that you can’t control. You can’t control other people so if you’re having an issue with someone, perform the actionable step required in that situation and then you have to leave it. You have to know that you have done everything in your power for that particular situation and now you can either keep stressing yourself out about it or you can let go and continue living your life.

When we recognize how little power we have over how life is going to unfold it has the opposite effect than you would think, we actually become happier. There’s no need to stress about things when you know that what’s going to happen is going to happen whether you rile yourself up into an anxious ball or not.

So when a day comes along that is kicking my ass I ask myself, “What’s really going on here?”, there’s only one simple answer.

I’m trying to control the uncontrollable.

So stop trying to control things that you won’t ever be able to. Don’t get stressed out when crummy things happen-there’s nothing you can do about it. Look at it as a solid lesson and strap that lesson into your life tool belt and better yet, share the secret.