Take a Break

Sometimes you're having a bad day because you've pushed things past the point of diminishing returns.  When you're tired, frustrated, angry, or any combination thereof, there comes a point where you just can't be effective anymore.  

If you've ever baked bread, you know that the longer you knead the dough, the tougher it gets.  Eventually, it gets so tough that you can't shape it.  But if you let the dough rest, it relaxes and you can work with it once more.

If you've reached that point where your brain is no longer pliable, it might be time to take a break.  If you've got the time, get a good night's rest and tackle your project again tomorrow.  At the very least, take a break for a few minutes.. 

Stand up, stretch, get a (healthy) snack.  Then put your feet up and let your mind and body relax.  It may feel like you're wasting time, but in the long run, you'll save time with your renewed effectiveness.

Get a Quick Win

Here's a trick that teachers and trainers use to set the mood for success:

Set yourself a short, easily completed task that you know you can be successful at. Do that one thing as a springboard for more difficult tasks.

The experience of a "quick win" will energize you and help you feel more capable of tackling more daunting projects.

If you're a person who has trouble seeing the next step when things are already going in the wrong direction, make yourself a list now of easy tasks you can tackle later. It can be anything from emptying the dishwasher to calling to make an appointment you've been meaning to schedule.

If you really need some mo, do two or three quick wins in a row, but don't let this become a thing in and of itself. Eventually, you're going to have to move on to that thing you've been avoiding.

You're a smart, capable person, and you can do it. I know you can!

Fill the Vacuum

Okay, it finally dawned on me: there are no vacuums in nature, and if you don't actively go about running your own life, there are people out there who will gladly step in and do it for you. Unfortunately, unless you are under the age of 12 and that person is your parent, chances are that your best interests will not be served by this arrangement.

Are you feeling bad because somebody has created a life for you that you don't like? If so, figure out how you'd like things to be different and then politely but firmly let everyone know there's a new sheriff in town and it's you.

It's a lot easier to do those hard tasks and have those difficult conversations when you realize that your job at You, Inc. is at stake.

So, get that chin up and get back to business. And let those other folks go work in the mail room!

Play Your Soundtrack

I've heard it said that you should listen to "happy music" when you're feeling down, and this will lift your spirits.  But what, exactly, is "happy music"?

For me, the music that makes me feel good is the soundtrack from a happy time in my life.  It might be the songs that were popular during my senior year in high school or the CD that my husband and I listened to on a road trip when we were first dating.  Any song that evokes happy memories has the power to change your mood.

I've got plenty of my own personal "happy songs" stored on my iPod.  They make me feel good when things aren't going well, and when I'm already happy, they just make things that much better.

If you're a musical person, a well played song can be balm for your weary soul.  So, next time you're feeling beat-up by the world, put on your own personal soundtrack and relax.  It's going to be alright. 

Stop Stealing

I had a colleague once who had a sign on her door that read:  "A lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part."

Certainly, there are nicer ways to say it, but the message is one that is important to learn.  The world is full of irresponsible people who get themselves into messes and then want us to take on their burdens as our own.  When we do that--steal their problems from them, so to speak--we do everyone a disservice.

People who never have to feel the consequences of their actions never get a chance to learn from their mistakes. And those who are taking the consequences for them are powerless to control the circumstances of their own lives because someone else is creating their bad days for them.

I'm not saying you shouldn't help people in need.  Of course you should, and that can be one of the most gratifying things you do in your life.  But if there's someone whose general lack of maturity has caused you to be having a bad day, do them a favor and let them keep their problems.  In the long run, you'll both be happier for it.

Glass Half Neither

Not everything in the world has to be good or bad. Sometimes it just is what it is.

I learned this lesson from a friend of mine who is very analytical. For him, a 5oo ml glass with 250 ml of water in it is not half full or half empty. It simply contains 250 ml of water. He starts with the facts and then sets about figuring out how he can best use them to his advantage.

If I need to make dessert for the Girl Scout Meeting tomorrow and I discover that I only have two cups of flour, attaching emotional significance to the flour is not going to help me get the job done. The more quickly I can accept the facts of the situation and make appropriate adjustments, the happier I’ll be. So maybe I’ll make fudge instead of the cookies I was planning on. Problem solved. Next?

Sometimes the best way to snap out of a bad mood is to take a page from Dragnet’s Sgt. Friday: “Just the facts, ma’am!”

Notice Beauty

When something bad is going on in my life, it's easy to translate that into an attitude that everything is bad--and when that happens, things *really* start to slide downhill.

At times like these, I make a special point to notice all the wonder and beauty there is in the world around me. When I see the intricate beauty of a rose blossom or think about how something as fantastic as the appearance of Haley's Comet can be predicted down to the exact moment, it's hard to dispute the fact that God is in control. And if He's in control, then it must be true that everything is going to be alright.

With logic as airtight as that, I may as well relax and get on with the business of living!

For an exquisitely written example of how to observe beauty in our world, click over to LeAnne Benfield Martin's blog, Beauty and The Beholder. Just reading LeAnne's posts is sure to make you feel good.

3BT

Martin E.P. Seligman has been doing research in the field of Positive Psychology for many years, and he has discovered that if you develop the habit of listing three good things from your day every night before you go to bed, your "happiness setpoint" will gradually go up.

For an amazing example of how to do this, visit Claire Grant over at Three Beautiful Things.

Buck the Trend

I read in a book once that "no trend is universally bad."  This really got my attention.  

When I thought about it, I realized that it's true:  no matter how bleak things may seem, somebody somewhere is reaping a benefit.  To give an extreme example, consider the fact that even the great Black Plague brought an economic boon to the undertaking industry.

Social mores often discourage us from acknowledging this phenomenon since being happy when other people are suffering is not acceptable in our culture.

But let's face it.  With only about six degrees of separation from every other person on earth, there are a lot of people relatively close to you who are suffering, and some of them mightily.

Add to this the fact that our news media is pretty much a vehicle for bringing a steady diet of despair right into our homes and automobiles, and it's possible to go around with a general feeling of doom just about all the time.

If you're feeling overwhelmed by all that's wrong in the world, spend some time looking at things from a different angle.  Think about how much better we have things than past generations.  (Do you really need an example?  Start with things like indoor plumbing and work from there!) Think about what benefit can be derived from current trials.  (Scarce and expensive gasoline leads to cleaner air, for example.)  You might even think about how you, personally, could buck the trend and gain from the way things have changed. (Maybe you'll open a bicycle shop to capitalize on the fact that people are looking for gasoline-free commute alternatives.)

Just remember, for every graph that shows things slowly slipping away into oblivion, there's another with the line climbing for the stars.

Lessons and Plans

Often, my day starts going down hill when I encounter a difficulty that I can't immediately do anything to remedy.  Maybe I've got a food stain on my shirt halfway through the work day or I've discovered that I don't have all the ingredients to make the dinner that needs to be on the table in 30 minutes.  

At times like these, it's easy for a feeling of powerlessness to loom like a black cloud over everything you attempt, but here's a great way to turn these evil things for good.

Even if you can't do anything about the current bad situation, you can still look for the lesson that the situation can teach you, and then you can make plans for the future.  For example, I might decide that I need to keep a spare blouse in my office or that I should develop the habit of gathering all of the ingredients for my recipe before I begin to cook.  

Once you've found your lesson and used it to make plans to avoid the same aggravations in the future, you can feel your power and your good mood coming back.  If there's any small step you can take right now to move in a better direction, even better.  For example, I might put a sticky note on my briefcase to remind myself about the extra blouse.  Taking *some kind of action*, no matter how small, forces your mind to focus on what you can control (i.e., the future) instead of what you can't (i.e., the present), and this can give you the energy you need to bust that bad day wide open.

Present the Evidence

Everyone feels like a failure sometimes. Here's a way to bust that myth before it has a chance to ruin your day: Keep a file containing evidence of your past successes.

Get an honor? Win an award? Put it (or a picture of it) in the file.

Complete a difficult task? Write an account of what you were up against and how you went about it, and put it in the file.

Think back over your past to all the accomplishments that you're proud of. Make a list of them and put it in the file.

Next time you're feeling like a complete waste of the earth's resources, get out that file and show yourself that you're really quite the successful person. You've done great things in the past, and you will continue to do so in the future!

Hug Somebody

Body contact is another universal mood lifter (unless you're on the spectrum, in which case this one might not be for you). Of course, you need to make sure the hugee is a willing participant.

Since I live with two very lovable guys, this one is easy for me. Just hug somebody, and feel the tension begin to melt away.

It won't make everything all better, but a little squeeze at least lets me know that everything will *eventually* be okay.

Who Loves Ya?

Sometimes I feel lonely and unlovable.

At these times, I actually go through a mental list of people that I know care about me. I know this seems completely lame, but it works!

It helps to have a real list that you've made when you were feeling good because sometimes (for me, at least) when your brain is in the "life stinks" mode, it's like a difficult child that doesn't want to do what you want it to do. It seriously doesn't want to move out of the pitty party mode into a happier way of thinking, and this pre-written list serves to force it to do things MY way.

Get Some Exercise

Need I say more?

Research has proved that exercise is a natural mood lifter. A fifteen-minute walk around the block clears the cobwebs and gets the blood pumping.

Afterwards, you just feel capable of handling more.

Write a Script

Days go bad when you know you have to have a difficult conversation and you don't know where to start.

I've learned that I can take the edge off by writing a script. I usually do this on the computer so I can revise.

If I have time, I'll go back and read the script over later to see if it still makes sense.

This strategy has two advantages: first, it helps me get back to a feeling of control, which puts me in a better mood, and second, it helps me be more coherent and effective when I have the actual conversation.

NIbble the Frog

A lot of times, the day looks bleak because I have to do something I don't want to do. I let one bad task color the whole day. Here's a strategy to keep that from happening.

This is a combination of a couple of things that I learned in different places.

Brian Tracy says that if you do the thing you dread most (i.e., eating your frog) first thing in the morning, you can get it over with and improve the quality of the rest of your day.

That's true, but sometimes I just can't bring myself to eat a whole frog. That's where the nibble comes in.

Flylady (there's that name again) says that you can do anything for fifteen minutes. Almsost any task can be broken down into smaller parts, so I just tell myself I'll do a little bit of the thing I'm dreading. I do what I can, and then I move on.

Fresh Air

Sometimes I start to get in a funky mood because I've been cooped up too long. I don't necessarily recognize that this is the reason for the funk until I go outside in the fresh air. I'm learning to try this fix just in case. Nine times out of ten, a little extra oxygen helps to lift my mood.

Get a Pep Talk

The best way I know to get things moving back in a positive direction when I'm feeling down or overwhelmed is to have someone give me a pep talk. And the best "on demand" pep talk I know of is the Flylady (Marla Cilley) or one of her friends. I just download the Flylady's weekly podcast to my iPod, and I can listen to her while I'm doing things around the house. She never fails to get me out of my "I can't" mood and back into an "I can" frame of mind.

The Flylady also has a bunch of friends who have positive podcasts. One of my other favorites is Janathan Roche and his No Excuses Weight Loss podcast. It's really more about exercise and healthy lifestyle than dieting. I find it very uplifting, and I don't even need to lose weight.

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