How to lift yourself up and overcome having a bad day

Sometimes, life sucks - trust us, we get it. Bad things happen all the time! But when you have a “bad day”, it is so often a result of letting a bad 5 minutes, or even a bad hour, ruin the rest of your 24 hour day! Rather than let a bad moment overcome you, adopting these tips and tricks can help you realign your mindset to be more positive, and put your day back on track.

Firstly, check in with your physical self. A tried and tested technique is focusing on what can you see, what can you hear, what can you smell, and what can you feel. Focusing on your physical self allows you to ground yourself in where you are, and pinpoint whether your stress has developed physically in your body (for example, if you have a headache or are suddenly feeling nauseous). While you’re doing this, you may also find your body naturally start to focus in on, and slow down, your breathing.

Once you’ve done that, the next step is harder, and involves you actively changing your mindset. If you can, we encourage you to go outside, even if it’s for a quick lap around the office, to get some fresh air and clear your headspace. If you can't do this, we suggest finding a quiet space in a quiet room and closing the door. If all else fails, simply close your eyes. Once you’ve signalled to your brain that you’re away from whatever it is that was bothering you, you can start to focus on shifting your mindset. A proven way to do this is through gratitude, and you can start by being in the quiet state and quickly listing off three (or maybe even more!) things you are grateful for. You may also find it’s helpful to draw upon some positive things that have happened so far in the day. These don’t need to be anything significant, maybe your coffee this morning was extra delicious, or you had a great chat with a coworker!

At the end of the day, we can’t stop bad things from happening. We can, however, control how we react to them. Our thoughts are only as powerful as we let them be.