This is a question I get A LOT.
And it’s such a funny question because the answer is in the question (at least from my perspective).
Allow me to explain…
What even IS a crappy day?
Is it a day that went poorly for 20% of the time? Or is it a day in which at least 2 unexpected things happened?
What is your criteria for defining a day as “bad” or “crappy” or “unlucky”?
It is ALL in the way YOU perceive it.
The way you perceive things is what will define whether or not you have crappy days you can’t save.
As usual, I’ll use an example to demonstrate my point:
Let’s imagine two different hypothetical scenarios (Scenario L and Scenario W) of someone’s day. That someone will be called Jessica.
Scenario L will be the way most people would react to what has happened to them throughout the day and Scenario W will be how you would ideally react to what happens to you.
Scenario L
In this version, Jessica wakes up at 8 AM to go to her 9–5 job. She overslept and now she’s stressed because she’s going to be late and her boss is going to be all up in her business over it. HOWEVER, she’s hoping maybe the traffic will be better since she’s a bit late. If the traffic is very little she might just get away with it.
She basically rushes through her morning routine and gets it all done in under 45 minutes. So, by now she is already super stressed and just hoping for the best.
But guess what?
Yup, the traffic was NOT helpful to her hopes.
She ended up being over 30 minutes late. She let that get to her head and now she is in a TERRIBLE mood.
Once she’s at her office, she gets scolded by her boss and then she goes to grab her usual cup of coffee and even ends up spilling it over herself because she’s so stressed.
The rest of her workday? It was definitely not one of her best ones. She was in no mood to talk to anybody and just kept it to herself, simmering in her own stress.
She didn’t get everything done because of how much out of her mind she was that day. In fact, even after she left work her “bad luck” kept showing up in small irritating ways.
At night, she just thought to herself “Damn, this was just one of those days. I knew it from the beginning. Everything went terribly. I’m so glad it’s over! Tomorrow is a new day”.
Scenario W
In Scenario W, Jessica still wakes up at 8 AM to go to her 9–5 job. She has still overslept.
However, as soon as she woke up, she faced reality. She understood it was completely unrealistic to think she could make it to her job on time.
So, the first thing she did was be transparent: She messaged her boss telling her she was going to be late because she overslept. She also promised this would NOT get in the way of her assignments for the day. She literally said, “It’s just a small hiccup to start the day. Don’t worry, it will have no effect on my output”.
Did her boss applaud her? Of course not. She wasn’t pleased and even complained a bit, but she also knew there was nothing more to be done than that. At least her employee had been honest and straightforward.
Now Jessica’s day is much less stressful. Instead of trying to do her 1 hour and 30 minutes-long mourning routine in just 45 minutes, she just did a shorter version of it where she sacrificed a couple of habits.
She was able to leave the house at 8:50 AM and she listened to her favorite podcast while she was stuck in the inevitable traffic on the way to work.
Once she got there, all she felt was a bit guilty that she was late. The first thing she did when she got to the office was go to her boss’ office to give a nice “Good morning!” and ask if she wanted some coffee.
Jessica did NOT allow the poor start of the day to affect her mood.
She was cool, calm and collected when she was at work because she knew she was going to have to focus on her work in order to deliver everything by the end of day.
She kept herself focused on her goals and didn’t allow the slow start to the day to affect her.
A colleague of hers tried to talk to her and she was okay with that, but she also explained to her colleague she didn’t have much free time to chat. However, she did it in a calm and nice manner. This prompted her colleague to ask her if she could use some help. Jessica thanked her for offering to help her of course!
Because of all of this, she was able to deliver everything on time.
By the end of the day, you know what she thought?
Nothing specific about the earlier morning.
You see, because she didn’t let that affect her, she ended up having a normal/good day.
So, why would her disrupted morning still be haunting her mind?
THAT is the difference.
How you REACT to what happens to you defines your day.
Why would you need to wait for tomorrow for your luck to reset?
Luck is a matter of attitude! Make your day reset IMMEDIATELY. No need to wait for the next day.
Whatever you focus on will be how you feel. So, if you focus on negativity, if you keep telling yourself “Oh, it’s just one of those days where everything that can go wrong will go wrong”, then that will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
In answer to the title, how can you save a crappy day?
The answer is very simple: You don’t allow one or two or three or four events to define a whole day.
Any day can be amazing without it being perfect. Just FOCUS on the good and never on the bad.
Next time you have a crappy start to your day, just remember that one single moment does NOT define the whole day. Unless you want it to.
Always stay positive & never stop dreaming,
- Dez
P.S. I’m a Life & Business Coach and I’d be happy to help you work on your day-to-day mindset if you think you could use some help! You can check out my official website https://kaidezen.com/ for more information
