Good Day or Bad Day?

All of us have good days and bad days, better and worse ones, but… what really distinguishes a bad day from a good one? When is it truly bad and when do we value it as good? Is there a way to measure it? In this post, I’m going to share ideas for deactivating those days that take a turn for the worse in time.

First, let’s reflect: why can a day be defined as bad? It could be a day when things don’t go the way you want them to—your presentation doesn’t go well, the kids get bad grades, you’re late to the dentist… It seems like one thing leads to another and everything goes wrong. For me, this isn’t a truly bad day; it’s a day where I can view things as learning opportunities, isolated situations, or, on the contrary, allow myself to be overwhelmed by the feeling that nothing is going right.

For me, a truly bad day is when something serious happens that has a strong emotional impact: the loss of a loved one, a diagnosis of illness, a breakup, or the end of a friendship. I think there’s a big difference between this kind of day and the days that go wrong.

Days that go wrong and we define as bad start to feel “bad” at some point. Let’s give an example: I’m driving to the kids’ school in the morning and suddenly someone overtakes me on the right at high speed, forcing me to slam on the brakes and giving me a scare. Obviously, the scare is significant and I move from the fear of the situation to anger and frustration for not being able to respond to that serious infraction.

Two things can happen:

I let the negative emotion that it caused take over, arriving at the office in a foul mood: “on top of everything, a meeting first thing, and I have to do the shopping right after because my in-laws are coming to lunch tomorrow, and my computer is running slow today…” and just like that, one negative thought after another. I’m aware that it was a unpleasant and dangerous moment, I’m grateful nothing happened to the kids or me, I breathe, and continue my way to the office, conscious of my breath and my thoughts since there’s nothing more I can do.

How many times have you had a horrible day only to find that the next day everything seems fine? Does it really make sense to have such a bad day when you know that tomorrow you’ll feel better or have forgotten everything? How much time have you wasted stuck in negative thoughts that sour your day?

The owner of your day is you; unless, as I mentioned earlier, you’re having a truly bad day for a major reason. Your day depends on how many negative thoughts you’re able to accumulate or, on the contrary, how many conscious thoughts you’re able to generate so that your day has a completely different outcome.

The key is detecting those negative thoughts that cause our mind to shut out the positives and only see things in black and white. In fact, when we enter negative loops, it seems like negative things keep happening: the computer doesn’t work, and on top of that, I can’t find parking and I’m late… We don’t realize that the less we flow with life, the less life flows with us. Breathe, put distance from what happened, keep things in perspective, think consciously, and you’ll return to your center, to flow with your day again.

Remember: consciousness is always the first step—detect those unconscious negative thoughts and reflect by putting what happened into perspective. Give yourself permission to feel bad only when it’s truly emotionally heavy, the rest of the time… it’s your choice.

Image by Freepik

Melinda Sánchez Coach

www.melindsanchezcoach.com