Some days don’t go awesome. They aren’t child in the hospital or the bank repossessed the car bad. They’re just rock in the shoe types of days.
They are splinter that won’t come out types of days. They are dryer stopped working and forgot to renew the tag type days. They are slight reprimand by the accounting manager days.
I’m not fond of those types of days. Who is?
Practice Mindset. Why Not?
One way to handle those days is to bitch and moan. Complain. Eat a lot of chocolate. Play a lot of Candy Crush. Go off on Facebook (please don’t do that one).
Another way to handle those days? Practice having a high quality mindset. I loved the advice that Jordan Harbinger of The Art of Charm guy gave on pat Flynn’s podcast:
When you walk into every room, have the shoulders straight, hold the chest out as if you’re shining a light with it, and have a big fat smile on your face.
It doesn’t matter if anybody’s in the room or not. Just smile and walk in confidently. I talked about this before, but it bears repeating. Plus, I’m blessed that I might get a new reader who won’t thumb through my posts to find this gem of advice.
Our problems are first world problems, and most of them won’t right themselves via whining. Never happens.
We want sympathy and all that, but over time, the better play is to stare the situation down and give it the big finger of a more hopeful, proactive mindset.
Which brings me to strategy number two…
Notice the Thing You Fear… And Do It
Today, I listened to The Shawn Stevenson’s The Model Health Show Podcast with Pat Flynn: How To Grow Stronger From Stress, Live More Fulfilled, And Do Work That You Love.
One of my biggest takeaways was this idea that if we fear something, then that’s a clue that we probably should lean in and confront the thing. If we are nervous about making a phone call, that means there is something to be learned or gained from making the phone call. If we are scared of a project or making a presentation, we might just be in the perfect place for growth.
Often one of these scary tasks or projects accompany the crappy days I referenced above. Sometimes these tasks are the reason for the crappy days.
Most often, the scary task has nothing to do with fighting a tiger to get the last bit of meat left on the savannah. The things we normally fear simply won’t hurt us all that bad. But they will help us to grow.
Lean in to the fear and consider it an opportunity. Walk into the room with a big cheshire grin and tell the day that you are officially taking over.
Again I ask, why not?
It won’t hurt. The people around you will thank you for having a decent attitude and things just might change.
I write these things because I need to do these things much better and much more consistently.
How about you? How was your day today and what did you learn?
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Today’s Listening (in addition to the podcast mentioned above):
Why Is Profit Viewed As a Bad Thing? John Jantsch interviews Mike Michalowicz for the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast – Great business advice in this podcast about how profit seems to be the extra that happens if we can sell enough and not spend too much. Michalowicz suggests that profit should be accounted for up front so that we don’t always spend up to our gills. (He just released the book Profit First
When I listened to this advice, I couldn’t help but think about other areas in life. We need to take care of ourselves first or else we ain’t no good of anybody else. We need to build in our ‘profit’ – our time to reenergize, get some exercise, hang with the kids. All that stuff gets squeezed out way, way too easily. Don’t you think?
Leave any thoughts you have on these or any other topic burning up there in that noggin of yours. Drop ’em in the comments.
Until tomorrow….
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This blog is a response to Dan Miller’s unintentional challenge from his podcast on August 15, 2014: If you read or listen to 30 minutes of quality content a day, you’ll double your income.
From September 1, 2014 through March 1, 2015, I will be doing the following:
- Listening or reading to 30 minutes of success, growth, business, spiritual, or other mindset-shifting, skill-sharpening content.
- Selecting one action item from that content (with some leeway to select an action from a previous day’s content).
- Doing that one action.
- Writing about the action or some other idea from the reading and listening of the day.