You might’ve found yourself in a state of rage while working as one of your employees disappointed a customer through a late delivery. It can also be due to some road traffic to work or a computer virus that wiped all your important files.
Whatever the reason is for your anger, your troubled state had already messed up your work performance. In your flurry of emotions, you added salt to the injury. To avoid this from happening again, you must learn to control your emotions.
You can prepare yourself by anticipating problems with some backup plans. You can also train your mind to divert your feelings or simply learn to move on fast in order to preserve your productivity. Find out the steps to counterpunch a bad day below.
1. Wake up early
Get off the bed when everything is still serene. Pray and express your gratitude. A peaceful waking mind will help in preventing you from being frustrated because you allow yourself to have a deep well of calmness and patience first.
2. Affirmation
Tell yourself as you drink your morning coffee that everything will be alright no matter what happens. During your affirmation, train your mind to treat setbacks as a challenge to overcome or as just simply part of your everyday life.
3. Get out of the office
The moment you get pissed, stand up, open the door, and get out. The office is an enclosed space and the more trapped you feel, the angrier you become. Walk to the nearby park. Breathe the outdoor air and enjoy the peaceful view.
4. Listen to a stand-up comedian
Laughter is the best medicine, even for anger. Get your phone, open YouTube, and find your favorite comedian. Loop that joke segment that always gave you the lulz. I personally like Trevor Noah. Especially that segment where he targeted how the U.S. media are so passionate about sports but not so much about the economy.
5. Meditate
When everything else is unavailable, ditch all your work, stand up from your chair, and lock yourself in. Sit back, empty your mind, and take long breaths. Don’t let anything disturb you and don’t stop meditating until the black cloud over your head is gone.
6. Power nap
You might be irritated because you lack sleep. Sometimes the best way to remove the infuriation from our heads is to throw everything else out and go to dreamland for a while. If your office doesn’t have a couch, then sleep on the floor.
Cover your eyes with your hanky then doze off for an hour or a half. You might forget what made you so pissed off in the first place when you wake up.
7. Accept
When everything else goes down the drain and there’s a great chance that nothing is coming back, simply accept it and move on. Think that such a mishap happened for a reason. Whatever that reason is, treat it as a lesson or a valuable experience.
8. Express it
Don’t brood in silence when something goes bad. Find a friend who’s willing to listen and talk to them. You can also write it down in your journal. If both are unavailable, then let it all out on a long rant in social media.
It’s better to express your frustration and gloom peacefully as soon as possible to avoid affecting innocent people. You don’t want to be the kind of person who made somebody else cry because you had a bad day.
9. Expect a bit of chaos
Crappy instances happen to all of us. The worst reactions to these events come from the unprepared. If you expect misfortune to happen, you’ll be more prepared for how you’ll react. You’ll also give yourself the ability to make smart contingency plans.
10. Laugh at yourself
If you’re having a bad day because of your actions, don’t beat yourself up because of it. There’s nothing wrong with calling yourself dumb playfully. And after that, move on and try to fix your mistake. If such a mistake can’t be fixed, go back to #7.
Setbacks are mostly out of our control, but if you let them take over you and allow them to give you a bad day, you’re already defeated. To achieve success, you must have the resilience to overcome any adversity, even if that adversity is yourself. As the late General George S. Patton said, “I don’t measure a man’s success by how high he climbs but how high he bounces when he hits bottom.”
