We all have them your day could start on a high, the sun is shining and then suddenly it takes a turn for the worse and goes downhill. Your football team doesn’t make the next stage of the world cup (England team did well – I’m proud). Someone might have an attitude on the bus or train and it ticks you off, the commute may leave you with sour grapes.
You get to work early to find your meeting has been cancelled or there’s been a big error or hold up with a project you’re working on. Any number of things can result in you feeling like you’re heading for a really bad day. Even the most committed optimists have rubbish days. Just this week I had a day that seemed determined to turn to s**t.
In previous roles I’ve been responsible for editing corporate websites and so wasn’t afraid to set up my own site. It was a fairly uncomplicated process, a nod to WordPress for ease of use and helpful tutorials, I followed along and was pretty happy with my work. That was back in 2013 and I’ve updated it loads of times since then.
Now on Tuesday, I decided to do some impromptu edits as I’d implemented some new client packages aimed at both entrepreneurs / start-ups on DIY PR as well as established businesses needing an independent audit of their strategy. I was eager to update my site and was going to add a store so clients could purchase some of my offers automatically. Sounds simple enough right, just a couple of value added features, er wrong!
I followed the instructions, clicked install and waited for the new plugins to integrate with my current settings. Instead it took over the theme. Initial reaction was ‘hmm maybe I shouldn’t have been so eager as it sent everything into meltdown’. Second thoughts, ‘OMG what will visitors to my site think, it looked a mess, and it was my own fault’ (roll’s eyes). And next up was ‘WTF’ I then found that due to the change implementation and my site being linked in with my social accounts, it took it upon itself to send out random shop front images that had nothing to do with my business service on my LinkedIn, twitter and Facebook page and added them to my gallery!
I had a range of emotions, but mostly bounced between frustration, optimism and anger. I almost fell down the bad day staircase but caught myself, just in time. I didn’t panic nor give up at the various hurdles, I pushed on and got some outsourced help (I’m a fan of outsourcing), this time to WordPress techies who are amazing and were able to help me restore the large majority of my site. Phew and yay what a relief.
Truth is things can and will go wrong, but I had to remind myself it wasn’t the end of the world, I still had the rest of the day ahead to change things. What had happened was a pain, frustrating and disappointing but it wasn’t life threating. It could be worse and sometimes we tend to let things build up and get us down that we really shouldn’t take so seriously.
It’s really about how we handle the crap storm headed our way, we can either get our matrix dodging bullets move on or get a face full. Yes, we can turn our days around with the right attitude and here’s five things you can do to claw your way out of that funk:
- Breath, let it go & talk yourself down from the top level of angry bird’s (I did this several times and did a bit of meditation)
- Listen to your favourite song (yup my happy playlist was on repeat)
- Listen to a motivational speaker (had to put on Uncle Les Brown)
- Shut down that voice in your head that wants to turn the day into a moan festival (have several seats thank you – negative Nancy)
- Treat yourself to something – a pick me up. (Propercorn sweet & salty was on deck)
It helped me out :). So what do you do to change focus and get your spirits back up? Feel free to leave a comment.