How to Reset a Bad Day
We can’t all have good days all the time. So what do you do if yours is nose-diving into chaos? I’m sharing what I think works, one miserable, dysregulated little troll to another.
They often show up unannounced …
Unexpected …
Unwanted …
There’s no predicting, expecting, or divining a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.
But if your day is circling the bowl, I’m here to tell you that all is not lost. There are a couple of things you can do.
What qualifies me to be your certified turnaround guru? I’m a chronic underdog. I eat bad days for breakfast (sometimes), and I have more meltdowns than a toddler at Disneyland.
Need more convincing? Let me give you an example.
A not-so-average day-in-the-life
Pretend you’re me for a second:
You wake up at 6:45 am, straight-up panicking because you just received a notification that you had a meeting at 7:00 am.
You throw on the nearest, cleanest clothes and hurriedly tidy your appearance so you don’t look like you just woke up.
At this point, you haven’t peed or brushed your teeth. Your bed isn’t made.
You haven’t had any water. You haven’t eaten.
And yet …
You make it to your meeting.
And you might consider this a success. By the grace of hindsight, I do too. It was a pretty amazing Superman-esque transformation.
However, at the time, I felt dehydrated, dysregulated, hungry, and extremely grubby. And I felt that way for the next several hours.
I don’t know about you, but when I feel any of those things in isolation (let alone altogether), I simply cannot function the way that I usually do.
Every single message feels like an attack.
Every single request feels immediately overwhelming.
Every single piece of constructive feedback seems to imply that I’m totally getting fired.
And this is about when the complete meltdown began for me. I waved a smiling goodbye on my Zoom call, put my headphones back in their case, and buried myself in a blanket cave to sob.
But all was not lost.
I was actually doing something productive by crying in the dark.
Those tears had been just below the surface the entire morning.
Why?
It’s pretty simple. For me (and probably you too):
The expected = Comfort, safety, reassurance
The unexpected = Discomfort, danger, distress
But things can’t go my way every day. I can’t always control what my morning will look like. Things will come up unexpectedly, and I will have to deal with them.
That’s just part of being an adult.
And because this seems to happen to anxious beans like me a lot, I’ve developed a foolproof system for salvaging the last few of a miserable 2–4. And I’m going to share it with you.
So what do you do?
I actually have a couple of things that I consistently do when shit hits the proverbial fan.
A caveat, however: sometimes I get to this right away, others it takes me four hours and a handful of panic attacks to get there. And if you’re like me, the latter is the more likely of the two. Always be kind to yourself in these moments ❤️
But here’s what I do once I recognize that I need to do something:
- Do the first self-care task that comes to mind. Sure, sometimes you can be judicious with your silver bullet of choice. But most of the time, you can’t. When you’re feeling really terrible, do the first loving thing you can think of. For me, it was crying in a blanket cave and then doing some cold-water Neutrogena face splashes. But for you, it might be some exercise or a hot beverage.
- Keep momentum with another, slightly trickier task. This is pretty key. Once you start trying to course-correct, you need to keep going in that direction. Think about what else you need. For me, it was some fresh air and some distance between me and my laptop, so I went for a walk. What I find is that I’m more likely to take good care of myself the rest of the day if I follow up my first self-care task with a second one as soon as I can. Like, we’re talking seconds between the two, if that’s possible.
- Finish with a reward (edible, visual, whatever tickles your pickle). This is key. You might not realize it, but you’ve done some hard stuff. It is objectively easier to keep the day going down the toilet. And you didn’t do that. That’s worth celebrating! Have a nice snack, play some video games, or treat yourself to a face mask. And give yourself a pat on the back. You deserve it, kid!
- Make a plan for tomorrow. Today could potentially bleed into tomorrow if you let it. To give yourself the best chance at a fresh start, make a little list, block out time in your calendar to get to those tasks you’re feeling guilty for missing today, or generally just make a game plan for how tomorrow’s going to go. This will help calm your mind and get you feeling more ready to go to sleep when it’s time because you won’t be fretting about remembering all that you need to do.
Self-care is a continuous process.
Look, some dumpster fires aren’t going to be put out in one day. Some will keep burning and stinking for what seems like forever.
But I do think there is always a way to pull yourself from the flames and watch that trash burn from the sidelines.
With a tasty cold brew.
Fully moisturized.
In the sun.
After spilling some serious tea in your journal.
And you know what? Watching the day burn is much more fun when you’re not on fire anymore.
Because when the day is going awry, it doesn’t mean anything about you. At all. So why not remove yourself from the narrative and let it be what it’s gonna be?
What are your self-care go-to’s on a bad day? How do you turn bad days into good ones? What doesn’t hit for you when things aren’t going well? I’d love to hear from you!
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