How’s your day been? Have you had “one of those days”? If you haven’t today you will have done so at some point.

You know the sort of days I mean. Nothing seems to go right, the universe keeps throwing problems at you and you end the day with more worries than you started with. We all have days like that from time to time.

It’s so frustrating. You crawl into bed feeling tired and annoyed at having achieved nothing - and wake the next day demotivated before you even begin. So you have another bad day.

It’s a downward spiral that we can easily get into. So try to stop it before it starts. You can’t always stop the bad days happening - the universe is like that - but you can contol the way you respond to them.

It may be difficult to accept but there is probably not a single day where we don’t achieve something. If solving one problem throws up three more at least we solved that one. That’s an achievement.

If we chose a healthy meal over an unhealthy one, that’s an achievement.

If we stopped a problem turning into a crisis, that’s an achievement.

If we listened to our children, that’s an achievement.

If we shared a joke, chatted with a friend or simply made a stranger smile, that’s an achievement.

Our days are full of achievements, it’s just that sometimes the negative stuff makes us forget them. So I try to remember.

When I’m laying in bed waiting for sleep I like to think back over the day and pick out the positive points, the achievements. However bad the day I know I achieved something, took one step closer to a goal, made life a little better for someone. Thinking of the positive before sleep helps me feel better about the day to come. No amount of positive thinking can change the day you’ve had but it can help to put it in perspective.

I’ve found that for this to work it needs to become a habit. The more difficult the day has been the harder it is. So I’ve found that it’s useful to try and do this every day - that makes it more effective on the bad days. Falling aslep thinking about my achievements helps me to wake up more motivated.

This isn’t about denying the negative and adopting a Pollyanna or Candide approach. It’s about putting the negative to one side at the end of the day and giving yourself time - and permission - to remember the genuinely positive.

You might be surprised at how much of it there is.

Photo Credit: emilgh (Creative Commons)

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