In the book Blissology, by Andy Baggott, there is an excellent tool to fix a bad day and prevent it from happing again.

Have you ever woke up and knew from the moment your eye’s opened that it’s going to be ‘just one of those days’?  This happened to me recently – I woke to my crying daughter, discovered there was no hot water for my shower and then walked into a door giving myself a black eye all in the space of 10 minutes.

The scary thing about a bad start to the day is that it is often is a precursor to more bad stuff to come.  Have you ever noticed how days can spiral to one extreme or the other – either everything goes perfect or everything goes horribly wrong.

Baggott explains that you get what you focus on, so if you’re focus is negative, more negativity will follow.  And when bad stuff happens it’s a result of the feelings you’ve been holding. Baggott also explains that life is about contrast.  If we always had warm days they wouldn’t be special – it’s because of smouldering hot days and freezing cold days that we realise warm days are most enjoyable (to most of us).

So – when bad stuff happens, the best thing you can do is find a way to stop your negativity and focus on what you would like to happen instead.  Easier said than done.  For some reason, when I’m unhappy I often can’t snap out of it.  I’ve tried affirmations, telling myself things are fine, turning the other cheek, but my brain quickly falls back into the ‘I’m angry and I want to be angry and don’t try to stop me’ mode.

However, at the end of the day I’m more apt to reflect and put aside my negativity.  There’s nothing else that’s going to go wrong (usually).  This is where Baggotts tool comes in.  Before going to sleep it’s important to be in a positive frame of mind ensuring that you have a good sleep AND, more importantly, to make sure that the next day has a fair chance of being much better.

In the book Blissology, Baggott has some steps to mending your day, but I’ve slightly changed them to reflect a system that works best for me:

1. Get comfortable and take a few deep breaths

2. Remind yourself of positive things that have happened to you in your lifetime (I often think of my daughter giggling or a sailing trip I went on with my parents.  I also look through a list of good memories that I keep in a journal – flipping through them helps me to re-live good times.)

3. Recall your bad day and contemplate what made it bad (quickly)

4. Replay your day but do it in a way that the outcome changes to a more positive one.

At the end of my bad day as described earlier, I envisioned waking up to birds chirping (rather than my daughter crying).  I visualised a nice hot shower that felt relaxing and peaceful (rather than no hot water at all).  And I then imagined that the door I ran into hit my face and instantly removed all my little wrinkles.  Happy days!

Give it a try and let me know if it works for you! Also – I do recommend the book Blissology – it’s a good read.