5 Steps To Restart Any Bad Day

For whatever reason, if you're having a bad day, take these 5 steps:
1. Name it.
2. Impersonalize it.
3. Ask a new question, what do I need to support me?
4. Warm up your mind.
5. Ask a final question.

Transcript

Today I'm gonna give you five ways that you can restart a bad day and or turn what you might consider to be a bad day into something that has a little bit more motivation and momentum towards something you might label as a good day.

And if you're new here,

My name is Dr.

Elisha Goldstein.

I'm a psychologist,

The founder of the Mindful Living Collective and creator of something I call the Mental Health Accelerator.

It's a personal coaching program called Uncover the Power Within where we work together in a system to regain a sense of personal control over our mind and our life.

And so we can be able to focus on what matters and ultimately enjoy life more.

Okay,

So the first thing that we're gonna talk about here is in order to restart a bad day or in order to shift it into a good one or have the possibility of that,

We have to first name it.

We have to first just recognize that,

Hey,

This is a bad day.

And if you've watched some previous videos of mine,

You'll see I kind of repeat things because repetition helps us ingrain things.

So the first thing is just name it.

Just say like,

Hey,

This is a bad day.

What does that do?

That helps bring more blood flow to the prefrontal region of our brain,

Which is more involved with impulse control and emotion regulation.

It also dips us into a space of presence and awareness where we can widen that space between stimulus and response for more choice,

Possibility and growth lie.

So that's the first thing we're gonna do.

Just name it,

Very simple,

Right?

Not very complicated.

So after that,

We wanna recognize like,

Hey,

Bad days are a part of life.

That's just being human.

There's not a single human being on this planet who does not have bad days.

That's just part of this human experience is to have bad days.

So again,

Number one,

Hey,

This is a bad day.

And number two,

You know what?

In life,

There are bad days.

What does that do?

Try it on.

What does it do for you when you say that?

So,

And typically for a lot of people,

What it helps do is,

Helps do is impersonalize the experience.

In other words,

It's not just about me.

This is just like something that happens in this human experience.

All things come and go.

We have good days,

We have bad days.

And in this moment,

Hey,

This is a tough day.

And in life,

There's tough days,

That's all.

So that's number two.

We wanna just kind of dilute it a little bit.

So we're not so tangled up in it.

Now what we've done is we've taken that space that we dipped in to by recognize it,

And we've widened it a little bit.

So now our brain is gonna be able to see a little bit more choices,

A little bit more possibilities that are here.

It has a little bit more freedom to engage different ways,

Have different perspective.

And so the next thing we wanna ask ourselves is,

Okay.

So in this moment,

And this is a tough moment that I'm having right now,

What am I needing to support myself with right now?

What's most important to be able to give myself?

So for example,

If I was having a bad day and I noticed that there was just this frustration there within me,

Like I just couldn't get out of my mood that was there,

I'd noticed that I was struggling.

And so maybe what I need is to go get myself a cup of tea or something to just be a little kinder to myself.

Or maybe what I need is to contact a friend and just talk with them about it.

Or maybe what I need is to actually think of some people in my life that I'm thankful for and write them.

Cause I just wanna begin to adjust my focus.

That's a little preview for later.

Or maybe what I need is just to go on a walk.

Man,

I just need to exercise my body.

I just need to get the blood flow going.

Or maybe what you need is just to cuddle with your animals.

Or maybe what you need is to refocus on just getting the next thing that you need to get done done so you feel a sense of accomplishment.

It could be a number of things.

So what we're doing here is,

What are we doing here?

First is we're stepping into that space between stimulus and response.

That's from the number one.

The second one,

By impersonalizing it,

We're widening that space.

The third one is we're shifting our relationship to the bad day entirely,

Or the,

Anyway,

The relationship we're having to it.

Now that leaves us open to number four.

So what's the fourth thing we wanna do?

We have to understand that wherever our focus goes,

We invite a particular energy to flow.

So if we're focusing on how bad the day is,

Or how many things we can't get done,

Or what we're not able to do,

Or how no one can help us and we can't help ourselves,

Nothing's ever really gonna change,

Then we are cycling this energy within us that's gonna be stagnant or heavy or weighted.

So instead,

Now that we stepped into that space,

We've widened it,

And we shifted our relationship to it with a different type of question,

Which is like really what I'm needing right now.

Then the next thing we wanna do is begin to warm ourselves up a little bit.

How do we do that?

So remember that statement,

Wherever our focus goes,

We invite an energy to flow.

And so I want you to think of,

One kind of trick that we can kind of play with,

Is I want you to think of like something,

A memory in your life that's,

And it could be recent,

Could have been something from today,

It could have been something from the last week,

Something that you're really grateful for having happened,

You're really appreciative for having happened.

This could have been a cup of coffee you shared with somebody.

It could have been a smile from the person who was checking you out from the grocery store.

It could have been something bigger,

Could have been the moment you proposed or the birth of a child,

Or it could be anything really.

Your job is just to remember it,

Who was there,

What was happening,

What was said.

Just allow your brain to fire in that direction,

Warming yourself up.

On a bad day,

What's happening is we get stuck our brain gets stuck in firing in particular directions and we can't get out of it.

It's like we're trapped.

Now what we're doing is we've opened up this space and we're opening up a way to refocus,

Get the juices flowing and the neural activity going in a different place.

And what you'll find is as you do that,

As you do that with maybe one memory or two memories,

You'll notice that you'll start warming up a little bit.

Your heart will start opening a little bit.

Your mind will start opening,

Start maybe start to see things a little bit differently.

And so this lays the tracks now for number five.

So number five is where now we're taking more action.

We're asking ourselves the question,

What can I do today?

What can I accomplish today?

What if I looked at the end of my day,

It was the end of my day,

What will I have looked back and said,

Hey,

I'm really glad that I accomplished that thing.

Even if something small,

Like taking time out to just kind of exercise your body for a little bit or cleaning up an area of your room,

Or even if you're having a really bad day,

Just even taking a shower might feel like an accomplishment.

Or maybe it's sending a couple messages to some people that you really care about them.

Or maybe it's getting this hour of this work done that I got to get today and I'll feel that sense of accomplishment.

Or maybe it's making those 10 phone calls that I'm wanting to make.

Then I'll feel like,

Okay,

At least I got that done.

Or maybe it's taking that hour again to write because you really needed to write today.

And I got that done.

So you can look back at the end of your day and say,

You know what,

I got that done.

And that felt good.

So the question is,

Again,

What we're doing in this fifth step is we're saying,

What can I do today?

On a bad day,

Our brain is always asking us,

Telling us what we can't do,

What's not possible.

And so now that we've recognized step one,

Named it,

Impersonalized it,

It's not all about me,

This is part of being human,

Turn the attention differently towards ourselves.

Hey,

What do I need today?

What do I need in this moment?

Turned it towards being a little kinder towards ourselves and not so self-critical.

Then warmed ourselves up so that we can expand our focus.

Now the focus is on what can I do today?

What will feel good?

So we're planning.

What will feel good at the end of the day,

Looking back that I accomplished at least that one thing or those two things.

Block them out in your calendar,

Go to it.

And remember,

Ask yourself the question,

If you ever get derailed,

How am I gonna feel at the end of the day,

Having done this thing?

And allow that to give you again,

The fuel and the motivation to stay focused and actually do it.

Again,

Just to review,

Number one,

Hey,

This is a tough day,

Naming it.

Number two,

In life there's tough days and we're impersonalizing it,

It's just part of being human.

Number three,

We're turning the,

We're shifting our relationship to ourselves instead of being self-critical and down on ourselves and negative about ourselves,

We're shifting it and asking ourselves what we're really needing right now and giving ourselves that.

Number four,

We're warming ourselves up with thinking about memories,

Things that we're appreciative of,

We're shifting the neural activity in our brain so we can widen that space even more and give ourselves an uplift.

Number five,

We're taking action.

At the end of the day today,

Looking back,

What will I have been happy having accomplished?

And so we're focusing on accomplishment on that fifth one.

And so just then just kind of put them in your calendar and just say,

Okay,

I'm gonna do this one thing and do this two things.

If it's the end of the day and there's not a lot of time left,

Just ask yourself,

Okay,

What will it be like if I ended this day just being a little bit softer and kinder to myself?

What would that look like?

At least I can do that.

I can work on shifting my relationship to myself at the end of the day.

Reviews

So comprehensive and clearly presented!

🥁‼️🙏

Thank you! So very helpful!!

Practical. Actionable. Well done. Thanks.

I’m very grateful to you :)