I Had a Rough Day! Let Me Tell You About It

At the end of a rough day, do you ever vent or complain?  Maybe you had to deal with a difficult customer, or there was a frustrating meeting, or you just had too much to do. It’s normal for us to remember and share all the bad things that happened to us. It’s part of our survival instinct to replay and dwell on problems and stresses in our lives.

The great news is that we can make it easier to shift our thinking and to have more enjoyable days by also remembering the good things that happened. This is not natural for us and takes some effort, especially at first. That’s because our brains are designed to ignore all of the positive stuff; we don’t need to notice the good stuff because it’s not a threat and doesn’t require us to take action to protect our survival. In fact, our brains would call anything positive “Boring! Who cares?”

For example, how often do you appreciate the green lights when you’re in a hurry?  How often do you notice the easy customers compared to the difficult ones? How often do you thank your helpful co-worker compared to complaining about the one who never seems to get their part of the project done?

Remember, this is normal! But the good news is we can train our brains to get better at also noticing the good.

I’m part of a team that starts it’s meetings by having everyone share a high and a low. It adds a few minutes to the meeting, but it’s a great way to get to know each other, and it gets our minds looking for the good, not just the bad. Give it a try this week. You can use the high/low activity with your workgroup, friends, or family.