How To Restart Your Week When You Had A Rough Monday
A rough day can turn into a rough week very easily. I’ve seen it happen more than once. I’ll start the day off fine, something small topples the wall of dominos that leave me feeling overwhelmed and frozen in place. The big voice in my head (aka Anxiety) will take those little, possibly isolated moments and create an entire story around them. The foundation of that story is the biggest lie that I have to disprove in order to restart my week — that I am not incapable or without agency when it comes to changing the overall feel of my day or week.
When you’re in the thick of a bad day, it’s sometimes hard to look past the moment and see how it can get better.
Quarantine and life during COVID-19 times makes it even harder. We’re living in Groundhog Day. Every day has felt the same and if the day you’re in feels like it’s taken all you have left to give, I can’t blame you for feeling like you aren’t running on E.
I will encourage you to think of this though — an action, either yours or external — prompted you to have a quote on quote bad day and if that holds true then can’t you also prompt yourself into a good one?
Yesterday I woke up knowing that I was going to struggle through my day. I also woke up knowing that sitting in the suck for a second day in a row wasn’t going to make me feel better come sundown, it was only going to make me feel worse.
Decide how you want to feel at the end of the day
So, yesterday and today I leaned on the only thing I felt I had control over — deciding how I wanted to feel at the end of the day and reverse engineering that feeling. Yesterday, I wanted to feel like I was a capable human who could get things done because the voice in my head was telling me I couldn’t land a win at all. I managed my expectations and my to do list to help me get there. It wasn’t easy and there was a lot more fake it till I make it vibes involved, but I got to the evening without punishing myself, which is a win.
Don’t punish yourself today for what happened yesterday
I have a habit of self-punishing behaviors and it’s something I’ve worked to undo because nothing good comes from punishing myself for being human. If you had a bad yesterday, start by saying this — I am human and I won’t punish myself for this. Remember this too, punishment can look like overcompensating or pushing yourself too hard to prove that you can. Adding more things to your checklist won’t undo a bad day, but it can create another one.
Set realistic (and kind) expectations
It can be easy to get wrapped up in believing that a bad day is offset by reaching a HUGE win on the next day or next week. Restarting your week doesn’t have to look like winning a Nobel Peace Prize. It can look like eating healthier, exercising, accomplishing something small but meaningful at work, or making time to heal and self-care in your personal life. As you’re reframing your week, above all else, don’t think about how this can be an amazing week for the superstar version of yourself or the version of yourself everyone else seemingly sees, simply think about how to make this a week that will build up the capable version of yourself who was having a rough start.
Admit that it was a rough start
The worst thing you can do is pretend that a bad day didn’t happen. Giving yourself the time and space to process the bad day, why it happened, and what could make the week different is necessary. That processing time allows you the chance to be honest about what your actual starting point is and how you can move from where you are versus where you wish you were.
I know hard days are hard and that sometimes no matter how hard you try they do trickle into hard weeks or months, but for those days when you can switch it around or step in to course correct, I hope you find these tips helpful. In all honesty, it’s what I’ll be using today (and what I use regularly to guide me).