You know those days when you are working hard and doing everything right, but the results are not reflecting it, and you are just getting one fail after another? Sometimes you may think that you’re doing everything right, but you’re actually making mistakes, other times, you are doing the best with the knowledge you have, and sometimes, things are just out of your control and happen in spite of what you do. I’ve had a bad day or two in the past few weeks and it has given me an opportunity to reflect.
So what is a bad day? I think this is highly subjective. Okay, you have events that are generally perceived as bad things. For example, if an earthquake erases half of the town. That would probably make a day bad for a lot of people, and the only thing you really could do is react and cope with it. But there are other, not so catastrophic things that sometimes you can cope with easily, but other times throw you off completely. Sometimes, because there is a chain of minor events, and it starts piling up, or sometimes because you are not in the best shape when things start to happen, and you are less resilient and have predispositions to feeling down.
Here, I want to focus on that second type, on the subjective bad days that don’t have catastrophic events, but cause you to feel blue.
To me personally, one (not catastrophic) bad thing does not automatically mean the day is bad. It can make it a hard day, but for that to turn into a bad day, it has to come to the point where my mind becomes oriented on the negative and I start feeling down. So I think with life experience, fewer and fewer days should get to become bad. And I think that’s true in my case.
There are two types of my subjective bad days:
- The high-energy ones. Those are the ones I mentioned above, when you are giving your best, and getting one negative result after another, until it drains your energy and mind.
- The low-energy ones. Those are the days when you know you should be doing something, but you just feel like crawling into bed and pretending the world doesn’t exist, and you can’t gather the motivation to force yourself to action.
The bad days of the first type are randomly scattered throughout my life, while I think the second type ones are more tied to periods. For example, I’ve experienced an increase in their occurrence in the first part of my studies — usually when there were extensive periods of time when the studying was intensive. I got more and more drained towards the end of those periods, as I often didn’t balance the studying with rest and sports well (sometimes because there really was no time, and sometimes because my time-management skills were not the best). And another factor was that my motivation for studying decreased as my knowledge increased, especially if it was a field that I had no real interest in, and I was studying to pass the exam. I got past the point where I knew I had good chances for a good grade. But the chances still weren’t 100 %, so I didn’t want to stop studying and do something fun, as I didn’t want to put myself in a position where I would get a bad grade when I had enough time to prepare. So I didn’t do something fun, but my studying also wasn’t effective, and I wasted the day feeling that I had to study.
I’ve learned a few years in that I can actually be more effective if I dedicate blocks of time in between studying — sometimes the whole weekend — completely to a hobby. This allowed me to take my mind off of things and rest it, so I was more effective when I was studying, and it also greatly reduced the ineffective low low-energy bad days.
Currently, I am quite happy with my life, and I’ve found a lifestyle that feels right to me, so my bad days are pretty rare. Having two in two weeks was unusual enough that made me think about them. And I realised that other than the change of lifestyle, I have also changed my perception of bad days.
In the past, I would feel guilty and bad about having them, and I would beat myself up that I was not strong enough, allowing them to linger around and influence my feelings well after they were gone. But recently, I’ve come to accept that it’s natural and okay to feel down from time to time. Especially if those times are rare. That it’s okay if I can’t conquer every hard day with a positive attitude, and sometimes, no matter what you do, they get to you. So I’ve embraced them and adjusted my behaviour.
For the low-energy bad days, that means I’ve allowed myself to hide under the blanket, eat a lot of chocolate and have a series-watching marathon and not feel guilty about it. Or to sleep through the afternoon even if the weather outside is perfect. It’s interesting how allowing myself such a day, and spending it guilt-free makes it less likely that I’ll want another low-energy day after the first one, even if the things that I’ve been avoiding are still there the next day. But I seem to be more prepared to face them, as I got a rest from them.
And for the high-energy bad days, I’ve found the best tactic is to change the concept completely. To stop with whatever I’m trying to do and forget about it and start doing something completely different while my energy level is still high, and before it turns into a low-energy bad day. I try to give myself the rest of the day off, not just by not doing what I had planned, but also by not thinking about it. I try not to force myself to finish any tasks, as the tasks are rarely a matter of life and death, and I know I will be able to do them better and faster on another day.
A large part of that acceptance came from the knowledge that the feelings I have are just a phase, and will usually pass after a good night’s sleep, an afternoon of climbing or a chat with my friends. And I’ve learned not to make any important decisions while being in that negative mindset, as well as not spending too much brain power analysing the situation. Of course, I still analyse it enough to figure out what pushed me into the phase, so I can avoid it in the future, but I don’t allow myself to get trapped in a loop of negative overthinking.
And with that, I think I’ve somehow taken away the power that bad days had over me, and I think I’ve made it easier for myself to switch from feeling down to feeling okay again. It’s almost like I’m telling my mind: ‘Okay, so you’re in a negative mindset. Take your time and I’ll see you when you are back to your normal self.’ And as I’m not paying much attention to it, I’m not magnifying whatever is going on, and my mind doesn’t dwell on it for too long.
Of course, this tactic only applies when bad days are a rare occurrence. I’d probably have to change it if I started experiencing a series of days or longer periods of time of feeling down. At that point, I’d probably have to look into my lifestyle and make some changes there. But as it is, embracing it seems to be working.
To accepting subjective bad days and conquering them!
Nika
PS: The day in the mountains on the photo was not really a bad day, but it was a struggle. The weather wasn’t good and the conditions were icy, and I wasn’t feeling my best. It was a hard day, and I really had to push myself, but I gained a valuable new experience. The photographer caught me taking a moment of rest.