Earlier this week I had a day that didn’t go so well. I’ll spare you the unimportant details, but at the end of the day I looked back and was deeply unsatisfied.
I did something different with that feeling than I normally do.
Normally, when I feel that particular feeling, I try to salvage. I push myself, work on something, commit to not sleeping until I’ve accomplished something that makes the day a win overall. Sometimes that actually works and often it doesn’t. And when it doesn’t work, it makes things far worse.
So instead, this time, I just said to myself: “Take the loss. It’s one day. Get some sleep.” I didn’t try to work myself into a stupor to salvage it. And perhaps even more importantly, I didn’t say “I’ll work twice as hard tomorrow to make up for it.” That’s rarely healthy and is a good way to create a line of dominoes.
I woke up the next morning feeling great. And I had a great day.
I’m writing this because I’m sure that a single win like that won’t totally change my habits. I’m sure the impulse will still be there, the next time I have a bad day, to try to grind into the wee hours trying to figure out some way to scrape up a victory.
But writing this is the first step to reminding myself to cut my poor bones a little slack sometimes, too.
The Opportunity Machine 