Life is tough sometimes isn’t it? You get home from work, collapse on the couch with a warm can of soda, and as it sprays it’s contents over your face and up your wall, you conclude that things are pretty much lined against you.
And it is not just that things have gone wrong for you today – it seems as if things are just structured so as to make it hard for you to achieve anything efficiently. Two steps forward and one step back.
Now if you feel like this every day of your life, then you may need something a little stronger than one of my rambling blog posts, but if like the majority of the world this is an occasional but distracting phenomena, then read on.
Because there is a way of countering this debacle of a situation. In fact, a way to even possibly turn these ill-desireds into well-deserveds.
The first stage is to take a pen, pencil or crayon and write down all those things that appear stacked against you. Write down a thorough description rather than a vague suggestion. “All the traffic-lights were on red both to and from work – someone must have it in for me” rather than “Commuting is pants”. I wrote out mine from Monday:
- All the traffic-lights were on red both to and from work – someone must have it in for me;
- Everytime I made a cup of tea the phone rang and it was cold when I had finished;
- The fish in reception gave me the ‘evil-eye’ as I walked into the office;
- None of my co-workers seemed to involve me in their conversations today – have they all decided they don’t like me?;
- Boss seemed to fly off the handle with everything I said; and
- The shop had run out of my favourite sandwich at lunchtime.
As you can see, the world was certainly against me. So what next? Well, first lets have a scan through them for anything that we can just plain eliminate for being ridicoulous:
- Pretty daft – but does have an impact on my day;
- Not too daft;
- Utterly insane;
- Probably daft, but noticable impact, and I may be missing something;
- Boss = paycheck, so better have a look at this; and
- Partially daft – but has an effect.
Okay, so a few loopy conclusions, but also a few things that have had a tangible effect on my productivity and mood. Right, so now action. What could I have done in the cold light of day to change what happened?:
- Nothing to do with me – the lights are probably in sync. If I hit the first one red, then I could just drive slowly to the next one and change the timing;
- Bad timing is likely to be a one off day – but I am capable of sipping tea whilst on the phone. Could even let calls go to voicemail for the first 10 minutes after I make a cup;
- Maybe I should just ignore the damn fish;
- Maybe they have decided they don’t like me, but this is unlikely to have happend so quickly. I should engage them in conversation – they may be excluding me as they think I am busy rather than realising I am in a sulk about traffic-lights and fish;
- Should have ask him if he needs any help with anything – I may have ballsed something up, but if I avoid him I’ll never re-build the bridges; and
- Well variety is the spice of life – what was that one that my colleague always recommends?
Okay, so now I’m a bit more positive about things. So the next day what happens? Well, I can’t remember what the lights were doing, as I know what to do if I hit a red. I have a cup of tea in the break-out area, leaving my mobile on my desk. I ignore the damn fish. I have a really good chat with a couple of colleague as I engaged conversation with them for a change. I ask my boss how he is – turns out I had forgotten to give him a report he needed yesterday – I appologise, and get it done straight away; Boss seems much better with me. Why would you eat cheese and jelly sandwiches? Really, they are horrid…
So what did you over-react to today?
