No one will deny that having a hard day, month, or year can be draining on the body, mind, and soul. But I will tell you that staying down won’t help you get back to your best and change the situation around. Years ago, when we realized the importance of attitude, we made a promise to ourselves to never let it become the reason we had a bad day. We also realized that no matter how great things get, other people will not always share our enthusiasm for life and living well and as a result may hurt us. So that day we also decided that no one would ever be the reason we have a bad day.
Our goal was to never have a bad day and we did that by doing two primary things.
1. Only worrying about what we control: While its easy to get caught up in an argument or look at other people’s results and be envious, we decided that we would only worry about our own actions and our ability to get things done. There were times where this was much more challenging than others but we were able to get it done.
If you only worry about you, then the entire basketball court is yours to play on and the ball always remains in your court, meaning all you can do is keep trying to make baskets until you actually do, but the rules remain yours and the timing does too.
In real life, if you encounter someone who is more successful, it has no relevance so it is not allowed to impact our thinking. The same can be said for a depressed individual who sees no future so it doesn’t involve us and doesn’t require an attitude shift.
If we encountered a rather difficult man to talk to, a poor clerk, or a cashier/salesman with an attitude, it simply isn’t controllable and therefore we only focused on how we can turn that situation around rather than get frustrated at the imbecile’s inability to see what’s in front of them. By just changing that up, we increased our chances of remaining in full control of our life and our attitude.
2. Learning to walk away, only to find a better way: Confrontation is something that escalates from a conversation or situation and is often the by-product of two people’s inability to cooperate. For that matter, one of the best ways to avoid confrontation is being aware of how they are created and making sure that you are never the fuel to the fire.
If you are about to get in a confrontation, simply walk away instead of arguing back. This opportunity is the one that allows you to come back and reflect on the situation from a different angle instead of closing the door and having to go look for a totally different path.
We have found that despite it being hard to walk away first, it is many times necessary in order to understand the other person’s perspective and to be able to come back stronger and better than before.
The most successful are not those who have a strong stand on things but rather those who can understand how to shift a crowd’s thinking without them ever knowing it. The idea is to be able to get the work done and the best ways to understand the perspective and reasoning behind why someone else feels otherwise.
By allowing ourselves only these two options as a means to dealing with situations or days that are anything less than 100% pleasant, we have found that we are able to convert any possible bad day into an opportunity. As Entrepreneurs we are problem solvers and fixers and perhaps it is us that will ultimately decide our fate, as long we start believing that it is in our hands.
