Ever feel stressed past the point of no return? Ready to throw in the towel an hour after arriving at work? Bad things can always happen that we had no part in creating, but fate, the universe, karma—or the boss—has decided it’s our job to help clean up the mess. “There goes the whole day,” you might think. Not so!
Remember whether or not our productivity is measured in inches or kilometres, the important thing is to keep going forward. If that means every 10 minutes out of an hour you draw yourself inward and practice your mindful awareness, I say good for you! That’s good self-care, and it’s good sense. Ten minutes every hour is a small interruption that can make a day that bodes ill into a “win” situation.
Refreshing your mind helps you work more efficiently, but it also helps you become aware of any hidden or obscure advantage or opportunity an otherwise unpleasant job might have to offer. There is nothing wrong with using mindfulness to help you see new potential and make use of even terrible situations to help yourself learn, grow and adapt.
Seeing things in this light may require a bit of fine-tuning your mind, re-writing old life-scripts that don’t work well. Sometimes taking over our response system can feel a bit like we are faking things, as if perhaps we’re lying to ourselves.
I understand how change can feel awkward at first, but realize that learning to reframe even something as mundane as a bad day as a potential trove of opportunity is far from lying to yourself. It’s not attempting to see the world through false eyes.
Many of the most successful people in history had the amazing gift of seizing catastrophes and changing, adapting so that when all the dust settled, they came out on top. These skills and attitudes are not limited to the technology mavens or real-estate barons of the world. You can learn how to reframe and rethink even the most dreadful of days into a day of opportunity.