Anyone else get to the point some days when you just don’t feel right? You find yourself snapping at a coworker, friend or family member.
Friend: “Can I borrow your pen?”
Me: “I HATE YOU!!!”
Friend: “Someone needs a nap.”
Maybe it’s depression. Maybe it’s anger or frustration. Stress of deadlines? There comes a point when your mood is not something you can consciously control.
So what to do?
Understand that your emotions are chemical reactions in your brain. They can’t be directly controlled. If you feel bad, you feel bad. The first thing to do is acknowledge that, yeah, I feel bad and it’s interfering with my day.
Lots of us struggle with this first step. We sit around pretending things are fine. We’re ok. Everything’s ok. “How are you today, Justin?” “I’m fine.”
No, I’m not. I feel pulled in a dozen directions and don’t know what to get done first!
Or something.
Admit it. We feel bad. Now we can move to step two.
Understand that the emotions you have, while not under your direct control, are definitely under your indirect influence. What you actively do does directly influence your emotions. So if you’re feeling bad, stressed, whatever, immediately stop whatever it is you’re doing.
Ok, yes, it might be that you’re at a meeting and can’t just walk out. Or you’re in your car and it’s rush hour. You can still mentally stop what you’re doing. Well, sort of.
The brain doesn’t shut off. It never stops, unless you’re dead. So you can’t exactly stop what you’re doing, but you can do something different. If you’re in a meeting, doodle. Get some paper out and doodle. Count tiles. Modify a drinking game to be appropriate to work. Every time the presenter says “action item” I take a sip of water.
Or just recall the last time you were really laughing, with friends or whatever, and let that memory run in the background while you stay in that meeting.
The point is to get your mind doing something else, even if it’s in addition to what it needs to be doing. The more absurd and inappropriate, the better. Just don’t get yourself fired!
If you’re able to get up and move, this process just got a lot easier. If you’re at your desk and things are not going well, you can tell you’re losing productivity to your mood, get up. Immediately get up. Go to the bathroom. Go to the break room. Go for a walk around the office and see what everyone else is doing.
I used to do this last one when I worked in accounting for a telecom company several years back. I’d get up, walk around, maybe say hi to a coworker as I passed. I’d notice what they were all doing, which was usually nothing. One of the most eye-opening experiences I have had was walking past the office of the Director of Accounting, one step down from the CFO, and seeing – guess what – on her monitor.
No. Not Porn.
Ebay. E – freaking – bay. And there I’d been, moments before, a little worried about whether I was working fast enough.
If you work at home it’s even easier. Put on some music you love, turn it up, and make it Karaoke night at your home office. Dance, baby! Sing at the top of your lungs. Yeah, sure the dog will look at you like you’re about to feed them and the cat will look at you like you’re crazy, but when is that not the case?
Invite the rest of the crew to join you in your impromptu dance party. They’ll do it, or not. You will still feel better.
The point, again, is to make sure you deliberately alter what you’re doing.
“But I have to get this done right now!”
You will lose more time to a bad mood than you will to fixing it.
Really, truly. If you’re in a bad mood for most of the day you will be less productive than if you spent five minutes redirecting your actions to something more Joy-inducing.
Some mistakes with this that I’ll warn you about.
One, using your car to dance while singing along with the radio during rush hour. Probably would cause a wreck. My father used to do this. Scared the crap out of us. Bad idea.
Two, failing to get back to work. Sometimes you just feel so good you can’t get back to the task for the day. Remember, your goal is increased productivity so you can be finished faster. It’s easy to let this kind of mood-enhancement turn into laziness, believe me, I know. Bad idea.
Three, trying to figure out what action you were doing that made you feel bad in the first place. My brighter readers will have picked up on the fact that, if what you do shapes your mood, then your bad mood was shaped by something you did. Don’t waste time trying to figure out what it was and don’t judge yourself. This will just worsen your mood and make you even less productive. Bad idea.
Four, actually drinking when playing the meeting drinking game. It will show up in your breath, your eyes and in the random giggling coming from your end of the table. Bad idea.
Now put some great music on and get back to work, slacker.
JK! BFF 4eva!
