We all like to think of ourselves as ‘can do’ superheroes, capable of doing it all. Alas, we’re only human and while having that drive and determination is an amazing mind-set, we all have our up, down and in-between days. No one is totally immune from negativity.
On those days we don’t feel as positive or motivated as we usually do, our energy drains and we start teetering toward the negative. The good news is, we all have the inherent power to regain our positivity, even when we’re feeling down.
Get in the zone
The key to regaining your positivity when you’re having a bad day is the conscious effort to focus on your current state-of-mind, so you can assess your emotional, physical and spiritual state. This act of ‘getting in the zone’ and doing self-reflection is vital to putting you in control of your mood, and not the other way around. When we’re having an off day, we tend to let ourselves get dragged down into a deeper level of negativity — our mood worsens because we give in to it and it becomes a downward spiral of agitation and negativity.
To regain control over our mood, we need to get in touch with the root cause of our slump and that requires temporarily disconnecting from the things, people and physical distractions that are keeping us from engaging in mindful self-reflection.
How do we engage in effective self-reflection?
When we have an off-day, our ability to concentrate suffers and our mind swirls, unable to focus. By disconnecting from physical and emotional distractions, we’re better equipped to get in touch with our inner-most thoughts, which is vital to getting a grasp on exactly why we’re in a bad mood. The act of self-reflection (or self-analysis) means clearing our minds of everything else and determining the true cause — getting to the heart of the matter. For example, we’re in a bad mood because we spilled coffee on ourselves and our mood goes south fast. But upon reflection, is it really the spilled coffee that’s the problem, or is it something else…something bubbling just below the surface.
Once you figure out the principal cause of your bad mood/negativity, the next step is to figure out why it’s causing you stress or aggravation. This one step is often sufficient to snap us back from negativity, because we think “why am I letting_______ ruin my entire day?” Typically, once we’ve identified the real issue, we re-balance and put things into better perspective — it’s also effective because identifying the root of the problem is liberating and our mood automatically improves.
What if you struggle with self-reflection?
We’re all susceptible to letting our rotten mood fester. While many of us try to engage in self-analysis, our frustration prevents us from even thinking about the true problem and we thus allow our frame of mind to darken unchecked. This is where mindfulness comes in.
Self-reflection is in itself, a form of mindfulness — but, to get to the point in which we actually look inward and reflect, we need to be in the present — we need to stop dwelling on the past, stressing over the future and letting the chaos around us keep us mired in a state of flux. The present means now and it means letting go of everything else and declaring “I need to get my head around why I’m in this mood” and then gaining an acute awareness of your mood, thoughts and emotions and what effect they’re having on your positivity.
We have a choice every day — to either be hopeful and positive, or not to be. None of us are immune from negativity, but truly optimistic people accept there are some bad days, but are determined to improve those days on every level possible. When we’re in the grip of negativity, we can either let it get the best of us, or we can use our natural-born power to get to the root-cause and minimize the negativity — it all starts with the conscious, in the moment decision to do so.