“I’m having a bad day!” is a fairly common refrain that we are all accustomed to hearing. Or, it may be something like “Oh, what a bad morning!”. If we reflect a bit on those two statements, we’ll realise that what we are expressing is our perception and judgement about the day. It is a qualitative/ subjective opinion that has the potential to ruin the entire day for you. All it takes is some mental adjustment- a shift in the frames of reference- and the very same ‘bad morning’ will seem so much better. That age-old positive thinking mantra- look at a bottle as half-full rather than half-empty- holds true as ever; here are some simple tips, adapted from a recent article on the Inc. website, to make that important mental shift to the positive side of things!

1. Accept that what’s happened has happened; don’t equate the past with the future. Just because something “bad” happened previously, don’t let your mind tell you it will happen again.

2. Avoid creating self-fulfilling prophecies: yes, it’s the flip side of the The Law of Attraction. Reinforcement of negative thoughts invariably leads to actions that yield negative or undesirable results. So, stop saying to yourself “it’s a bad day that can get worse” as that will happen eventually if you do!

3. Think “proportion”: in the big scheme of things ie. your life, how much of a big deal was the event that makes you rue the morning? Most things that we allow ourselves to get upset with are often so inconsequential that we might struggle to remember it a week or even a day from now. Taking a big picture view will really help put things in perspective.

4. Re-define the parameters of good and bad: For instance, just redefining a good day as one in which you are able to stand on your feet and a bad day as one in which you find yourself in a desolate island in an unknown corner of the world can make you feel so much better. Re-defining boundaries is known to do wonders in many facets of life, including business. That Jack Welch asked his senior managers to define their markets such that they couldn’t have more than 10-15% of market share is part of business folklore, the kind of re-definition that propelled GE to new heights.

5. Break the vicious pattern that your body and mind can get you into: We all know that a bad mood has an effect on the body, draining it of energy, which in turn worsens your mood and so on. Energise your body with some activity to break or prevent that vicious pattern from setting in.

6. Reinforce what’s going well; focus your mind on the positives around you. If only you were willing to look, you will find a lot more things going in your favor than against. List them and then make it a point to look at those again and again.

7. Build positive expectation – just as it is easy to be trapped by negative self-fulfilling prophecies, you can make it easy to expect and attract something positive. Expect and then believe that something wondeful is about to happen to you. Experience the change that this wonderful sense of anticipation can bring about.

[Adapted from a blog post by Geoffrey James in Inc.]