Are You Going for 100%?

• September 15, 2012
• Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.
• no comments

I was talking with a client last week.  He told me that he had a bad day.  And he was frustrated.

And he was more frustrated because he had a bad day.  This is a man that, for some time, had only had bad days.  No days where he felt good, that he felt his relationship was moving forward.

But now, he was feeling better most days.  His relationship was, overall, “trending upward.”

Then he had a bump.  A tough day.  A day where he did not get where he wanted to.  He became frustrated.

It was bad enough that he was having a tough day.  But then to add to that, he was constantly chastising himself for having a bad day — leading to a worse day.  Which only allowed him to repeat the process.

Sound familiar?  It does to me, because I have seen myself do exactly the same thing.  How about you?

Do you have some internal expectation that life should be 100% A-OK?

Here is the problem:  whether in life or while you are trying to save your marriage, not every day is going to be great.  The truth is that the “upward trend” is really a wavy line.  There are up moments and down moments.

Days can be tough.

So, what can you do?

1)  Take a long-term view.  The trending can be upward, when viewed from a distance.  So you can look for the overall theme.

2)  Don’t allow a tough day to be multiplied by your thoughts.  Your mind can take you in very unhealthy directions, if you let it.  STOP those thoughts!

3)  You can stop those thoughts by first, picturing a stop sign in your mind, even as your mind is going off-path.  Second, mentally yell “STOP!”  Okay, if you are alone, you can even do it out-loud.  But if you are in a crowd, keep it in your mind!  🙂

4)  Look for ways to improve what is going on.  It is too easy to look for what is wrong and get paralyzed.  Instead, look for what is right and move in that direction.

5)  Take care of yourself!  The lower your resources, the less it takes to have you mentally taking a nose-dive.  Build up your resources.

6)  And this is the really big one!  Practice gratitude.  Focus on that for which you are thankful.  Focus on the good stuff!  This has been proven to actually shift your mind and rewire your brain.