5 ways to Ctrl Alt Del your day!

Something horrible has happened, maybe you received bad news, stubbed your toe, the car won't start, kids are driving you nuts, your partner snored all night keeping up, the boss is texting you and you haven't even had your flipping morning coffee yet !!! So you do like most others and immediately condemn the rest of the day to be "bad". Your magical powers of perception and the ability to see the future start to come true and ta-da then things continually happen that ruin your day.

Funnily I have spent many a day like this at the peril of my friends, family, coworkers and even a random stranger on occasion. A lot of that nastiness is a result of our attitudes and our ability to see the worst in a situation. One of the most powerful tools I have in my box of skills is the ability to start my day over again. Yes, you heard me right, start the day over! Once we come to realize that the calendar, clock, the sun, or a few hours of sleep have very little or nothing to do with the way I feel right now. Then I can make my day begin whenever I say it should. The reality is that we learn to put our emotions on a cognitive horizon way too frequently. "I'll feel better when_____" "I will be happy once we get this______ done," "I'm having a bad day and can't wait for it to be over". Changing and or challenging that way of thinking is a powerful beginning to self-fulfillment. 

Once I learned that this was even a possibility, my life changed in the most amazing way. Over the past few years, I have been looking at ways to develop my ability to start my day over again. Here are 5 ways that I have found to be the most effective and I wanted to share them with you. Like any skill, these require practice, repetition combined with the belief that they will work. With this knowledge, you can learn how to reboot your brain and stop having "bad days" and only identify with having "bad moments" in a day. 

1) Random acts of kindness: 

The overwhelming feeling of joy that comes from helping another human being is one of the most powerful things you can do at any time. When you're having a bad day this is one of the best ways to swing the momentum of the universe in your favour. This doesn't mean you have to sell all your possessions and donate them to charity. Simply buying a coffee for the person behind you in the drive-through, dropping a mystery treat on co-worker's desk that you know is having a rough time, or toss some spare change into a person's parking meter. There are endless ways to perform these feats of awesomeness. Be creative and have fun.

As few as 5 minutes of meditation a day can change your brain for the better.

2) Meditate: 

Research has shown time and time again that meditation is a healthy addition to anyone's life. By taking a few minutes to focus on breathing and being silent with yourself, you can have the ability to take an overactive mind into a state of gentle calm. One of the biggest things I hear from people is that they have a mind that won't turn off and this can quickly lead to agitation, frustration, and anxiety. With practice, anyone can learn to turn this unfocused inner ranting into a precision tool of focus and clarity. In the midst of a busy day at work, we all can't just stop and meditate without feeling the repercussions of coworkers or employers. So here's a tip: go to the bathroom and close the door. Take a few deep meaningful breaths (through the mouth :-P) and reset your brain to start the day over again. I use the bathroom to change my state of mind the same way Superman uses a phone booth to change his identity. 

3) Call or Message Someone:

Have you ever received a random message from someone saying that they simply wanted to tell you that you are important them? Or a phone call saying, I just called to say "I love you". What a wonderful and heartwarming feeling we receive from a simple act. Well, science once again has proven that when we give someone a sincere compliment it triggers the reward centers in our brains. Not only does it give us pleasure but it lets us know that we have the power to brighten a person's day while reminding us that we have many people in our lives that are worthy of our love and that love us. A good dose of love can change anyone's day…...That's some good stuff right there!  

4) Be mindful and practice gratitude:

Have you ever found you're completely absorbed in a project or a task that the rest of the world seems to vanish? I always thought that being mindful was something that Grandma would say to get us to be polite or watch what we are saying. "Be mindful of the other people at the store". I have come to realize that it is about becoming fully aware of my senses and my environment at any given moment. When I take the time to fully immerse myself into something as simple as the cup of coffee I am drinking, my state of being changes. Take a couple of minutes to feel the temperature of the cup in my hand, breath in the warm air that is coming from the top of the mug, smell the fire roasted aroma, taste the slight bitterness of the bean and sweetness of the sugar. This practice in mindfulness can help to train your brain to turn off all of the background noise that is life. It can also be a game changer to help you to identify what you are grateful for in that moment. We tend to overlook the simple pleasures of life. Make a daily list of gratitudes and you can change the perception of how you and your brain see the world. Mindfulness and gratitude can easily make a bad day take an about face.  

Stop taking everything so seriously. 

5) Laugh: 

We have all felt the euphoria from losing all self-control to a good belly laugh. It can instantly turn off all of the world's problems and let us realize that we don't need to take ourselves so damn seriously. One of the many perks to our Smartphone lives is that we can easily do a search to find some comedy, humorous memes, funny books or videos at any time. Even if you are still living in the era of the flip phone, you still have the ability to tell a joke or share a funny story with a friend or co-worker. This almost always triggers the desire for them to return the sentiment with a similar hilarity. Not only does this get people laughing and smiling it is a great way to build stronger bonds with the people around you. Fact: People who laugh together are 50% more likely to see each other snort. Ok, I don't know if that is a fact, but I do know it is contagious. Ahaha Snort! 

There are much more amazing sources of information on all these topics. I would encourage everyone to dig deeper, learn more about them and take action every day to make these skills a healthy habit of life.