97. How to Fix a Bad Day: Practical Strategies You Can Use When Your Day Falls Apart
Episode 97
All the strategies in the world won't protect you from having an occasional bad day. Bad days are just ... part of being human. But how we respond to a bad day can make all the difference in the world.
In this episode of the Learn and Work Smarter podcast, I dig into the two options you can choose from when your day begins to tank: quit the day (this is actually a legitimate option) or do what you can to salvage what's left of it.
What You Learn:
How to tell the difference between a bad day that needs fixing and one you should just let go.
Five realistic strategies to reset your mood, energy, and focus when things fall apart.
Why changing your environment—or even just your sensory input—can instantly shift your mental state.
The surprising link between movement, mood, and executive function (and how to use it on tough days).
What NOT to do when your day derails
Episodes and Resources Mentioned:
SchoolHabits University (Parents, go here)
SchoolHabits University (Students, go here)
The College Note-Taking Power System (Brand New Program!)
Assignment Management Power System (Brand New Program!)
Episode 4 – What to Do When You’re Overwhelmed
How to Stop Catastrophizing (video)
Never stop learning.
❤️ Connect:
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The following transcript was autogenerated and may contain some interesting and silly errors. But in the name of efficiency and productivity, I choose not to spend my time fixing them 😉
How to Fix a Bad Day: Practical Strategies You Can Use When Your Day Falls Apart
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[00:00:00] Well, hey there and welcome back to the Learn and Work Smarter podcast. I'm Katie. This is episode 97 and today we're talking about bad days. Now, not just the kind of bad day where one thing goes wrong, but those days where everything just goes off the rails, you spill your coffee, you forget something important, somebody snaps at you, you perform poorly on some kind of test or maybe presentation, and you're just like, yeah, today is not it.
And we've all had days like this, students, professionals, me, bad days are normal. They are part of being alive. But what we do with a bad day. That is where the opportunity and the control are. Sometimes the best move is to let the day go, to not force it. Don't try to turn it into something it's not, and other times it might be worth salvaging a piece of it, finding just one small thing that makes you feel a little more okay by the end of the [00:01:00] day.
So in this episode, we're gonna talk about how to tell the difference between those two kinds of days, and I'll walk you through what I like to call your bad day toolbox. That is really cheesy sounding, but I'm gonna name it that, which is just essentially a set of really small, practical strategies that you can use to shift your energy to get back on track if that is the type of day that you're having.
because even though we can't avoid bad days, we can decide how to move through them so that we can get to the other side and start again tomorrow. Before we dive in, I do wanna direct you to a great companion episode to this one. It is episode four, one of my really early episodes, so when you go back and watch it, it's a little bit cringe.
I'm like, man, I was just trying to figure out how to do this stuff. But anyways, it's called What to Do When You're Overwhelmed. That episode covers some additional strategies that can work immediately, just like sort of emergency strategies when you're feeling well. You know, overwhelmed and that compliments what we're covering today.
But today is more [00:02:00] about bad days in general, whether that's because you're overwhelmed or because, you know, a, a bunch of just junky, crummy things happen to you or fell apart or whatever, but not necessarily because you were overwhelmed with things. Right? That link will be in the description box and in the show notes at Learn and work smarter.com.
Alright, so let's start by talking about dealing with bad days and then why sometimes the smartest thing you can do might just be nothing at all. All right, so here's the thing about bad days. They don't necessarily mean anything. And I know that's kind of an odd way to, you know, [00:03:00] start this, but we are so used to analyzing every dip in our mood or productivity that we forget that sometimes that, you know, a bad day is just a bad day and it's not always a sign that something is broken or that we're doing something wrong or that we need to completely overhaul, you know, our systems.
Sometimes it's just a combination of tiny things like a bad night's sleep, maybe stress about a big test or a project coming up. Maybe we ate the wrong breakfast, the wrong tone that we perceived in an email, and all of those things add up and we make them into a bad day. And when these things add up, it's really easy to start layering judgment on top.
We start thinking, well, why am I in such a bad mood? I should be handling this better. Why can't I just snap out of it? But the truth is that even people with strong habits and solid systems have bad days. I have bad days all the time, and I have like all the systems in the world. You can have great [00:04:00] executive function and still get derailed by a handful of small things that were just beyond our control. Bad days are part of the human experience and they don't cancel out our competence or the progress that we were making on all of the days leading up to that bad day unless we don't handle them right.
So rather than trying to resist these bad days, it's better to recognize when we are in one. That awareness alone is powerful because it gives us a choice. Do I try to turn this day around or do I just drop it and let it run its course? And that's where we're heading next, how to tell which option makes sense and when, and then what to do once you've decided.
So when you realize you're having a bad day, when you're like, yep, this day is absolutely headed down the toilet, the next step isn't to immediately to try to fix it, is to decide whether it is even worth fixing in the first place. Because the way I see it, there's really two [00:05:00] paths here. Sometimes the right move is to let the day go, to take the L, to call it, but other times it might be worth trying to turn around.
And both are valid choices. The trick is knowing which one you need in that moment, in that day. If you're completely fried, emotionally, mentally, physically, forcing yourself to push through doesn't usually work. You probably know that you'll make mistakes. You'll say things that you don't mean.
You'll maybe even make the day worse. Those are the days when it is best to just call it end the day early if you can, or maybe shift more into kind of a neutral approach to the rest of your day. Maybe some light work, maybe some rest, maybe something mindless. We're gonna talk more about some of those strategies as we get into the episode, but.
If you still have a little bit of gas left in the tank, if you sense that the day is not completely hopeless, it's just off to a really bad start, then it might be worth trying to reset things, [00:06:00] or sometimes we don't actually have the option of being able to call it and end the day early. Right?
We have responsibilities and people depending on us, and we have to keep going. And that's where my cheesy named Chely, Che name Cheesily, named whatever Bad Day Toolbox comes in. Again, we'll get into what that looks like in a second, but here is one thing I do wanna emphasize before we go there, and I'm probably gonna come back to this at the end too, 'cause it's really important.
I do not ever advise making big decisions when we are in a bad day, head space, when we're tired, when we're anxious, when we're frustrated, our brain doesn't always lead with logic. In fact, it like basically never does. So that is not the time to quit the job, drop the class, or send the email or send the text saying things you're dying to say to somebody.
Right? Save those decisions for tomorrow when your nervous system isn't as I'd say, activated or you know, fired up. [00:07:00] Once you've ruled out the major decision making, okay, then the question becomes, okay, do I sit this day out or do I rest this day out, or do I try to reclaim it? So let's talk about how to do both.
Starting with small, doable ways to turn things around, if that's the path that you're gonna choose to go. All right, so this is my bad day toolbox. I could have come up with a better name, but I don't know. Indulge me. Okay, in, in fact, that's not actually what I call it. I have never called it that before this recording, but I am naming it that now just for fun, but basically this is a list of go-to kind of reset strategies that you can use when you need them. They can shift your energy, and I don't mean like in a woowoo way, but practically speaking, they can ground you or at least stop you from spiraling worse, so your day doesn't get worse than it already feels.
Okay? These are things that you can do to help you feel okay-ish at the end of the day. You [00:08:00] know what I mean? I'm not promising a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow here, but just little strategies that we can do to shift the day from going from bad to worse. So at the end of the day, you're like, you know what?
That wasn't the worst thing in the world, right? And everybody's toolbox looks different. Mine includes exercise, always doing something creative. Definitely my cats, usually some kind of quick work related win. That is what I like and that is what I need. And that is what I know works for me when I'm having a bad day.
Maybe for students it might be a nap, it might be music, it might be crossing one simple thing off of your task list. For you. I don't know. We're gonna go through a few ideas and I'll give you some examples along the way, but within these examples, I want you to find your own strategies too.
Like the strategies I'm sharing have science behind why they work, and I'm gonna get into a little bit of that too. But within those strategies, there is room to make them your own. You know what I mean? Okay, number one, this one is ultra effective. [00:09:00] Change your environment. Sometimes the fastest way to change your head space is to literally change your location.
If you're a student, that could mean packing up and studying in a different spot, or getting out of your dorm room, or I guess even going back to your dorm room if you weren't there. If you are working, it could mean taking your laptop to a coffee shop or even just to a different room in your house or in your building.
I have a college student I work with via Zoom, and he regularly texts me pictures of his laptop set up in different spaces around his campus. He does have a beautiful campus, so it is always like the coolest study locations he finds, but he does that knowing very well changing up his study environment can make or break his mood, and he knows that I will like that. I love those texts to see where his study spaces are and he does it to be functional, to be motivational and inspiring for himself. But also if he's stressed, if he's overwhelmed, he'll shift his workspace because he knows environment impacts mood. [00:10:00] Personally, I have a friend who used to work for a really cool company that had this incredible building for its employees to use.
Most of the employees for this company worked from home, but you could go into this building to work if you chose to, and it had all this food and snacks and coffee and these soundproof phone booth kind of looking things that you could work in if you wanted silence all of these standing desks and different types of cool chairs and seating and lighting and all this stuff.
Right? Really, really cool. And I remember this one time I was working on a really big presentation. It was actually my parent training video, how to help your student handle school like a pro. Many of you have seen it. It is linked in the description box if you haven't seen it. Anyway, I was working on the slides for this and she invited me to spend the day at her office building to work on my stuff and she was working on hers.
It was kind of like body doubling and I don't think I have ever in my life been more locked in and laser focused than when I was working in this space. Alright. And the [00:11:00] environment, that new environment to me, removed all of the stress that I had about creating this project, and it turned it into hyper concentration.
All right. And I, trust me, I had a lot of anxiety because it's me about this video and about this project that I was putting out. I'm telling you, environment is powerful. Changing your environment interrupts the feedback loop between our body and our brain. We're showing our brain, Hey, we're somewhere new.
This is a reset. This is different. We can stop spiraling now. When our environment changes. So do our thoughts and our emotions. Strategy number two, my favorite. Move. Your body. This one is simple, but it is huge. And it, like I said, it is my personal go-to. Movement changes our cognitive state and our mental state faster than almost anything else.
Now, if you're a student, that might mean asking your teacher for a quick break, taking the long way to the bathroom, maybe walking the hallway a couple minutes to clear your head. If you're in [00:12:00] college, you can take the long way to get to class. You can do a quick set of stairs before your next lecture.
Obviously, I'm gonna suggest like actually getting in a legitimate walk or a workout, but if you don't have time for that stuff, you can still get in physical movement if you're creative about finding the spaces to do so. If you work in an office, maybe it's like, you know, walking down the hall to refill your water bottle at like a far bubbler, right?
Or heading outside for five minutes of fresh air, maybe getting in the habit of parking in a far parking spot, so you can use the excuse of like getting something you forgot in your car. And when you need a mood intervention, intervention, then that walk to the car is kind of long, which is what we want.
So parking far is kind of like an insurance policy against a bad day. If you work from home, maybe walk to the mailbox, stand up and pace while you're on a phone call. The key isn't so much about what you do, it's that you actually move. It's not about burning calories and getting like a workout and sweating.
It's about shifting the state of your [00:13:00] nervous system. What, I don't know if I should share this. You know what? Oh, well train left the station. One of my personal tricks, this just might be like a, a quirk. I don't know, maybe it just works for me. You can try it if you want. When I take one of my, like, stress walks or, you know, if I'm like, oh my gosh, I just need to step away from my desk.
It's a bad day, and I, I go out for a legitimate walk or even just like a movement break, whatever. I actually count my steps for a bit silently. It's just like 1, 2, 3, 4, and I go up until as far as I can count. When I stop, like when I stop, hold on. How do I say this when I forget that I'm counting, right?
Like at some point I just forget that I'm counting. This forces my brain to anchor to something rhythmic and neutral instead of replaying whatever it is that I'm stressing about. And if you try it, you'll see what I mean, right? Counting your steps. Even to the point where you just forget to keep counting, turns off that swirl of thoughts.
Even if you do it for one minute and that one minute might be all you need to reset [00:14:00] your focus and your mood, and ultimately, who knows your whole day. Just make sure you're actually walking, that you're not hiding out in the bathroom or scrolling on your phone because movement, moving your blood, changing your blood chemistry is what makes this strategy work.
All right. The next strategy in your bad day toolbox is to do one small winnable task. So this is number three. This is not the time to start a big project or tackle something that's gonna require tons of focus or energy or creativity. Because if you leave it open or unfinished because your day gets even worse and you can't muster the, you know, energy to finish it, you're probably gonna make your day feel worse, not better.
And you know, the goal here is to give yourself a sense of completion, something tiny that you can actually finish and say, okay, well, like today was crap, but I did this one thing today. You know, and if you're a student, maybe that means doing the absolute smallest thing, um, inside your, you know, [00:15:00] portal.
Maybe the smallest assignment you have due this week that maybe a really easy reading quiz, maybe a simple worksheet that you can just get done and cross off completely. If you're a working professional, maybe it's cleaning up your inbox, replying to one or two messages that have been hanging over your head.
That's me. I have to go do that. Maybe doing a five minute admin task that's been bugging you. And if your day is really bad, like it's, it's really off the rail rails and you can't even do schoolwork or work, work right now, then make your small win something completely different. Declutter a drawer, wipe down your refrigerator, clean your makeup brushes, clean the inside of your car, or at least take the trash out of it.
Make that appointment you've been putting off. It doesn't have to be some glamorous, awesome to-do list task that you know is, is a, a massive accomplishment. Just something that you can start and finish. Because finishing something, [00:16:00] even something small, reestablishes a sense of control and on a bad day, that's usually what we've lost.
All right. Strategy number four, change the input. What we consume affects how we feel. When your day is going badly, you're often gonna be stuck in a feedback loop, right? Your brain keeps playing the same thoughts, the same stressors, the same emotional vibe, the same story. And changing the input means interrupting that loop.
It's like a pattern interrupt by introducing something different to your senses, new sounds, new sight, something sensory that can send your brain a new signal. And music is one of the fastest and most powerful ways to do this. When you listen to music that lifts your mood or energizes you, you're not just distracting yourself from your bad day.
That's not the point. The point is that you're literally changing your neurochemistry. Certain tempos and harmonies knees increased dopamine and serotonin, and you know, these are the same [00:17:00] neurotransmitters that regulate motivation and emotional regulation. So when people say music changes your mood, that's not just some cliche or some like woo woo thing, it's biology, it is chemistry, and the type of music matters.
If you're feeling down, don't play something sad that reinforces your mood. Go for something that feels slightly better than how you feel right now. Your brain can match that small upward lift. Playing some peppy waltz not like any of us are really doing that, but that probably won't cut it 'cause that's like too high, right?
That's too many steps away from your current mood. It'll just annoy you. But something just slightly happier than how you currently feel can reset what you're feeling. Like just one single song has the power to change your mood and your mood can change your entire day. No, a a a song can't undo bad stuff that happened and it can't stop future bad things from happening, but that's not what these strategies are about.
Remember, they're about taking control of your response to the events of the day [00:18:00] so that maybe you can reframe the day or even get enough motivation to get back in it and save what you can save of it. But music isn't the only way to change your input. You can change your sensory environment, you can step outside.
You can notice the temperature of the air, maybe the sound of the traffic, the color of the sky. If you work from home, open a window, light a candle, make a cup of tea that has like a strong, um, smell to it, fragrance to it. Anything that reorients your senses to something neutral or pleasant.
At school or at work you can look at something green like a plant or even change the lighting if you can. These small sensory resets help your brain remember that the world isn't collapsing around you. You're just in, you're just in a moment. You're in a bad moment. Now, there's really good science behind this. Studies show that when we change what our senses are picking up, the lighting, the sounds, the textures, the temperature, even the people around us, we can completely shift our mood.[00:19:00]
One experiment found that multi-sensory environments combining sound, visuals and touch actually improve participant's mood and lowered blood pressure. Another review show that auditory stimulation alone, like, you know, just music influences the neurotransmitters tied to motivation and mood.
So when I say change the input, I don't just mean put on a song. I mean, give your brain something different to work with. I am gonna put those studies in the show notes. They're quite fascinating actually. They're long and they're scientific, but I'll put them in there. If you're curious. You can find the show notes at Learnandworksmarter.com/podcast/97.
Okay, because this is episode 97, I
Now another kind of input that's easy to overlook: your personal input if you're surrounded by coworkers, classmates, friends who complaining or venting and just feeding the negativity, your brain's gonna absorb that energy. So sometimes changing the input means changing the people around you, at least for the day, at least for a few [00:20:00] hours.
Stepping away from the group chat. You know what I mean? Moving to a different table or simply just spending time near different energy. Again, this is temporary. I'm not saying get rid of your people. I'm just saying change it up for a minute. Changing the input is subtle, but this works fast because when you change what your brain is taking in, you change what it's putting out.
Ooh, that sounded catchy. When you change what your brain is taking in, you change what it's putting out. I like that as a sound clip. Anyway, finally, number five, go to your rock. Every single one of us needs a person who steadies us, someone reliable and easy and nonjudgmental, who helps us come back to center when everything feels uncentered and unsteady.
This person could be a friend, it could be a spouse, a partner, doesn't matter. It's less about who they are and more about the energy that they bring to these kinds of moments. For me, my rock varies depending on why my day is [00:21:00] bad and what's bad about it. Sometimes it's my husband, I'll just text him something like, this is actually a true story.
I'll be like, tell me everything's okay. Not between us, you know, but just generally speaking and he always gets it. He'll text back, yes, everything's okay, and it sounds simple. It maybe even sounds a little bit weird, but it works for me. Because sometimes I really do get hit with those moments of like, oh my gosh, is everything okay?
Right? And having someone remind me that it is can shift my entire perspective. I'm not saying it's magic, and then suddenly like, you know, an anxious moment disappears, but in a bad day just gets better. But sometimes in the moment we just need to be reminded that everything's okay. I also have a close friend hey Megan. No chance she listens to this podcast, so I'll just say hello and bring her into it. But she and I worry about the same kinds of things. If either of us is having a bad day, we'll text each other and jump straight into the thing. We don't even have greetings. We don't set up, I don't even say hi.
Neither do she. There's no context, just the thing. And the other [00:22:00] person always knows exactly what they say. They always get it. They always know exact, like she'll always know what I'm talking about. If I just jump in with something and vice versa. And we remind each other that even if everything isn't okay, some things are, and even on the worst dates, that reminder that some things are still okay is often all we need to find our footing again.
Shout out to Megan. Love you. Anyway, the point is don't go it alone. When you're having a bad day, sometimes the fix is not a strategy. It is a person, someone whose presence reminds your nervous system that you are safe, you are capable, and you're not in this by yourself. All right, so we have talked about some practical things that you can do on a bad day.
The tools that can help you reset, or at least steady yourself so the day doesn't get any worse than it already feels, but just as important as what you do is what you don't do. Because some of the habits that we fall back into when we're stressed or discouraged can actually [00:23:00] make things worse, and we just don't know.
So let's talk about what not to do on a bad day, because when everything feels like it's going wrong, our instincts often pull us toward behaviors that make things worse, right? I kind of just said this, but not because we're trying to sabotage ourselves, but because we're looking for quick relief and we often don't know what else to do, so we rely on things that feel familiar.
The first one is don't catastrophize. This is easier said than done. I get that. But it is so easy to slip into this all or nothing thinking, where one bad moment turns into everything's awful, or I can't do anything right and I need to quit my job, I need to drop outta school, and like, this is terrible.
Our brain gets so traumatic when it's tired and when it's overwhelmed. So we try to catch those thoughts before they snowball into something worse. A bad morning for whatever reason, doesn't have to mean you're gonna have a totally bad day. A bad day doesn't mean that the whole week, you know, is, is gonna be bad.
[00:24:00] Again, this is called catastrophizing. It is, is no good. Right? And I have a video all about how to stop catastrophizing. That's a video that's actually on my school Habits YouTube channel, not this one if you're watching the Learn and Work Smarter YouTube channel.
But anyways, it is so relevant here. I'm gonna leave that link in the show notes too.
Second. Don't chase productivity as the fix. And it's interesting coming from me who's like, let's find ways to be more productive, but more productivity is not the answer when you've had a really bad day or when you're in the middle of it and you're just trying to get to the end of it. If you're having a rough day, it can be tempting to double down to say, well, I'll just work harder.
I'm just gonna knock out everything on my list to make up for this. But forcing productivity when you're mentally fried will backfire it. It will. I'm not, I was gonna say it almost always backfires, but like it does. It drains the little energy you have left and reinforces the idea that your worth depends on output and it doesn't.
Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is to pause the productivity and [00:25:00] use one of the strategies that I shared earlier in this episode. If you think about the strategies that I shared earlier in the episode, one of them was pick one small, uh, task from your to-do list and take care of that one small task.
Right? But this, that doesn't contradict what I'm saying here, which is, you know, don't aim for productivity as a fix. Doing one small task is just about getting a micro dose of accomplishment, okay? And that's different than being like, I'm gonna tackle every single task on my to-do list. So they, these strategies do compliment each other.
Third, don't make big decisions when you're in a bad day headspace. We talked about this a little bit earlier, but I honestly think it's worth repeating. Bad days are emotional days. And emotions, distort judgment. If you're feeling frustrated or discouraged or overwhelmed or sad or whatever feelings, your feelings, it's not the time to quit your job, to drop the class, to send the email, to send the text, right, or have that big conversation. Sleep on it.
99% of the time I made up [00:26:00] that statistic, but most of the time, tomorrow's perspective will be clearer. Repeat after me. No big moves on bad days. Okay, and then finally, try not to isolate too much. Each of us has our own kind of natural default place to go, headspace wise when we're having bad days. And for some people, isolation feels like the easiest route.
And alone time can be helpful. I personally love that, you know, especially if we need quiet to process our feelings and work through whatever caused the day to be bad in the first place. But we have to be so careful, especially if you tend to like to be alone. You gotta be careful not to withdraw completely.
There is a difference between solitude and disconnection. Even a short text, a quick chat with someone grounded like your rock, as I was talking about earlier, can keep you tethered to reality when your mind wants to catastrophize. [00:27:00] So it's maybe it's okay to be alone if that's what you need. And just like reduce all the stimulation and, you know, put on your comfy pants and be home with your cats in front of your fire and maybe play a little Sudoku.
Wow, that sounds, that sounds so personal. And so like me. But then don't completely disconnect from the people in your life either, right? So yeah, avoid catastrophizing, avoid overworking, avoid making big calls, and avoid isolating. Because those are the default habits that keep a bad day from ending when it could have ended doing those things.
Keep a bad day from doing those things. Keep a bad day, being bad longer, if you know what I mean. All right, so my friends, when it comes to bad days, here's the bottom line. Not every day needs to be fixed. We do not need to assign meaning to every bad day. Sometimes the best thing we can do is just let it play out.
Close the laptop, [00:28:00] do the bare minimum for the day, go to bed early, right? Let the day expire, start again tomorrow. That's not giving up. It's not giving in. It is not sailing. That's essentially just resetting your nervous system, which is at the core of every strategy that I presented today. But other times the day doesn't have to be a total loss.
Maybe it just needs a small pattern interrupt, maybe a walk, a change of scenery or input as we talked about, one singular small win from your task list, maybe a song that shifts your emotional and mental state. Maybe a quick text to your rock. The skill here is knowing the difference between these days.
If you feel depleted and nothing is seeming to work, call it. If you feel a flicker of motivation or a little hint of energy, use it. Neither choice is wrong. What matters is that you're self-aware enough to choose. Bad days happen to everyone. They don't mean you're [00:29:00] failing. They don't erase the progress you've made on the days leading up to your bad day.
They don't define your weak or your worth, and they don't have to mean anything. You can let them go or you can turn 'em around. Either way, you always get another chance tomorrow. Keep showing up. Keep doing the hard work, keep asking the hard questions, and never stop learning.
