How to Keep Calm and Carry On

Everyone has bad days. Maybe you woke up this morning and just did not feel like getting out of bed. As you scrolled through your emails and realised how much you had to do today, you turned off your alarm and decided to crawl back into bed to escape reality. You just didn’t feel like getting dressed or sitting in your home office for the next 10 hours.

No matter how you felt this morning, the job still needs to be done (unless of course, you decide to call in “sick”). People are still expecting you to show up and contribute to your team. Lives still need to be saved, and problems still need to be solved. So, how can you get through the day if you are not feeling your best?

If you’re a high achiever like me, as soon as you wake up on the wrong side of the bed, you start to punish yourself for feeling “blah”. We expect to be 100% most of the time because we are most fulfilled when we have checked off everything on our to-do list. But if you’re not feeling great, you naturally won’t be as productive as you normally would be. And that’s okay!

The main problem that hinders our productivity is our negative self-talk. Most of us don’t even realise how we are putting ourselves down. If you were to speak your thoughts out loud to a friend, you’d probably be horrified. It wouldn’t normally be culturally acceptable to speak to someone in such a degrading manner. Yet, that is exactly how we talk to ourselves.

If I happen to get up on the wrong side of the bed, I take a moment to stop and think about what I would say if my friend was in this situation. How would I encourage her throughout her day? The words I use would be gentler and kinder, and this is how we should speak to ourselves as well. Our self-talk makes a huge difference in our whole outlook for the day. If we don’t reign it in, it could lead us on a downward spiral.

With so much on our plates, we don’t often take the time to take care of ourselves. We have families and friends who need us to be present, and we have jobs that demand so much of our time and attention. We often end up neglecting ourselves and fail to take the time to do something that brings us joy.

But if you think about it, your ability to serve and care for those around you depends on how well you care for yourself. If you are not in the best place physically and emotionally, how will you be able to help someone carry their burden without falling down with them? If we want to be our best selves for those around us, we have to take the time to look after our hearts and minds.

Do Something You Love

While there are a variety of hobbies to choose from, I cannot tell you what would work best for you. But you know yourself better than anyone, so choose one or two things that can help brighten your day especially when you wake up feeling completely out of it. For me, I like to get outside and spend time in nature because it helps to reset my brain, calm my emotions, and rejuvenate me for the day.

As you prepare for your day and glance at your seemingly never-ending to-do list, try to scale back your goals for the day so you don’t end up beating yourself up when you can’t achieve everything on the list. In light of how you are feeling that day, determine a few priorities that must be accomplished and leave the rest for another day when you are feeling better.

Your brain determines the amount of work you can physically get done during the day. So, if you are not in the best place, don’t expect yourself to achieve as much as you would on your good days. Be realistic and give yourself grace as you try to prioritise what needs to be done so that you can remain sane and get through the day without breaking down.

As you schedule your day, be sure to include breaks that allow you to spend some time outdoors. Research says that your brain is best outside in motion in the midst of deep complex thoughts. Yet, most of us work indoors and sit at a desk for hours on end trying to juggle 17 different things. When we scatter our attention and try to multitask, we are actually working against the engineering of our brain.

If you want to boost your productivity and your mood, take breaks throughout the day where you can immerse yourself in nature even if it is only for a few minutes. If you find yourself too pressed for time, you can look at pictures of nature on your laptop and trick your brain into thinking that you are outside. This will help your brain rest and reset so that you can come back stronger and ready to tackle your next task.

I transformed my life 10 years ago when I left the corporate life. I was at the desk from 7:00am to 11:00pm, which I later realised was not healthy for me. When I made the shift, I learned that I am more productive and effective when I work fewer hours and take a few minutes to bask in nature. That is where we are meant to be. Unfortunately, our modern workplaces are not conducive to it, but you can make choices that can give you a much-needed break.

When you spend time in nature, your brain is better able to focus on your thoughts without any distractions. Our devices and social media have chopped our attention into bits, but when you step away from the craziness of life, you allow your brain to ease into deeper thought patterns and focus on one thing.

When you work on a single task, your brain actually sends you rewards in the form of dopamine. This creates feelings of pleasure and fulfilment, and it makes a huge difference in our happiness and well-being when we are able to take a deep dive into one project. If I find myself stuck on my work, I step away, get into nature, and allow my mind to wander. Most of the time, I return with fresh ideas.

Some people have more “bad” days than good days because they struggle with something deeper. In the last few years, society has become more open to talking about mental health and providing support for those who struggle with mental health issues. The truth is, all of us at one point or another will likely have some level of anxiety disorder or depression.

If you resonate with any kind of mental health struggle, the most important step is to talk about it and acknowledge that this is part of your reality. Depending on the culture you live in, you may be worried about the stigma that mental health issues carry. But remember that you are not the only one. So many others identify with your struggles and have journeyed through something similar.

After you have taken the step to reach out to someone and talk about your struggles, you can get the help that you need. Therapy, medication and self-care are critically important for anyone who struggles with mental health. If you ignore it, you are only compounding the issue and making it worse. Just as you would see a doctor if you broke a bone, it is absolutely okay to see a therapist if you struggle with mental health.

Unfortunately, most of the time, people don’t realise they have mental health issues until it is too late. This is often because we are not as self-aware as we should be. Self-awareness is an emotional intelligence skill that everyone should work on in order to understand how your heart and mind work. In order to keep my emotions in check, I do a self-awareness check-in every day. I document how I feel each day with an emoji.

It may sound corny, but this is a powerful tool because it allows you to track your emotions as you would data. If there is a pattern, just as you would acknowledge a pattern in sales and marketing, you can identify when you are in a low place and then find a way to take care of yourself. When you are more aware of how your brain functions, you will be better equipped to understand your performance in every aspect of your life.

Pause and Reframe

Part of understanding yourself better also involves knowing how to recognise your emotions and then reframe it and work through the emotion for a positive outcome. In technical terms, this is called emotional regulation. When you are able to label your emotions and find a way to control it without letting it control you, you are in a better position to overcome any obstacle that may stifle your joy.

If you are preparing to go into a meeting knowing that you messed up, you will probably be nervous. Your body’s physiology starts to change as your palms get sweaty, your mouth is dry, and your stomach is churning. When you realise this, you would pause and take a deep breath in. As you do so, label your emotion, “I feel anxious.”.

This redirects blood flow from the emotional part of your brain (the amygdala) to the thinking and language part of your brain (the neocortex), allowing you to process your emotion and find a way to calm yourself down. This is the process of emotional regulation that doesn’t allow your emotions to get the better of you.

Depending on your personality, there are some professions that may get you more riled up than others. Being a salesperson, for example, requires a lot of emotional regulation and cognitive appraisal. Someone who is new to the job may take rejection personally, while an experienced salesperson is able to reframe his experience and let negative emotions go.

Reappraising is an essential skill for emotional regulation because you are able to see things from a different perspective which usually results in more positive emotion. I once met a professional big-wave surfer who was involved in a potentially career-ending accident. After the accident, he went on a downward spiral but met a kid who was paralysed from an accident.

When my friend realised that the result of his accident could have turned out much worse, he was able to reappraise the situation and overcome all of the negative emotions that were bringing him down. We can’t avoid traumatic accidents or unexpected conflict. But we have the choice to refocus our attention on what we have and what we have done well. This mindset shift makes a world of a difference.

Regardless of what profession you’re in, your ability to regulate your emotions and reappraise each situation is completely up to you. I don’t think there is a connection between what you should do as a profession based on your emotiveness. But everyone has to learn the emotional culture of your workplace to determine the socially acceptable way to express your emotions.

Integrate, Don’t Compartmentalise

You’ve probably heard someone say, “Don’t cross your work with your life.”. Anyone who has tried to keep their work separate from their personal life will tell you that this does not work out well. It ultimately is not authentic to who we are as humans. Our lives are too messy to draw the lines and keep each area separate from the other. If you are stressed out at work, your emotions will naturally bleed into your family life.

And healthy integration is the key to juggling all of your responsibilities successfully. High performers especially tend to take on a lot of responsibilities. So we have to shift our focus depending on where we are. When we’re at work, we give our all and achieve as much as possible, but once we are at home, we must consciously give our family the undivided attention they deserve.

Randi Zuckerberg says that if you want to succeed at what you do, you can only pick three of these to focus on: work, family, fitness, friends, and sleep. This is the only way to prevent from spreading ourselves out too thin and deciding what your priorities are. Then, you can focus on what matters most and invest your time, energy, and attention without worrying about a million other things.

When it comes to your emotions, ignoring the stress from work while you are at home will most likely blow up in your face later and your spouse would have to bear the brunt of it. If you are somehow able to suppress your stress for a significant amount of time, bear in mind that it will show up again later in the form of high blood pressure, cardiovascular issues, stroke, and other neurological disorders.

We are all human, and eventually, our emotions will leak. My husband of 22 years has certainly heard more than his fair share of snaps from me, but I am always super quick to apologise. A well-timed apology for the hurt that you’ve caused to someone you love makes a huge difference. For some, it may take a while to forgive, while others may forgive you right away.

But if you can sense that there are some negative emotions brewing within, then you should take a moment to assess your emotion before you hurt someone you love. With my feisty personality, I have found that mindful meditation has helped me to become more aware of my emotions. If you don’t have a regular meditation practice, you should definitely start one because meditation is a game-changer.

For busy professionals, it may seem like meditation and exercise are better left on the back burner when you eventually have some free time. But these tools are most important in helping us navigate our emotions and regulating them on the front-end before they show up unexpectedly. Keeping track of your emotions also helps you recognise if you have a toxic relationship.

A year and a half ago, I realised that there was someone toxic that I was talking to all the time. I was hearing things and reacting according to the other person’s emotions, which was not a good space to be for me. When I learned to track my emotions, I was better able to regulate them and learn not to take things too personally. Mindfulness helped me not to take on someone else’s trauma so I could see the situation objectively.

Help Others Regulate

When you practice mindfulness, you actually empower yourself to help others process their emotions. The goal is to help someone find a label for their emotion. Usually, we get so caught up in their emotion that they don’t stop and think about what exactly they are feeling. We can help them pause by saying, “Give me one word to describe how you feel about this.”. Doing this will pause people in their tracks.

Those of us who love to fix things and solve problems probably have the natural tendency to find a solution to our friend’s problem. But more often than not, our loved one just needs a listening ear and the opportunity to vent. The last thing they want is your advice or another argument. So unless your friend specifically asks for your advice, hold back and assume that they just need you to listen.

As you allow your friend to vent, you can also ask, “What else?”. This tells them that you are ready to listen, and it gives them the space to set their emotions free. Just the act of venting will help to reduce the pent up anger so that your friend can start to process through the emotion and find a solution to whatever is bothering her. You can also ask, “How can I help?”, but if your friend doesn’t know, then just listen.

Share Honestly When Appropriate

The take-home message is, don’t bottle up your emotions because they will emerge again, and often not in the best way. Of course, this doesn’t mean that you should keep the lid off your mouth and allow your anger to turn the conversation with your boss into a yelling contest. But we need to learn to assess the context and determine the right timing and people to be transparent with.

If you know that your organisation wants you to be productive by being your best self, then it is most likely that they will value open and honest conversations about where you are and how you are feeling. But in a work culture where emotions aren’t always discussed, you should ask yourself if your emotions are temporary. If you don’t see the light at the end of a tunnel, then you should probably talk to someone.

For heavy emotions that I have been struggling with for a significant period of time, I usually talk to my coach. I choose not to burden my friends or family with these emotions because that may only bring them down. Also, my friends and family are biased, so they may not be as willing to call me out when I am not being honest with myself.

A coach, on the other hand, can give you an objective opinion about your struggles and help you strategize a way to process and work through your emotions. They have all of the knowledge and tools they need to help you be your best self regardless of which stage of life you find yourself in. If your time and wallet allow, or your company supports it, look for someone who can be your coach and give you the advice you need, not the advice you want to hear.

1. Be Your Greatest Cheerleader!

Your brain is naturally wired to put yourself down and protect you from doing anything that may hurt your ego. But this only hinders your potential and prevents you from pursuing things that you may actually be good at over time. Pay attention to your self-talk. When you find yourself starting to beat yourself up, stop and ask what advice you would give to a friend in a similar situation. Give yourself grace on tough days, and do what is best for your sanity.

2. Pay Attention to How You Are Feeling, and Look for Patterns

In this rush of life, we tend to have a “go, go, go” mindset. There is no time to stop because we might miss out on the next promotion or the next best thing. But in order to take care of yourself, you need to take some time to pause and assess your emotions. If you don’t have time to journal, use an emoji to sum up how you felt today so that you can look back over time and determine if there are any patterns. This will be helpful in tracking your mental health and developing tools to recover from periods of feeling low.

3. Take Care of Yourself

You should know yourself better than anyone. Take note of what brings you joy and make sure that you give yourself breaks during the day to reset, recharge, and rejuvenate your brain. The only way you can be most successful at work and in your relationships is if you make the effort to care for yourself first. This ultimately empowers you to care for others and to give everything you’ve got in all that you do.