Here Comes the Rain Cloud

I try to stay positive. But sometimes – not that often fortunately – I have one of those days. One of those days where the not great seems to start piling up. The other day in a short period of time I had two Pilates clients cancel and then one of my marketing projects was put on hold. Some times after a day of negative energy the spiral begins. It can be like a chain reaction if you let it. The next morning – the bad seems to find you! But I think it’s really more that we are LOOKING for it!

When you start the day with – I hope today is better than yesterday – it’s almost a dare! You are on high alert for the bad to come. Sometimes perception makes the difference between bad and good.  This morning I went to Starbucks and the gal reloaded my card incorrectly – instead of adding $20 on to it – she added $40,000!  It took a few moments longer to fix and reload.  She didn’t charge me for my drink.  Here are two ways we can respond:

Bad Day – Starbucks screwed up and I was in a hurry. Why does this always happen to me? So annoying!

Good Day– How funny to think about $40,000 on my card! And how nice that I got a free drink!

Here’s another example of how we have the power to use perception to create a good day versus a bad day:

Canceled client:

Bad Day – Well there goes some income I was counting on!

Good Day – It’s gorgeous outside and I wasn’t going to have time to run but now I do.

Sometimes I have to remind myself to look for the good.  When I do – I feel better and it seems to find me more easily.  I’ve started adding good things to the note section of my iphone.  Little things – a good run, a good hair day, getting caught up on email, seeing a friend and so on.  When I need a nudge or reminder that my life really is pretty darn good – I have my list to look at and inevitably it makes me think of something else to add.  If we are open to seeing the good and perceiving the good – it’s out there.  Yes there will be moments we’d rather had gone a different way but in the grand scheme of things – are they that dreadful??  Are they worth ruining the rest of your day or week over?  Chance are they are annoyances not real problems.  We do have the power to push our rain clouds away when we look for the sunshine and acknowledge the good we come across each day.

And when all else fails – sometimes we just need to ‘kill’ a workout to get the bad energy out and feel victorious again!