Had A Sh*tshow Of A Day? This Will Fix It!

Now, you may be thinking that, because she’s a recognized mindset expert and has enjoyed so much success, April never has bad days. Well, guess what? That’s definitely not true! She suffers bad days and setbacks just like the rest of us. Recently she had a setback that was so severe she said it felt like I got kicked across the room. So what did she do to bounce back? Normally, she engages a 3-step process to help her overcome a bad day. But this time, because her struggle was so big, she used a 5-step process! Want to find out exactly what these five steps are? She tells you on today’s episode of the Winning Mindset Mastery Podcast.

 

As you listen, you’ll discover:

• What April believes is one of the single biggest, and perhaps most destructive, misconceptions about mindset,
• A piece of advice you may not expect. But don’t ignore it. April says it’s the fastest way to get through what you are going through,
• A false state we may portray to others that can actually do more harm than good ,
• The last thing April feels like doing on a bad day, but she makes herself do it anyway. Why? Because it’s SO important! Great news about bad days: as you continue consistently to build your winning mindset, THIS will happen!

 

Here’s the harsh truth: no matter how strong your winning mindset becomes, you will have setbacks and bad days. So don’t beat yourself up. April has overcome bad days and setbacks many, many times. So will you. She’s confident this 5-step process will help you! Here’s to your success!

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Listen to the podcast here

 

Had A Sh*tshow Of A Day? This Will Fix It!

I had a reader ask me recently what it was like to never have a bad day or a bad week or be in a bad mood because I had developed a winning mindset. I am here to tell each and every one of you, that’s not true. I have hard times and hard days. The way I described it when it happened to me felt like I got kicked across the room.

I don’t want any of you to think that because you’re practicing having a winning mindset and you’re working on this, it’s a bulletproof strategy and you’re never going to struggle. The biggest reason for that is that I don’t want you to be hard on yourself if you do. The toughest part of going through something that is a struggle is if you’re then beating up on yourself because you think you should not be struggling with it. Life is still real. Things like this happen. You might lose your job, have a death in your family, lose a relationship, or break up with someone. Things happen. When they’re tough, I have a process for how to deal with them. I’m happy to share that with you.

The toughest part of going through something that is a struggle is if you're beating up on yourself because you think you shouldn't be struggling with it. Share on X

On some things, it’s a three-step process. You know how I love a three-step process. On the big ones, I was kicked across the room. I had to do a full five-step process to get back to being me. I’d love to share that with you. It’s great to know that other people go through this, you are not alone, and also to have an idea of how you’ll recover from that setback, similar to having an idea of what it would be like to recover from an injury or a cold, “How long until I’m back to normal, doc?”

The very first step that you need to do when something knocks you off your feet from a mindset perspective is to 1) Feel your feelings. That may seem like something that you would of course do or something that you have never done, but the reason I say this is because when something bad happens, a lot of times, we tend to try and distract ourselves with all sorts of coping mechanisms that we’ve developed throughout our lifetime.

Whether it is scrolling through social media, going and having a drink, spending time with people so that you’re not dealing with an issue, watching TV mindlessly, eating bad food, or smoking, there are all sorts of things that we do that are nothing more than distractions to keep ourselves from feeling the feelings that we have. The first thing you’ve got to do when something is big is let those feelings in. That can seem so scary and so hard. If you let those feelings in and you begin that process of getting through them, that’s the fastest way to get through whatever you’re going through and get back to being yourself.

 

Next is a term a phrase that I learned in the military. You’re going to have to 2) Embrace the suck. This is not necessarily going to feel good. This is going to be hard. I need you to recognize, understand, and accept that it is going to suck for a little bit. Once you do, you give yourself permission to go through that process, feel those things, and understand that you don’t have to have a happy face.

One of the big misnomers about mindset is that if you have a winning mindset, you’re never upset. You’re always positive. You’re always upbeat. If somebody’s always positive and upbeat, that’s fake. That’s not a real way that we can go through life. You can do more harm than good to your mindset by pretending to be in a good place when you’re not. Commit to yourself. You are going to embrace the suck and let yourself feel and process those feelings.

You can do more harm than good to your mindset by pretending to be in a good place when you're not. Share on X

At this point, you are going to 3) Find something else that you can focus on. I’m going to tell you, if you haven’t spent enough time in phases 1 and 2, you’re not going to be able to do this. By the way, the big reason I say that you need to feel the feelings is people who want to jump straight to number three, which can work if it was a smaller upset or a smaller thought that got you off track. You can focus on something else and let it go, that’ll work.

On these big things, if you don’t feel those feelings, you’re going to spend days and weeks trying to focus on something else and not think about that thing that’s bothering you. Once you’re able to start to focus on something else, this doesn’t have to go do something that is super productive. It has to be something that can pull your focus away from the thing that has upset you.

For me, movement is always a great thing. I’ll be candid and let you know the last thing I want to do when I feel like this is move. I want to meld with my couch. I want to become one with the sofa and mope. For me, if I change my scenery, get out and walk, go to the gym, go to the store, take Cowboy for a walk, or do something differently, I can start to ignore what’s happening and get to a better place than embracing the suck, not my normal self, but a better place.

It’s at this moment where you’re able to ask yourself the question. Whatever’s happened, you don’t have to see how it might be working for you instead of happening to you. Are you open to the thought that it could be happening for you? If you are, then you’re in a place where you only need the three-step process. Continue to focus on other things until you start to get back to yourself. That could be half an hour. It could be half the day. It could be the day.

If you can make that leap, you’re probably going to get into a better mindset still within that day. If you cannot, and sometimes you can’t. This time, I keep referring to when I was kicked across the room. It was not happening. As a matter of fact, that first day, I didn’t make it off the couch. I was so mopey. It happened later in the day. I watched bad TV. It was a mess.

The next thing that you do in the process when you can’t get to that different place is to 4) Go to sleep. In some cases, this could be a nap, 15 to 20 minutes. We’ve talked about that in earlier episodes of the show. When it’s a tough one, you need to go to sleep. On this particular day, I went to bed at 8:30. I know when I’m in a bad place and I can’t move myself, that the best thing I can do is reset.

The great thing about sleep is if you can rest, go to sleep, and make an intention before you fall asleep, “I want to let this go as much as I can while I’m resting,” when you wake up, you’ll be in a different place. You may not be in a much better place, but you’ll definitely be in a better place. That goes even more so if you happen to have experienced this tough thing when you were exhausted. Everything seems bigger, harder, and more overwhelming when we’re tired.

 

The last step in this process is sometimes the hardest one for me. It’s to 5) Give yourself grace to know that it’s going to take you some time to get back to your set point wherever you are, whatever your normal regular happiness level is, peace level, calm level, whatever, and not play the comparison game and be tough on yourself because you’re not yourself yet.

In the situation I was talking about, I was focusing on being kind to myself. I am quick to say, “I normally think much better than that. I’m normally much more generous with my time,” and I start to think about the me that I know I normally am instead of looking at myself and getting my mindset back to my normal place, the same way I would if I’d had the flu.

You’re not going to go back to the gym and try and do your normal routine that day. You’re not necessarily going to try and accomplish all of the things you normally accomplish in that next moment. That last part of the process is to give yourself grace and know that you will get back to your normal self much faster if you’re not pressuring yourself to do it quickly and measuring how far you are at any given time.

 

I hope this process helps you to know that this will still happen. It won’t happen often. I don’t think I get in a place like this more than once or twice a year at this point, which is far less than it was years ago. It gets easier and faster to reset. If you have those big things, know that that’s normal and that you have a process you can go to and it will make things better for you. Here’s to your success.