Look for the positive from the bad days

Many of us measure our success by our best days, days when we accomplish great things and achieve our goals, but one might argue that we are only as good as our worst days.

Things seem easier when everything is going right. Stress is low, satisfaction is high, and we garner a sense of accomplishment. All of this can change in a moment and easy sailing can become very messy in a hurry.

I think that it is fair to say that we all have our good days, and we have our bad days. This blog will highlight those bad days and look for some good in them.

Many leadership gurus will tell you that we learn the most on our bad days. I think that we learn this at an early age when we compete in sports. Losing is tough, but we learn from it. Many of us become driven by a strong sense of not wanting to lose, maybe even more than the desire to win. I believe that we carry this with us in life to some extent. I find it more prevalent in some people than others, but I think that we all possess this desire not to lose or not to fail.

For me, I have learned the biggest lessons in life by failing, by making a poor decision or by not accomplishing an important goal. It is easy to get down on yourself and admit defeat, but instead, we can take these situations and learn from them. The benefits are many, but a few include learning a lesson that you will not repeat again, gaining a valuable bit of knowledge, and overall, achieving wisdom. I have long been a proponent that wisdom comes only from experience and mostly from our failures.

I challenge you to flip the narrative the next time that things seem to be falling apart. Stop, think, and devise a plan. This is a great opportunity to apply past lessons learned to create a positive outcome from a not-so-great situation. After you have navigated the situation to the point that you can move on, reflect on it, learn from it what you can, and become even better.

The bad days tend to masquerade as negative events but look at them as learning opportunities and grow better because of them.