“Let It Go!”: A Key to Successful Personal & Professional Relationships (and a Happier Life)

Keeping Stuff Out of the “Worst Day EEEEVER!” Bin

We can sabotage our whole day in the first 10-20 seconds:

“My alarm didn’t go off” “I’m so tired”

“I won’t have time to take a shower”

“I have a headache” “I don’t feel like working” “I didn’t sleep well” “It’s raining”

How Long Before We Say to Ourselves:

“I’m Having the Worst Day EEEEver!”?

Creating a Mantra- Dismantles the “Worst Day Ever!” Avalanche

Many of us are in the habit of throwing negative thought after negative thought, like a snowball rolling down hill without even realizing it.

Coming up with a quick, simple mantra— really any mantra will do— like: “You Know What? Who Cares? I’m Moving On”- Anything we can wedge in between our negative thoughts— get in there and break them up before the snowball turns into an avalanche that ruins our own day and negatively affects everyone around us.

“The alarm didn’t go off. I’m late!” “You know what? Who cares? I’m moving on.” brings us out of the emotional frenzy in our heads, back to reality, and into action mode. “What do I need to do right here, right now to move forward?”

Nix It… Or Fix It:

For every thing of any size that happens to us that we perceive as bad or negative, we always have the same 2 choices:

NIX IT or FIX IT

Nix It: Is this something that I can’t change or do anything about? Is it something dumb that I can just say, immediately, right now: “You Know What? Who cares? I’m moving on.”

OR

Fix It: Is this something that I need to take action? What is the step or several steps that will start me on the path to remedy the situation— solving the problem— so that I can then finally say: “You Know What? Who cares? I’m moving on”?

TETHERING Infects Our Day—And Everyone Else’s Too

Imagine you had this really long piece of elastic. The first negative thought came in bed: “Oh no! The alarm didn’t go off! I’m late!”. If you don’t just let that thought go, you’ll bring it into the bathroom with you and then there’s no hot water in the shower and then, just like that elastic, those problems keep growing and stretching and you take them into the kitchen and the kids are acting nuts and there’s juice everywhere and you realize there’s no coffee and then you stretch all of those problems into the car with you and you sit in traffic with them and then stretch them all the way to work and they keep growing and stretching and that important meeting with that new client fell through, and then that project you’ve been working on for months looks like it might fall apart, and then you order lunch and it’s cold and they got your order wrong and then you head home and there’s a detour, and then you realize you forgot to pick up ingredients for dinner and you get home and say to your family: “Just stay away from me! I’ve had dthe worst day eeeever!”

We have unintentionally infected everyone around us with our negativity all day long. Could you imagine if, instead of words, we coughed all day? In the bedroom, in the bathroom, in the kitchen with the kids, in the car, at the meeting…