By Scott Reddoch
Bad days suck. I don’t know how else to put it.
Those times show who we really are. What we do when the plan doesn’t work and everything is falling apart is the real you. Not the motivational poster you who says all the right things, but the you who is actually in it.
I have a humorous example of a bad day. I was running a little late for work one morning and when I backed my SUV out of the driveway, I unknowingly hit a plastic trashcan, trapping it beneath my vehicle. As I drove away it made a terrible noise.
I pulled over and popped my hood to find the problem. Once I got out I saw the trashcan, freed it, shut my hood and was on my way.
I got on the bridge to work and my hood flew up.
Apparently I had not latched it all the way.
It was about nine AM. I had missed the morning rush. It was terrifying. I couldn’t see anything. I had to stop.
A police car arrived shortly after with its lights on. The cop escorted me off the bridge to a gas station. Then he wrote me a ticket for blocking traffic.
The cop was all business. I wasn’t expecting a ticket on top of everything else. I just took it and chuckled. I went to court for it. When I told the judge what happened he threw it out.
It took a long time for me to figure out which way was up. The paralysis and sudden shock of the whole thing almost completely destroyed everything.
The plan didn’t work.
The plans I had made and the dreams I had were not going to happen. I wasn’t worried about any of that. Career, relationships, the future? I was just hoping to live another day.
I spent over seven months in the hospital. My first four months were the survival ones.
Without a clue how I could get past this, I turned to history to read how others dealt with misfortune. I read about the ancient Roman general Fabius Maximus and freed slave Sojourner Truth. I read about Washington, Roosevelt and Nelson Mandela.
I searched for what traits they all had in common. These people are not superhuman. How did they turn adversity into amazing achievement?
What I found was a high level of curiosity and a very different perspective on failure.
Of all the people I read about, Sojourner Truth’s story was the most powerful. She made great achievements but had been born into slavery and had to escape that. She also did this while being female and black.
The perspective that was displayed is pretty simple in theory but not easy. They don’t see failure as the end. It’s just something that doesn’t work. To them, failure isn’t something not working. It’s not finding what works. That’s failure.
I am trying to view things like that.
This is where the curiosity comes in. Achievement is almost game-like to them. It’s not that things are not taken seriously. There is a calmness in their approach. With the stress of failure greatly reduced, there is an improvement in clarity and composure.
I used to think that mental toughness was being able to handle the stress of a situation and make good decisions. Now I think that is partly right. Yes, I think making good decisions are important, but mental toughness is managing the stress, not just dealing with it.
When I use a game-like approach to solve a problem, I manage the stress by first reducing it. It’s no big deal if something doesn’t work.
I joke that I don’t have bad days. I only have good or gooder ones. Often times my first attempt at a problem doesn’t work. That’s not failure. It’s just an opportunity to try something else.
When you have faced death, you get a different appreciation for the days you have left. That doesn’t mean they’re problem free. The problems are bad, not the day.
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