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Your Life Systems is a podcast about building practical systems for everyday life.
Join Wes as he shares simple ideas, practical frameworks, and real-world experience to help you make consistent progress in the areas of life that matter most.
Most people don't need more information. They need better implementation.
Instead of relying on motivation, you'll learn how to build systems that make success easier, more consistent, and more sustainable.
One Good Decision Can Rescue an Entire Day
Hi, I'm Wes. Welcome to One Good Decision Can Rescue an Entire Day, or One Good Decision Can Change Your Entire Day.
The main question we're going to work on today, or what you should keep in mind to help you as we go through this, is: What is the next best decision you can make from where you are right now?
Now, let's say you're having a terrible day. Everything seems to be going wrong. We all have days like that. We all have days where nothing seems to work right.
Now, let's say that you can make one decision, or take one step, take one piece of action that suddenly is a success. Then it can turn around your entire day. No matter how bad the day is going, there's something that might be able to happen that can turn your entire day around.
I talk a lot about taking small steps, or small wins. Sometimes you just need to make the decision to get the first small win, and then you can get a second small win.
So, no matter what happened before today, one small win, one small positive decision, can stop the negative momentum and turn around your entire day.
So, a bad morning does not require a bad afternoon. And sometimes these are kind of self-fulfilling prophecies. And I've had this happen to me too.
I think it's fairly common. You have a bad morning. Everything's going wrong. Nothing seems to be working out. Every decision seems to be wrong, or one bad thing after another happens.
So then we're moping, or we get feeling down. Oh, this is terrible. And then we attack the afternoon with that mindset. The mindset that, well, this whole day's lost. I'm gonna have a bad afternoon.
And that can become self-fulfilling. Instead, figure out a way, when things are going wrong, to reset your day, which starts with resetting your mind.
Instead of feeling sorry for yourself, or instead of wallowing in the pain or suffering that you've been going through, figure out how to make one decision that can lead to something good. To stop it.
Stop your mind from spiraling into the doom and gloom. Just get a small win. Figure out one thing that you can do successfully, immediately.
The next decision matters more than replaying the last one over and over.
Now, if we make a bad decision, or a series of bad decisions, and things aren't working, it is good to learn from that. Learn from bad decisions.
If you make a bad decision, learn something from it. But don't keep replaying it over and over and over. That gets you stuck in a negative loop, and then it can hurt the next decision.
So, take the time to learn from it, and then do something different. Then let it go and move on.
One useful action can interrupt a negative sequence before it becomes a pattern. That's what I'm talking about here.
Here's what I've learned to do. I now have, sometimes written and sometimes just in the back of my mind, a series of things that I know I can do at just about any time to get a small win.
It might be my fourth, or fifth, or sixth priority for the day. It might not be super important, but I know it's something I can stop everything else, take five or ten minutes and do, and it will be a small win. A small step towards one of my goals.
So, if my day goes off the rails, I can stop and I can do that. I can take the five or ten minutes and get a small win, instead of continuing down the path of negative decisions and negative stuff.
So, I underlined something here that I want to point out. I said one useful action can interrupt the negative sequence.
So often, that's all we need, and usually this is the mental game. So often, we just need to interrupt the pattern. The pattern of poor decisions, or the pattern of things not working out today.
If we can form a trigger that stops us, and it interrupts the pattern, it's even better to interrupt it before it becomes a pattern.
But so often we all have things that work and don't work. We all have good decisions and decisions that aren't so great. The thing is, most days there's a mix.
There's some good decisions and a few bad decisions, but the bad decisions don't stack, so we don't notice them as much.
On the really bad days, it seems like one bad decision after another. Everything we do, everything we think, or every decision we make seems to be wrong, or at least not great.
That becomes a pattern. So, anything you can do to interrupt that when it's happening, that's what I'm talking about.
Maybe you should jot down five small wins you can get just about any time, and you can use that as a pattern interrupt.
Every time you recognize that decision after decision is wrong or going bad, pull out one of your lists and work on it for five or ten minutes. Get a small success. Get a small win to interrupt the pattern.
Create simple restart rules for predictable setbacks.
That's exactly what I'm talking about. Have a mental list of four or five things that you can use to restart as a rule.
Maybe the rule is, if I make two bad decisions in a row, I'm going to pull something off my list and get a win. Or maybe it's if I make three bad decisions in a row, I'm going to stop and get a win.
Whatever it is, as long as you use it and make it a rule, it'll help you interrupt the bad pattern.
Do not try to rescue the whole day at once. Win the next decision. Get one small win.
I haven't said anything about turning a terrible day and saving the whole day. All you want to do is interrupt it and get one small win to break the streak.
Don't try to save the day all at once. Try to get the first small win. Then, once you get the first small win, get the second small win.
Then after you stack some of those, your day can be saved. You can turn around the whole day, and it all starts with one good decision.
Small recoveries build confidence that you can get back on track quickly. It can be the smallest win, the smallest advancement towards a goal or some success you're working towards. Just get something, a small win.
I've intentionally trained myself to stop when everything's going wrong. I've intentionally, and I had to work on this, because I used to do the same thing I was talking about. It'd be a bad day.
I'd make a bad decision, two bad decisions. Something would go wrong. There'd be a business problem I needed to take care of. Might be a family thing. Whatever. One thing after another.
I'd just keep going down and down and down. I've intentionally created ways, triggers, to make me stop. That's what I need to do.
Often, I'll even say out loud, I'll say, stop. I definitely think it in my mind.
Stop. Think, what's going wrong? How do I get one small win? What's one profitable, good decision I can make right now to get back on track?
This can be very valuable. Okay, you've got to noon and everything's gone bad before noon. You've already lost that half of the day.
Now, you've got two choices. You can either continue down and lose the rest of the day, or you can try everything in your power to stop so you don't lose a whole day.
Try not to let one bad morning turn into a bad day. Try not to let one bad decision become two bad decisions become three bad decisions. Interrupt the pattern.
Find something to do. Okay, this also helps me occasionally when things get really bad. Now again, it all starts with, I say, stop.
So, I've got to stop and I've got to think. And then I remember I have choices. I have choices about how to view what has been happening.
Choices about what I can learn from what is happening. Choices about how I can use what I learned now and in the future. And choices about what decision I can make right now to stop the pattern.
To get a small win. Because that's all you need.
So, my recommendation is either write down four or five things or at least put four or five things in your mind that are small steps where you know you can get a successful step at just about any time in a short amount of time.
And the next time you find yourself with a bad day, pull out the list. Pull something from your mental list. And go out and get that one small success.
Make the one decision that's a win. No matter what has happened before and no matter what happens the rest of the day, you're going to have one win. You're going to have at least one small win for that day.
And here's what you're going to find. Usually, if you can get that first one, then you can get a second one. And then maybe you can get a third one.
That's how you turn around your entire day. This is Wes with Your Life Systems. Please like and subscribe.
Keep working on those systems.