When all else fails, walk out and go home

How to recover from the 12 hour attitude virus

If any of you follow Dr. Zimmerman’s Tuesday tips, you’ll know this week was about the 24 hour attitude make over. I think most of us don’t need it. We just need to cool off or re-focus. Talking to a friend on Tuesday by lunch time she wanted June 2, 2009 removed from history. The days started on the wrong note and she could not find anything going her way. I should add this is a remarkable positive and outgoing person on any given day. By lunch it was so bad she canceled the rest of the day and conceded it was not going to turn around. Yesterday, I had my turn. A little different, my day was going great until mid-day. Only one thing went wrong, but after that I was completely frustrated and couldn’t get over it.

I talk a lot about people with long term issues/attitudes that need to be confronted. Well all of us are human and even those who are the fun Bobby in the crowd can lose their cool. Sometimes you can’t “just let it go” or “take a few deep breaths” or “find your happy place.” Since you can’t have the day removed from history, I say concede the day. If you have the level of self awareness to find your frustration at its max, then avoid all others. I’ll even admit I thought I had my self awareness was good enough yesterday, but my frustration was so great it created an illusion. I sent off an email to the wrong person that was just plain rude. They called me and confronted me on it. I took the time to talk to them and apologize, but it could have been avoided. If you must communicate, write emails expressing how you really feel, but send them to yourself.

I still believe we control our attitudes and we have the choice of whether or not it’s a good day or a bad day. However, on some days we just don’t have the energy or focus to turn it around. If those days are often (few times a month), then I’d suggest the problem is bigger than you think, but if they occur once every few months, then cancel the meetings, put up the out of office and reboot again the next day. Some might suggest a strong happy hour, but realize that what you’ve been thinking while you have been sober may come out while you are drunk at the bar and find its way to your Facebook status.

If you couldn’t turn it around and had a somewhat full schedule would you call it a day?