How to Prime Yourself For a Great Day

We all have the ability to take responsibility for the days of our lives

Every morning we have the chance to change how we look at our upcoming day. We can face it with pessimism or optimism. We can see ourselves as slaves to the upcoming day or as people free to make new choices to break free from old habits that haven’t served us. We all have the ability to take responsibility for the thoughts we think and actions that we take each day.

The first thoughts we have will prime our brain to look for more like them. If you think about how much you are dreading the day, your brain will look for more things to dread to try to prepare you for the worst-case scenario. If you think about all the things you can do to have a better day, your brain will look for more things that will increase your happiness instead. You hold that power to prime your brain.

Out of habit, we usually fall somewhere between being somewhat pessimistic and somewhat optimistic. Others, especially depressed people, will be more on the pessimistic side. If anyone has an external locus of control, they will feel like their day (whether it is good or bad) depends on external factors so they feel like a slave to someone or something else. For instance, someone who hates their job but feels like they need to stay in that particular job will feel like a slave to it rather than feel like they have control to get a different job or to change the way they view the one they have now.

When you shift from an external focus to an internal focus you can start to feel more powerful and less like a slave. Simply writing a list of things you can do to make yourself have a better day is extremely empowering. Make some free time to ask yourself, “What are a few easy things I could do to feel happier or less stressed?” It’s okay if it takes a while to start, something will eventually come to you and when it does, and you focus how good it feels to know there is something you can actually do to have a better day, more ideas will start to flow to you over time.

If anyone listens to Jordan Peterson, you’ll see “clean your room” is actually a good answer to that question. A clean room helps you have a clearer mind and it’s something a lot of people put off doing regardless of how much power it could have over their mental well-being.

Here are a few more tips:

1. Wake up a little bit earlier and meditate. It can help to release all those pessimistic thoughts you start your day with and clear the brain to allow more optimistic thoughts to start entering. You’ll start to get new inspiration on how to tackle problems. Taking your mind off of your problems helps immensely. Albert Einstein once said, “I think 99 times and find nothing. I stop thinking, swim in silence, and the truth comes to me.”

2. Rather than jumping into what you consider bad news on TV, radio, or social media, find something you enjoy listening to first thing. If you want a relaxing soundscape I highly recommend MyNoise.net. Or, make a favorite song playlist on YouTube or some other music broadcaster and listen to things that make you happy. Also, watching funny videos can help you to laugh, which means you have broken the cycle of being grumpy every day before work. You’ll be priming your brain to be entertained rather than annoyed later in the day.

3. Cleaning can help you to have a clearer mind, but you may view it with trepidation. Try to find ways to help you enjoy it more. You can say a mantra that you find helpful, while you clean. Or you can turn on your favorite movie or music while you clean. If you need to be able to hear your surroundings, you can get a pair of open-ear bone conduction headphones that vibrate allowing you to perceive the music or podcast, while leaving your ear canals open.

4. Be mindful. Be aware of when you are feeling negative because it’s a sign that you are being pessimistic about a situation. It’s a sign you may be feeling like your happiness is out of your control.

   

   In the same way that you are not upset that your gas gauge is low, you are happy that it is warning you that you need to fill up before you run completely out of gas, you can start to think of negative emotions as signs that let you know it’s time to rethink this situation (find where you could take responsibility to feel more empowered) or meditate.

5. Clean up your “friends” list, who you follow, and who you stay around. If we have been feeling powerless for a while, we have surrounded ourselves with other people who feel that way too. When we complain we usually surround ourselves with complainers. When you start to take more personal responsibility, they will still want to complain and see you as a victim. They won’t like your optimism. You want to surround yourself with people who will lift you up, and help you feel more optimistic and powerful. If you use social media, follow uplifters who make you feel better and more powerful, rather than pessimistic and a slave to “reality”.

In a sense, reality is what we perceive it to be. Yes, there is a shared reality among other people. I do understand many people are literally trying to live in a “reality” that isn’t based on that shared reality which means they’re living in fantasy land.

However, some people wear the opposite of rose-colored glasses. They wear dirty or dark glasses that color their perspective of the world negatively, which is why they’re pessimistic all the time. You do not want to share their reality view. There is a better world out there that other people are sharing a view of.

Choose to see all the ways in which you can take personal responsibility and feel powerful over your life. Then, you will see that everyone has the ability to do the same for themselves. Then you will see we are not simply victims of circumstances or of life. We all make choices every single day that seem like small choices but are, in actuality, the things that (put together) build a happy or depressed life for ourselves and others.

I’m going to leave the comments open on this post, please feel free to comment with little things you can do to be happier, in order to help give other people ideas of what they can do to help feel more powerful and content in their lives.