Have you ever experienced those days when absolutely everything goes wrong; nothing goes right; when you sit down to do some work, your brain seems to freeze, and you can’t think straight?
We can all have days like that and it’s hard to snap out of it and try to start again. Wouldn’t it be great if we were like a computer and we could hit the reset button, and everything would be like it was?
At the same time, we feel like this, we also seem to feel like everyone is against us; nothing is worth it anymore; what we’re trying to achieve won’t work anyway. And it all just seems to go downhill from there, and we have no way of making it stop!
It’s interesting why these days happen and what triggers them. Sometimes it might be something that was said, something we heard or something we smelt that sent our minds off in a whirlwind of thoughts that we have no way of controlling.
I have certain smells and sounds that send me off down memory lane to places and times in the past that seem as clear as if they happened yesterday. These are all well and good if they are good memories causing us to feel happy and we smile when we think of them. But often the memories aren’t great ones, and the incident, smell or sound triggers off something in us that generates that awful feeling from a bad experience in the past.
You may have heard of Pavlov’s theory of association, where he demonstrated classical conditioning using his dogs, where he rang a bell just before he fed them, which caused them to salivate. Changing feed times and then not producing the food still caused the dogs to salivate upon hearing the bell ring.
We have these associations all the time, some we are probably more aware of than others.
What trigger is it for you that makes you feel good, and what trigger is it for you that makes you feel bad?
It’s helpful to be aware of these so we can manage how our thoughts can push us off track and down alleys we don’t want to go, causing us to have those days where we can’t do right for wrong.
Subscribe to Success Factor Wednesday Wake-Up: www.successfactor.co.nz
#successfactor