Arjun Khemani

Some days just get tough. You may also know them as the “bad days”, when just nothing seems to go right. Yes, there are those kinds of days or at least they are “days” which we organize to be in the “bad” category. And hypothetically we’ve all been through them. Some may be going through one right now. Where, if not everything, many things or many important things in our lives don’t go well on that particular day and we call them bad because those days simply aren’t good. Nothing good seems to happen on that day since the bad overshadows the good. And then having a biased preconception of “I’m having a bad day today” doesn’t help us any much, rather makes the mind make our day even worse by reducing our performance levels further because words have power and can leave huge impacts due to the strong beliefs put forth by them.

But still bad days are like a double-edged sword. Did you know that you can make the best out of your “bad days“?
You really can! (and I’ll get to the “how” part in a minute)

You see bad days are what make you tough. And that’s why I think that they should be called “tough days” more popularly than “bad days”. Now, tough days even sounds like a double-edged sword. You know like when the going gets tough, it makes you tough. But classifying a day as bad just sets you in the wrong mindset to succeed on that day. When you just show up on your tough days and do what you had to do like on any normal day to master the skill, it makes you tough. And it tests you to your greatest ability.
Michael Phelps on a speech (on sacrifices) says it brilliantly,

“The greatest athletes in the world do things when they’re uncomfortable. Everybody can compete when they’re feeling good, happy, excited, rested … but it’s the best people who can overcome when they’re tired, sore, not in the best mindset … and I think the mental power that the greatest athletes have, can push all the pain aside.”

When it’s not “right”, when it’s “hard”, or you’re on a “bad day”, just remember that this is just another lucky day and an opportunity for you to test yourself at the extreme on a day that is going not so favorably. This message is not only for athletes. Creative people, writers, business people, or ANYONE really. When the going gets hard, feel lucky to be able to test yourself. Because it’s the tough days that make you tough. And performing on the bad days adds another stepping stone to the path of achieving greatness.

You may or may not have guessed but I was going through one of those tough days while writing today. And couldn’t write anything about my original idea. So I put that article to the drafts and started another one on “Tough Days”, hopefully to be able to put out some more relatable content. But I did write an article. 58 days, going strong.