Ever have a bad day?

Would you like to never have a bad day again? Here’s the secret.

At the end of our little league baseball games, we Tinicum Tigers would line up in our little blue and gold t-shirts and hats and parade past the other team (usually known as ‘the winners’), slap their palms as we passed by, and mumble the obligatory “Good game. Good game. Good game.”

For us, it rarely was a good game. Nevertheless, we said, “Good game.”

In fairness, we had some good moments — Good hits. Good pitches. Good plays. But “good game” was a bit of a stretch.

I’ve read that Disney theme park studies of customer experiences have shown that a person’s overall positive experience at the park usually comes down to two or three specific highlight moments. That’s it.

A Disney customer can stand in line for six hours a day, but if Snow White makes a fuss over his 5-year-old daughter for 30 seconds, then he tells his friends back home that Disney is amazing!

By the same token, when someone says he’s “having a bad day,” more often than not, he probably just had a bad moment or two.

By describing a couple of bad moments as if they ruin the entire day, you can actually ruin the entire day.

It’s not the bad moments that did it. It’s exploding those moments so that they spray all over your otherwise decent day.

Back to baseball…

When the pitcher throws the ball, and I swing and miss, did I just have a bad day?

The obvious answer is “No”.

Neither did I have a bad game, or even a bad at-bat.

One pitch flies by. Strike! Now what?

I wait for the next. It’s a brand-new start.

Because what happened 20 seconds ago has no effective whatsoever on what’s about to happen next.

The same applies to many areas of life.

Miss a sale? It’s a blip. It’s over.

More importantly, the next opportunity is not influenced at all by the previous failure. The next prospect doesn’t make his decisions based on the one who just said “No” to you.

So, the next time you’re “having a bad day”, try to isolate why.

Then leave that reason in its little time-bound box. Seal it up, and don’t let it pollute any of the subsequent moments. Never have a “bad day” ever again.