Last week I rolled out of bed on Friday morning with ease and jumped into a new day. The days was a nice and smooth one. I had a mix of good clients and friendly pets. Not a single one tried to bite, animal or otherwise. It helped that I had a great weekend ahead of me, so I knew that after nine hours of work I would have two days of family time in the sun, which I had been really looking forward to. Days like this seem easy and so the work is easily fulfilling. Unfortunately, not all days are like this.
The very next week, after my relaxing weekend with my wife and son, I rolled out of bed on my Monday morning a little more sluggish, my limbs a bit heavier and less happy to start the day. At about 1pm I had my answer why. Some brewing nausea in the bit of my stomach, which slowly turned into full blown gastro, had me racing out the clinic before I infected anyone else! What followed was a pretty awful couple of days for myself, and wife, who also had very regretfully been given gastro by our two year old. Fortunately no one else in the clinic was infected.
This is an extreme example of a bad day. Sometimes its simpler than that, it may just be a day of difficult clients, euthanasias and aggressive animals. We have to remind ourselves that it’s ok that everyday is not a good one. After my wife had our son she spoke to a councillor for help during those first few weeks and one most helpful piece of advice was that not all days had to be good ones. It’s ok that on those tougher days, you may just have to get through it without achieving every goal that you had on your list. Maybe just successfully getting through all those back to back consults with a happy client leaving your consult room is enough.
I personally try to set myself up for a good day with a good morning routine. Mine includes a work out, journalling and family time. If I start late enough sometimes a great coffee! All hopefully setting my up for a great day, where I am fulfilled before I start. Aim to set yourself up right and hopefully more of your days will be good ones, and even the bad ones won’t feel so hard.
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