When someone else’s bad mood invades your day
Does it affect when someone else has a bad mood? When someone around me starts ranting and raving at any time of the day, I am uncomfortable. When it happens first thing in the morning, it makes it really hard for me to keep my own mood up and to move forward with my own day.
If someone’s bad mood invades your day
This was one of those days. My oldest son woke up more than crabby. A master wordsmith, he could easily win debates. But he is no fun to listen to when he is angry. It’s been more than an hour since he left for work and I struggled to even start a sentence much less write a post.
Even worse, it is his birthday. He’s 26. I suspect the biggest problem is that he came in too late and got too little sleep. But too little sleep happens to me all the time so I show little sympathy especially since it was his choice to be out late. I tried to ignore his rants but he kept coming back for one more rant even when I left the room.
After he finished his last tirade and left, Buddy, the German Shepherd puppy, started a combination of yipping and running around grabbing things out of trash cans. I thought we had him trained out of trash digging. Even my dog was acting up, what to do?
Should you just give up and ignore the day?
All of this made me so frustrated that I just wanted to crawl back in bed and ignore the day.
But I can’t. I have a new resume client at 8:30am and then a Business Advisory Committee meeting at noon at Rasmussen College. My intern is coming later to work on projects. Later, we are supposed to go out to dinner to celebrate the son’s birthday assuming he decides he wants to go.
As a professional resume writer and career coach, I can’t wallow in a bad mood. People need me to be able to focus on helping them retarget their job search and find their value. On a day like today, I can’t stay stuck.
I really struggled today. But I really don’t have time to hold onto his bad mood all day.
What can you do to change your mood?
- Eat something. I ate breakfast. Just having a bowl of cereal cures an after effect coming from hypoglycemia and gets my blood sugar back on track.
- Vent. I ranted to my husband and just voicing my frustration let it go a bit.
- Read. I started reading blog posts to change my focus off my problems and onto something else.
- Pray. My husband and I prayed together as we do often. Giving it to God means I don’t have to deal with it alone.
- Commune with Nature. Today happens to be a sunny day and the blue skies and fluffy white clouds outside my office window make me happier. Looking at nature helps me calm down.
- Exercise. Though I have a tight schedule, I will try to fit in some time on the exercise bike.
- Play music. I tend to work in quiet but if I need a lift, I will put music on for a time and let it take the anger away.
- Take a shower or a bath. Getting cleaned up and ready for the day always changes things.
It is hard to be your best at anything when you are stuck in a bad mood.
And when you have other issues like financial worries, joblessness, or relationship problems, the bad moods seem to come more often. You might be the one with bad mood and maybe no one had to share theirs for you to feel bad. These same steps work for you too.
For me, I really don’t have time to stay crabby or cranky or even fearful. I have to take action. How about you?
Stuck in your job search or just ready to move on or up from your existing position? Julie Walraven, a Wausau, Wisconsin-based professional resume writer and career marketing strategist, can help you get ready for your next role! To find out how, Click here!
8 Comments
Resume Design and Job Seeking Tips
Here are Design Resumes' latest articles on job search, resume design, resume writing, and Linkedin optimization articles I've written.
Julie Walraven
Professional Resume Writer
Here are ways I can help you land your dream job.
You may be halfway across the country or the world. When you work with me, we share coffee, laughs, and concerns. This turns the scary job search into creative, consultative writing and learning sessions.
Such a great post, Julie! It is so easy to let outside influences ruin our day, but as you clearly point out, we can control our responses to them. That’s the thing to remember – no matter what others do, it’s external to us. Whether we choose to internalize the negativity is up to us.
Thanks, Melissa. Always up to us and some days I do better than others.
Coffee and orange juice!
That combination solves all my problems 🙂
Sounds very good to me… especially in the morning!
Seeing the list of commenters, it seems like this is a lady’s-only zone 🙂 . Of-course the post is targeted for lady audience. But I thought, we, men, could borrow some tips as we also sometimes comes in such a situation. At such circumstances, what I used to do is I will try to get engaged in something so that no person haunts me.
Thanks for stopping by, Sam. Actually, I certainly didn’t intend it as a lady’s only zone… 🙂 I hope the tips above work for you too. And your tip is a very good one, getting engaged in something else changes your focus and that’s exactly what the other tips do too. Work often does that for me. Hope to see you here again so I build my male comment base!
Well Julie, I woke up this morning, reading my email, having my coffee and thinking to myself, “I feel extraordinarily good today” and remember being thankful to God for the day.
My partner of almost 34 years eventually enters the room, turns on the TV for the morning news show. I continue in peace, adjusting to the new interference as I usually do. As we all know, the news stories seem to be repeated over and over during shows like “The Today Show.” Unfortunately, the news tends to be of a negative nature and after the 2nd or third repeat of each negative news story, my partner adds negative commentary each time and finally I’d had enough. I went into the oft repeated “Why do you watch this?” Of course, I was tagged as being critical, because I wasn’t tolerant of the setting and the age-old commentary. So much for the living room being a shared space:-))
I relocated to my “quiet” room and suppose I’ll spend the rest of my life in here- LOL.
Enjoyed your post — I can identify with people trying to ruin your day because they are miserable (for whatever reason). Also, found your tips helpful. I didn’t eat, yet, but I did take a shower and dress, did not return to the argument, in fact, decided to keep my mouth shut. I read my daily meditations and blogs and I suppose I’m venting…to you:-)
Now I think I will spend quiet time in prayer — contemplative prayer. Thank you for your post. I feel the “edge” disappearing.
Thanks for stopping by, Jerry. I know that for me to write, I too need positive forces around me. Overall, I prefer to be positive and there is way too much negative. I hope all goes well and that your partner soon finds something that leads to happiness. Come again, anytime!