Now, to be honest, I’m more of a night owl so waking up in the morning has never felt “great” to me. In fact, mid way through my first meeting of the day, I’m usually zoning in and out of conversation trying to figure out how I’m going to have a great day. The desire for one growing along side the multiple fires I’m finding out about and will need immediate resolution.

Now, that’s not to say my recent bad days have been anything comparable to your bad days. I’m just some guy on the internet who’s recent string of misfortunes caused me to log back onto my stale site that I started a few years ago to document my experiences in the hopes that somebody like you may stumble across it and be able to take something from this that I was unable to find when I needed it.

One run-on sentence later and I’m ready to get into How not to Have a Bad, not to be confused with my first and only post as of now, How to be Successful in Life.

It’s one that makes you say “Well at least it was better than yesterday”. In other words, it was tolerable and an improvement.

Kind of a low bar, I know, but bear with me.

Something that’s always been confusing to me in hind sight is how much I let the day prior or the day after affect my perception of today. Whether it be something terrible that happened yesterday, such as dropping my motorcyle (RIP), that I now have to deal with today or something that I’m not looking forward to doing tomorrow, such as taking my motorcyle in for repairs.

Both of these things cause me to have a negative outlook on today, which brings me to my first point.

This is something that is a birthright for some, and a learned skill for most. It’s the ability to take understand and ingest the moment you’re living in, instead of preparing for the next.

This is CRITICAL for your journey to have a great day. It means pausing for at least 60 seconds, closing your eyes and just focusing on your breathing (not to be confused with getting trapped in a manual breathing cycle). During those 60 seconds, what I like to do is not focus on the act of breathing, but instead the breaths of air as they flow in and out of my lungs.

During this time, I might also focus on other external things, such as ambient sounds or the weight of my body.

I know it sounds corny, but try to find at least 60 seconds every day to do this.

You need to sleep.

As somebody who averaged less than 20 hours of sleep for a few months and is now getting well over 30, this is hugely beneficial!

Now, if you’re anything like me and struggle to get to sleep, then keep reading. Otherwise, save your time and skip to the next section.

I will move this into it’s own post soon and cover in more detail, but in order to provide you immediate value I wanted to add a few high level tips.

• Don’t nap before bed – If you’re going to take a nap, plan to wake up at least 8 hours before the time you plan to sleep.
• Get close to 8 hours of sleep – If you’re running on a few hours of sleep, that urge to resist a nap is going to be difficult. Causing you to break bullet point 1. Don’t break bullet point 1.
• Avoid caffeine – Same timeline as bullet point 1. If you’re going to drink caffeine, do it at least 8 hours before the time you plan to fall asleep.
• Get a sleep mask – This is my #1 recommendation. My friends bully me for it, but the efficiency that I fall asleep is so worth it. It enables me to have enough patience to tolerate their hazing…

Somebody who always does what they should for the benefit of others will never be happy for themselves. This was the recent motivation for me behind How to want to get out of bed.

Whatever it may be, make sure you’re doing it for you. Maybe you want to play NYT Games, write in a journal, meditate, and/or cook breakfast. It doesn’t matter what you do, as long as you’re doing it to benefit you.

This DOES NOT include scrolling IG reels for an hour (although I’m guilty of doing this for at least 5 reels every morning to get me out of bed too).

Take 60 seconds of each day to trap yourself in your mind and enter a zen state. It’s difficult to explain, but there’s something therapeutic about trapping yourself with your thoughts and allowing yourself to forcefully push them out of your head.

Sleep well. Begin tired isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but allowing yourself to stay in a constant state of exhaustion is.

Do something for yourself. Even if it’s for one hour out of 24, it’s something that you do for yourself and you will look forward to every day.