The ‘Bad Mood’ Fiasco — How It Is A Sluggish Enemy Of Your Work
I am not feeling like working today
Didn’t wake up feeling normal today?
Hell, this is not a work-friendly mood you have.
Now, what will you do?
You probably would just slog around.
Just two days back you had carved out a nice elaborate routine for yourself, and announced to the world (..okay, just to your self), that you would follow it religiously for the next six months. Without worrying about the claps, without looking at the follower count, you would just do it. You were all charged up that you were now going to write your story to success, and probably pour all your struggles and your efforts out when you would get invited on one of yours favorite podcast. Inspire people, and gain popularity.
You had dreamt it all. There was no spoiler.
Nothing to stop you. Nothing that you knew of.
But, today just doesn’t feel like yesterday.
You dragged yourself out of the bed. You forced yourself to do some meditation hoping it would do some magic to your mood. You even tried hitting the gym, or performing some weird yoga poses.
But, nothing worked. NOTHING.
You are still in that groggy, crappy, awful mood. You don’t feel excited.
And now you are scared. Of course, the other regular tasks of your day would bear the wrath of your mood, but the most affected would be your WORK.
What if your mood or the way you feel, doesn’t support your dream?
You didn’t think about it while carving out your action plan,did you? Poor you, as if you didn’t know.
It has not happened for the first time. This must be your trillionth time!
After all, your mood or your feelings have always played against you. They have always been like a villain in your dream story. It’s just, that in your story, the villain always wins.
And now you sit there. Unable to leave your bed. Scrolling endlessly on your phone. Not even focusing on the reels while you are watching them. Your mind is restless. Your heart is empty. Your eyes drooping, and your body, sucked out of energy.
You are not feeling like doing anything.
Your calendar sends a task notification on your phone. You look at it for a while with extreme guilt. You sigh. And then you quietly swipe off that notification, so you don’t have to feel that guilt again.
And then you start playing the blame game, like 90% of the people in this world do.
No, you don’t blame your family, or your neighbours, or your body, or the world.
You blame your mood. And then you sit and reflect what went wrong where? Why are you feeling the way you are feeling? And most of the times, no answers appear.
I wonder if this happens with the successful people also, or it is just the ones who are trying to make their mark, are put through such kind of ‘mood tests’.
And then a dangerous thought appears from a faraway land.
I do not feel like doing anything today. Maybe tomorrow, If I feel better, I would….
And you go back to your Insta reels.
This is the story of the people like me when they start working for themselves.
But now let’s flip the coin. And find out what happens, when you work for somebody else?
You wake up in the morning with excruciating pain in your head.
Oh, Man! I can’t go to work today.
But then, all of a sudden you hear the skies talking.
You had just taken a sick leave this month, and you are still nowhere near to dying. You remember the face of your boss the last time you entered the office after your leave, and you felt embarrassed for an unknown reason. That face still scares you.
So you get up anyway, finish your daily chores, gulp down a painkiller along with your breakfast, and leave for work. You work for 8-plus hours, ignoring your headache or the discomfort it brings along with it.
You return from work tired and groggy, muttering to yourself, you are not going go to the office if you dont feel better the next day, but deep down you know, this was just one pacifying lie you told to yourself.
You, anyway, would go, because you are working for someone else.
In his biography, Will Smith narrates how he does not care about his feelings at all.
“Many of my feelings have been enemies to my dream and to our prosperity. I don’t feel like running five miles at 5 a.m. I don’t feel like working eighty hours a week. I don’t feel like getting booed onstage. And I know if I worry about how I feel, I won’t be able to feed, clothe, house, and protect my family. When I determine the right action for our survival and prosperity, it doesn’t matter to me that I don’t feel like doing it. When people are too worried about how they feel, they’ll never feel how they want to feel.”
Those lines are hard-hitting. Especially for someone like you, whose entire life is defined by how you feel.
But just look back and pay attention.
When you started something, did it for some time, like the least amount of time, and then left it because you did not feel like doing it.
You set the alarm for 5 for the next morning, and you slept on time in the night, but the next morning, you only negotiated with yourself for a few seconds before hitting that snooze button, because you did not feel like getting up.
You wanted to hit the gym, or do yoga, or meditate, but you skipped them, not once, but N number of times, Why? Because…
Thats right.
You did not feel like doing them.
And then you look at all the successful people around you, and think, they just got lucky.
Do they really show up every day? They must be nuts to go out there and work every day. Of course, they are just favoured.
But probably you are not familiar with the pain that comes along with it. The pain of not following up. The pain of not being consistent. The pain of not showing up every day. That pain that is eating you up from inside, because your feelings are not letting you move further away in life. The pain that you are going to put your future self through because you were not at all sympathetic towards your future self. Because you are not doing what it takes to get there.
You might be thinking it’s been years since you are trying to be consistent. But something always happens that spoils your mood.
Your mood is not constant. And so is true for all the people out there.
Hence if you work by your mood, your life is set to be doomed.
Think of it.
In life, you need to be as consistent as the Sun. You need to shine every day to let people feel your warmth.
You may not put up your best work some days, but at least you can applaud yourself that you still showed up.
The hard truth of life is not to fail, but to realize that you did not learn anything from your failures.
The hard truth is you did not get back up and tried doing what you had to do over again.
The hard truth is you might have dreamt really high for yourself, but you never really put in efforts to prove your worth to your dreams.
Successful people do not work by the feelings. They work beyond their feelings. They work with headaches. They work with broken limbs. They work amidst family crisis. They work with visible and invisible wounds. They work even when they are burnt out.
It is very easy to stand far away and look at all the hush and plush of the rich and successful people. Behind them, is always a person who is hardcore disciplined, and extremely laborious.
To BECOME like them, you need to BE like them. Procrastination hidden behind bad mood isn’t worth at all.
And it’s not that hard. Taking control over your emotions is a skill.
Move your limbs a bit. Behave like a lunatic jumping jack if you have to. Play loud music. Rock or Jazz, Or whatever gets you in the mood. Ahem, to work. Listen to inspirational podcasts, or read something that can move you. Take a pen and a notepad and write down how are you feeling and what can you do to feel better. Make a list of things you feel grateful for today. Just do any damn thing to buck yourself up.
And get started.
There is nothing more satisfying than ticking off tasks on your work calendar. And at the end of the day, it would feel like a great win, pat yourself on the back, or wherever you want. Man, you didn’t succumb to your feelings. You became bigger than them.
Celebrate the win. And repeat. These tests will come again. And very soon.
You might face the next one the next morning.
Initially it might feel like climbing 27865 stairs, but you are now familiar with that feeling that you feel once you get through it successfully, that amazing feeling when you show up and chew all your frogs, mercilessly.
