It's ok to have bad days.

Bad days happen.

Like rain and sun, bad days complement the good days in our lives.

So why do we struggle so much when they come? And how does that struggle perpetuate the problem?

I've been through my fair share of bad days, especially since taking the leap and starting my own business in 2009. Before I did that, my bad days were far greater in number. There was always something going wrong whether it was at work or with my health or with relationships. Entrepreneurship involves a whole different set of life lessons and I've grown up a lot since deciding to work for myself. 

One thing I've learned is how to embrace the bad days as part of the process. When I had a steady paycheck, it was easy to rest on my laurels and complain about so many other things. It brought a certain sense of entitlement I didn't even realize I had.

When I had to bust my ass for every dollar I earned, it really made me value my money and helped me see how to alter my character for better success and better days.

Part of changing our character means embracing bad days. They come with the territory of being brave and putting yourself out there. Rejection doesn't feel great but it's part of the process of risking something that we want to give the world something it needs. Or maybe just to live the life we dream about. 

It's hard to embrace days. We want to feel good most of the time and bad days mean we feel like crap. Who wants that?! To avoid feeling like that, we do all kinds of things to try to escape the feeling. Ever notice that the relief doesn't last long? We just get really good at distracting ourselves and then, womp womp, here comes the crap feeling again. 

But, when we can sit and accept bad days, we come to appreciate the good ones even more. We see what we do to make the good days happen. We focus on what to do MORE of and where to put less energy and time. 

Maybe most importantly, when we can see a bad day as a choice, we can shorten the time we spend struggling. We can allow it to hang out for a little bit. We don't fight it. We don't distract ourselves. 

We just say that it's ok to have a bad day.

And almost immediately, that bad day suddenly becomes not so bad after all.