Episode 304 · Dec 4, 2020

How to Get Through a Tough Day: Strategies That Actually Work

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Everyone hits a wall sometimes. George Wright III, host of The Daily Mastermind, dedicates this episode to the kind of day where hitting snooze feels like a victory and forward momentum feels impossible. Rather than brushing past those moments, George digs into why they happen and, more importantly, what you can do to break the cycle.

His message is direct: it is not about never having bad days. It is about building the structures, habits, and commitments that carry you through them regardless of how you feel.

Why Bad Days Happen to Everyone

Bad days are universal. George opens with a simple, honest admission: he was at the gym that morning not wanting to be there, every rep a struggle, his body sore from the week before. What pulled him through was a reminder he shares with his listeners often: "90% of success is just showing up."

The real danger is not a single bad day. It is the cycle. When you start feeling stuck, you do less, then you get hard on yourself, which makes it mentally harder to turn things around. Breaking that cycle early is the whole game.

Act in Spite of Your Mood

George draws on what he calls Prosperity Pillar Number Three: act in spite of your mood. Successful people do not skip bad days. They act anyway.

It's not that you don't have bad days. Everybody has bad days. It's just that they choose to act regardless of their mood.

This is the foundation. Everything else he recommends builds on the decision to move forward even when you do not feel like it.

Build Structure Before You Need It

Structure is one of George's core recommendations, and he makes a sharp distinction worth noting. Most people accept structure imposed from the outside, like a job with a schedule they will show up for whether they want to or not. But they rarely apply that same discipline to their own goals.

The fix is to create structure for yourself. Schedule workouts. Put commitments on the calendar. Make appointments with a trainer, a colleague, or a friend. When you set things up in advance, it becomes harder to talk yourself out of them in the moment. You are not relying on willpower; you are relying on a system.

Use Your Schedule as a Shield

Building on structure, George emphasizes that a full, intentional schedule is your best defense against mood-driven decisions. When you wake up without a plan, you are at the mercy of how you feel in that moment. When you have a schedule, the decision has already been made.

This applies to every area of life: business, family, fitness, and recovery. George is especially pointed about scheduling recovery time and lifestyle experiences like hikes, time with family, and moments that create memories. Most people wait until they feel like doing those things, and then they never happen.

Create Accountability That Sticks

Human nature resists discomfort and pressure. That is why accountability is not optional; it is essential.

You've got to be able to measure, you've got to be able to track, and you've got to be able to report all areas of your life.

George encourages both internal and external accountability. Tell someone what you are working toward. Send a weekly update. Join a mastermind group. The simple act of reporting your progress to another person creates a kind of gentle pressure that keeps you moving even when motivation is low.

Set Your Non-Negotiables

Perhaps the most powerful idea in this episode is the concept of non-negotiables: a small set of things that happen no matter what, no matter how bad your mood is, no matter what kind of week you are having.

For George, a morning workout is non-negotiable. He knows that when he exercises, his energy, ideas, and productivity all follow. He points to Gary Keller's concept of the one thing: the single domino that, when it falls, knocks everything else into place.

What's the one thing you can do in your life that if you do this, will knock down all the other dominoes?

Find that for yourself and protect it fiercely.

Action Steps

Identify one or two non-negotiables that anchor your day and commit to them unconditionally.
Build your schedule in advance across all areas of life: work, family, fitness, and recovery.
Create structure through appointments, commitments, and routines that make opting out harder.
Find one accountability partner, group, or reporting habit to keep you honest with your goals.
When a bad day hits, use a prepared tool to break the cycle: a song, a photo, a quote, or a quick physical reset.

Every Day Is a Clean Slate

George closes with two reminders worth writing down. First, every single day is a clean slate. A tough week does not define the next one. Second, every moment is an opportunity for a fresh start. You do not have to wait until Monday or January first. The turning point is a decision you can make right now.

With the right structure, accountability, and a few non-negotiables in your corner, you can turn even your hardest days into proof that you showed up. It is never too late to start living the life you were meant to live.

READ THE FULL TRANSCRIPT

Welcome back to The Daily Mastermind. My name is George Wright III, and I hope you're having an amazing week. Going into the weekend here, I wanted to share a few thoughts with you. And unfortunately, due to a bunch of masterminds and different things we had going yesterday, I wasn't able to get an episode out to you. So I had a quote of the day yesterday I wanted to bring out, and that was by Ogmandino. and his quote is, life is a game. I find myself so much lately trying to find more and more ways to make life a game and see it as a game and play it as a game in order to really be able to create more fulfillment results and success in my life. I hope you're trying to do the same. And then today, the Daily Mastermind quote of the day is, do not tie your earnings to the number of hours you work. I think that's a great piece of advice because I think so many of us want more and more out of life, but we still treat life like it's a job. And we punch a clock. And what we need to realize is that in order to follow our passions and do things we need to do, we need to stop punching a clock and doing the time in our head or keeping track of time and a time card and just start to live and breathe and build our life and our business and our relationships around what's most important and just set our priorities rather than trying to look for the end of our day or the end of the time that we have to spend on things. So anyway, what I wanted to do today is I wanted to talk to you a little bit about how to get through a tough day. When was the last time you had a really bad day? You know what I mean? The kind of day where you hit your snooze bar on your alarm or your phone a bunch of times, let's say maybe so many times you can't remember, or you just know you're going to wake up the next morning and you've got to set two alarms because the first one's not going to wake you up. Or, you know, you're going through life and you just, you're going through your day and you just don't feel like doing anything. You don't feel like giving it your all. You don't feel like playing it 100%. You don't feel like moving forward. And yet you feel and you know what you need to do and you feel like you're going to regret that the next day or you feel like you're leaving things hanging. And then you start to cycle into these times where you just start to get stuck in your head and you're really not making results happen. Well, look, I've had those days. We've all had those days. We definitely all have those days. In fact, I was at the gym today, and I was thinking to myself, man, I do not want to be here. My whole body hurts from working out the last week at a whole other level with my trainer, and I just didn't feel like doing it, and every single set and every rep was kind of a struggle, and I had to stop for a minute, and I had to think about it, and I had to remind myself, like the quote that you hear a lot of times, 90% of success is just showing up. And so you have to start by taking the pressure off yourself and acknowledging that you showed up Recognize and appreciate that Be grateful that you doing what you doing and if you not doing it recognize that you have the opportunity to turn that around at any given moment The problem is we cycle into these modes where more and more time goes by and we do less and less and then we start to get hard on ourselves and it makes it harder, really in our minds, to turn things around. So I know that we all have these types of days, but you know, it's how you respond to these days and it's how you respond to the difficult situations that's really going to define you as a person and your degree and amount of success and happiness that you're going to have in your life. So today what I wanted to do is I just wanted to give you a few little things that I've done or things that you can use, maybe jog your memory, give you some inspiration on how to get out of these traps that we get stuck in, the cycles. You know, the I'm trapped inside my head or I don't feel like doing this kind of days. I want to really just give you a few ideas and get you thinking because awareness and finding ways and solutions is the key, right? So prosperity pillar number three says I act in spite of my mood. And I just wanted to start with that because there is a reason that this pillar exists. There's a reason that this happens because successful people act in spite of their mood. It's not that you don't have bad days. Everybody has bad days. It's just that they choose to act regardless of their mood. They choose to act anyway. They choose to do something anyway. And even though it's difficult, more importantly, they find ways to be able to make that happen. So I know it's easier said than done. And I want to discuss with you kind of some ideas on how you can start to have, maybe eliminate those bad days or reduce the number, have more good days than bad days, or maybe just deal with the bad days when you have them. So there's a couple things that I recommend. Number one, structure. structure and there's a big difference between daily routines or daily rituals and structure i'm talking about things boundaries barriers and things that are in place that are going to push you through and eliminate the the ability you have to get stuck and fall behind because most of us settle for structures from outside ourselves let's be honest i mean if you don't feel like going to work you usually go to work anyway you know people outside of us put structure on us all the time like a job. You know, we will go to work whether we want to go or not, right? You'll get up and go whether you want to go or not because you have to. And you can tell yourself that you do that as a choice, but really it's other people putting structure on our lives and we're willing to do it at that point. But why don't we do that when it's for ourselves? Well, we need to find ways to set our own structure on ourselves. So things like scheduling workouts or having meetings in calendar or setting up routines or making commitments to other people. When you do all these types of things, you're creating structure that doesn't really make it easy. That's the point. You don't want to make it easy on yourself to be able to opt out of things that you know you need to do. So by creating structure and commitments and schedule and things like that it make it harder for you to fall out of sync And my next suggestion is schedule That is really the best example of structure See when you wake up and start your day or you get home from work or whatever you're doing and you don't already have things scheduled, well then you fall prey to what your mood is. And you don't want to be prey to what your mood or your mind is at the point in time. When you set your goals and structure in life and the things you want to accomplish, the milestones, you want to put as much into your schedule as possible. It's not about staying busy. It's about staying consistent. So whether it's scheduling calls or a Zoom or a meeting or time with your family or time to build relationship or time to work on your passion or your talent, schedule it out. Because when it's scheduled, it's much more difficult to be able to decide that you're not in the mood to do what you need to do. Another examples and ways you can do this is set appointments. Set appointment with a trainer or with a friend or with a colleague or a partner or people at work. When you have appointments in your schedule, it's going to keep you structured. The other thing is you should schedule all areas of your life. Business, family, lifestyle, just like a job would. You know, some of us, we don't even make enough time for ourselves to recuperate or create memories or lifestyle. Schedule in those times to be able to go do fun stuff, do hikes, do time with your family, do stuff with friends, create memories, schedule those out. Because most of us, when we wait around to the last minute, we don't get it done. And you have to schedule your recovery as much as you do your stress and business and priorities. You've got to schedule recovery time as well. That's very, very important. Another thing that I would recommend is accountability. This is one that we all know human nature fights against things that are going to give us pain and stress and pressure and that are going to stretch us outside our comfort zone. So we need accountability in order to survive and thrive, in order to really push us. So you can look for ways to find internal accountability or external accountability. Find ways to hold yourself to the fire, hold yourself to the commitments that you made and things like that. Ask for help from other people. Get support from friends, family, colleagues, business relationships, mentors. Create those milestones. Because the other important thing about accountability is you've got to be able to measure, you've got to be able to track, and you've got to be able to report all areas of your life. Are you making progress? Sometimes reporting is the simplest way to create accountability. You may not have someone holding you accountable, but if you tell them that you want to be able to send them a daily report or give them an update or communicate once a week or set up a mastermind that you meet once every week or a couple weeks or even a month, that accountability will go a long ways for you. And then finally, the last thing I wanted to suggest is you've got to find and create and set a few non in your life And what I mean by that these are These are things that no matter what have to get done These are things that you make the decision and the commitment that no matter what these are going to happen No matter how you feel, no matter how bad your mood is, no matter what kind of cycle you're in, you will not mess this up. And these might be things that you value. So it's going to be areas that are priorities for you like your health or your relationships or your business or people. Find a couple, at least have a couple of non-negotiables in your life because those are the things that are going to carry you through. Health and fitness is one of mine. I know that if I work out in the morning, so many other things go right. So many other things from my energy to my day to my ideas to my thoughts. And so a workout in the morning is something that's a non-negotiable for me. Determine what you'll find that like Gary Keller writes in his book, The One Thing. What's the big domino? What's the one thing you can do in your life that if you do this, will knock down all the other dominoes? What's that one thing? And make that your non-negotiable. If it's getting up a certain time, if it's meeting with a certain person, if it's having some accountability, if it's working out, what is that one domino? It might be getting up and doing gratitude or having a journal. What's the one big domino you can use to knock down all the rest of them in your life? And make that a non-negotiable. Now, I want you to remember a couple of key things. and the key things that I want you to remember is that every single day is a clean slate. Don't get wrapped up in the past, no matter whether you had a couple of bad days or a whole week of bad days this last week. Every day is a clean slate. You've got to look at it that way in order to really capitalize on it. And second, every moment in your life is an opportunity to create a fresh start. You might have been having the worst day in the world, and the moment that you recognize that and you choose, because the key, the turning point in your day, in your life, is the decision. And it's basically a choice. It's your choice. You can choose to start fresh from this moment on. Learn to do that. Learn to minimize the number of bad days or recognize them when they happen. Come up with some strategies that work for you, whatever it is that really motivates and inspires you the most. And then learn to break the cycle when you do recognize and get those bad days. Have a few tools at your disposal. It might be a really positive song. It might be good pictures. It might be pictures of your family or your goals or your vision. Whatever it is that you know will help break you out of that cycle, have those ready. Be prepared. And then find a way to push through and recognize and be grateful for the efforts and the awareness and the commitment to growing that you have. When you recognize and acknowledge that, it'll go a long way for you. So that's my message for today. Create some non-negotiables. Find some schedule. Find some structure. Find some accountability. and you're going to be able to turn a tough day or a bad day into an amazing day. And I know you can do it. And I hope you have an amazing weekend. Look forward to talking with you next week. Once again, this is George Wright III and this has been The Daily Mastermind. Talk to you soon.