How to Restart a Bad Day
1 Apr 2022 · 12 min
In this episode of the Brendon Show, Brendon Burchard addresses the common experience of having a day go off‑track and offers a structured approach to “restarting” it. He begins by diagnosing why many people lose momentum—reactive habits, lack of clear daily priorities, and overwhelming distractions. He then outlines four core reset strategies: (1) Clarify the day’s key projects and priorities at the start, ensuring a proactive roadmap; (2) Take a physical break by walking outside with music, followed by a three‑part journaling exercise (gratitude, top three tasks, reward); (3) Use a 20‑minute meditation (the Release Meditation technique) and repeat the journaling step; (4) Engage in outward‑focused gratitude actions, such as surprising or thanking others, to shift mental state. He adds a final reset tool: simple self‑talk mantras (“be patient, I’m okay, I have faith, I’m here to serve”). Throughout, Brendon emphasizes resilience, the power of intentional habits, and the importance of community support via his Growth Day platform, urging listeners to share the episode, join the community, and track their progress. The episode blends motivational storytelling with concrete, actionable steps for personal productivity and emotional reset.
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Hello, my friends. I'm Brendon Burchard, host of the Brendon show and founder of growthday.com and I'm honored to be your high performance coach today. I believe that every day we can be inspired. We can live with intention and purpose. We can bring the joy and honor the struggles of each day to push ourselves to grow, to serve, to be a role model, to lead extraordinary lives. I believe that every day is a great day to grow. That's why I started my company, growthday.com it's an online personal growth platform where you can get me and the world's best personal development teachers live coaching you every week, sharing our wisdom, keeping you motivated and accountable, encouraging you to find the aliveness and the connection and meaning of life that we're all after. If you're not a member yet, please go sign up@growthday.com and join our huge worldwide community of achievers. For less than a dollar a day, you get the world's best teachers live every week. And look, you've probably known for a long time that you needed some expert guidance, an inspired community and life changing tools. So please, your breakthrough awaits you@growthday.com now let's get to today's episode. My friends, please listen closely. Maybe you take some notes so you remember these insights of personal growth and share this episode with three of your friends because we all have to share more positive messages in the world today. So share this with three friends just like you who are committed to their personal growth. And also be sure to tag me or DM me on Instagram. Rendon Burchard, join our million plus community there on Instagram so I can say hi, thanks again for listening. Now let's begin. Have you ever got in the middle.
Of your day and things just fell.
Apart and you were just like, I need a restart.
You know, you just wanted to start.
The whole day over.
You were thinking things were kind of going good and now I'm derailed. I got distracted. I stopped doing what I was supposed to be doing. I had a bad interaction with somebody or a conflict and now I feel bad about myself or about the day. And you just overall were frustrated with where you're at and you were struggling to restart. A lot of people don't have the resiliency to restart in the middle of the day and so they lose those last couple hours or the rest of the entire day to, to a bad mood, to bad energy, to bad productivity, to being ineffective. And because of that, it's costing us great amounts of progress in our own personal lives. And frankly, as a country, a nation and economy, we struggle with it a lot. People need to become more resilient. So what can you do? I got four ideas for you that might help today. The first one is if you find yourself getting derailed a lot in the middle of the day, we got it back up to the beginning of the day and ask an essential question. Did you know what you are really supposed to do today? Because a lot of people don't. They just go to work and they check their inbox to see what the heck's going on in the world. And then they start reacting, reacting, reacting, reacting, reacting all day. It's reacting to other people's texts all day, reacting to other people's needs all day, reacting to other people's emails. And they get in this reactive mode and all of a sudden, either A, they're done with that and they don't know what to do with themselves because they've trained themselves only to react. They can't be proactive, they can't be strategic, they don't even know how to think that way. So they're just like, I don't have to do it with myself. Or B, they get in a situation where there is a lot more coming out to them and they get completely overwhelmed by it and they have no agenda. So there's nothing to be returning to. There's nothing to get a footing back on because they haven't lost their way. They just never had a way. So at the beginning of the day, the best way not to lose your way during the day is to know at the outset of the day when, what are my key projects, my key priorities that I must work on today, must accomplish today? Who are the key people I need to reach out to or I'm waiting on who I can interact with or socialize with or collaborate or create with to move those projects and priorities forward so that no matter what you know.
Where you're going during the day, not.
Knowing your direction in the day and not knowing the main projects you're working towards in your life and is what causes so much distraction in our life and drama. Because, you know people who are on the path of purpose, they don't have time for drama or distraction. That stuff gets pushed to the side because they're busy crushing it every day. They're high performers. They're at that level that's just like they've gotten past the drama and the distractions of life and they're contributing. They're creating they're being proactive. They're becoming the leaders, the artists, the people who are the influencers and the thought leaders of the day because they got over that other stuff. I would say the second thing that we need to learn to do is a true reset. If you find yourself at 2 o', clock, the day's, you know, just completely derailed. You need to take time to give yourself a break and reset. And here's my favorite ways to do that. If I need to reset, I realize the day's all gone to crap. I will immediately stop everything if the day's gone to crap. Don't stay in your inbox. Don't keep doing the same thing you're doing. Take a step away from it. Literally. Go outside, take a walk. My favorite resets, I have two of them. One, I go outside, take my phone, I put on my favorite playlist of music, and I don't think about anything at all. I just listen to the music, and I walk for 20 minutes. When I come back to my desk or I come back to the house or I come back to wherever I was, I sit down, I bust out my journal, and I write three things. Number one, I start writing everything I'm grateful for because I'm trying to take my mind off of the day. So that's why I listen to the music with no thoughts, just listening to the lyrics and music, breathing as I'm walking. Sit down. What am I grateful for? Second, what three things must be accomplished today? Write those down. Third, what's my reward if I accomplish those three things? And for me, my reward is social. So I say if I finish these three. As soon as I finish these three things, I get to call my best friend from school who I haven't seen in years. If I finish these three things, I get to call my lady. If I finish these three things, I get to get up, I get to go have some green tea and some chocolate. Whatever it is for you, you need to have that reward. I write those down, and it reengages me with the blessings of life. Re engages me with what I need to accomplish, and re engages me with a simple reward. That's my first favorite way to reset. My second favorite way to reset is meditation. To just stop everything, close my eyes, do the release meditation technique. If you haven't learned that before, you can learn it from me on YouTube. Just type in my name and release meditation technique. And I do that for 20 minutes. When I open up my eyes, I stand, I stretch, I get some water, I come back and again, I write those three things, what I'm grateful for, what three things must be accomplished today, and ultimately, what's my reward for doing this? That's a great way to reset.
Hey, it's Brandon jumping back in here again. Are you looking to go to the next level in your life right now? The next level of joy, abundance, success? Then you already know that you need to journal about your lessons learned in your life. You got to track your moods and your habits. You have to learn from the best personal development coaches and teachers in the world. And you got to stay inspired and accountable so that you can be more focused, disciplined, joyous and keep growing. That's what the Growth Day app is going to help you to do, my friend. It's the world's first all in one personal development app. It has all of the tools you need, all the coaching and the community that you need to level up to progress every week, to track your breakthroughs and to keep growing in every area of your life consistently over the long term. So go start your transformation right now@growthday.com or just download the Growth Day app on your phone right now. Every day. You can keep improving every day. We are here for you. And every day is truly a great day to grow together. So let's make self improvement a way of life. Let's make that self improvement stick. Go to growthday.com right now.
Another one is to get outside of your head, to stop thinking it all has to be you accomplishing everything for you. And another great reset is to ask the simple question, what can I do right now to give a surprise, some attention or some gratitude and appreciation to somebody around me? Could I go thank the receptionist, someone who I haven't talked to for a while? Can I go pull a prank on a friend over here? Can I call somebody and prank them and make a joke with them? Can I call somebody randomly and say thank you? Can I sit down, just write a random thank you email to somebody I haven't talked to for a while? Can I shoot an iPhone video? Sending love to family or friend, get outside of myself and in service or surprise to somebody else helps me reboot the day because it gives me a social enthusiasm to engage with the day. And I would say then the last thing is to activate some just simple self talk. I know that sounds very sort of Personal Growth 101, but if the day is just gone all to hell, sometimes the best thing you can do is close your eyes and literally just talk to yourself. Just be like, I have this phrase I like to say. I like to close my eyes and say, be patient. I'm okay. I have faith. I'm here to serve.
Here we go.
Just say that over and over. Be patient. I'm okay. I have faith. I'm here to serve.
Here we go.
And I'll just repeat that several times. I mean 10, 15, 20 times. I until I feel a calmness come over me, put myself back in place of service, open my eyes and say, all right, here we go. And I'll get back at the day. Sometimes it's just simple self talk to reset yourself. I hope these ideas serve you because I know how challenging life can get. And as it does, just know this too shall pass. You know you'll get through it just like you've got through it before. I hope these strategies help you get through it in a more resilient, strong, productive, enthusiastic, grateful way. Because you know what? This day, no matter what, no matter what happens when the stuff hits the fan, when all goes to hell, you know what? You are still here. You are still blessed with breath. You are still blessed with this choice about what to make these next few moments, it's a blessing, this life we have. So take it seriously. Find faith in it. Find joy in it. Reset that day because you can.
Okay, my friend, I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Brennan Show Show. Tell some people about this episode. It's on each of us to spread positivity and empowerment during these times of chaos and negativity, right? So I'm asking you to be the dealer of hope and personal growth and education in your tribe. So take a screenshot right now and share the screenshot and this link to this episode with three of your friends today. Post it on social media. Use the hashtag growthday. That's growthday, because that's the name of my company and we're always giving away prizes to our community. If you'd like to help me personally, then please rate and review the podcasts on Apple Podcasts. Give us some stars. Cheer us on.
Leave a review.
Because believe it or not, that stuff actually really does help. And I read all of them. So my last thought for today, please remember you are stronger than you think and the future holds good things for you. Tomorrow can be an inspired day. Every new morning is a second chance. Every day is a great day to grow. We're thankful to have you here in the Growth Day community, so be sure to go deeper with us@growthday.com.
Sam.