At work, my desk has turned into Rosie’s therapy corner where the interns like to come to my desk, vent about their day and I send them back to their desk with some words of wisdom. It is not my job or anyone else’s to discredit anyone’s feelings or say they should just feel better because I said so. We are all allowed to feel discouraged, but I tell everyone that tomorrow will be better. Tomorrow is a chance to start again. And every single time, the next day is always better. 

For someone who has struggled with anxiety, self-doubt and overthinks everything, I have had to find ways to cope with all of the voices in my head that may prevent me from experiencing life fully. I have been painfully shy my entire life causing me to be too afraid to go somewhere alone, introduce myself, invite myself to something or even speak up. The last few years I have been getting better at faking confidence and starting to believe it myself.

However, I still have those days that I doubt my abilities or feel like I could be better. Eventually, I learned that I need to stop obsessing over the things that went wrong in my day and go to bed knowing that tomorrow will be better. I can oversleep, mess up at work, come home to have zero energy to clean up my messy apartment or make dinner. On those days, I just take a shower and go to bed telling myself that tomorrow will be better. Tomorrow is a chance to start again. I know it is just words, but this way of thinking has helped me during this move to Philly, transitioning into my new job and the hardest part of all; having a real weekend after working retail the last year and a half.

Some extra effort in the morning

The next day, I will get up and make some extra effort in my appearance. I always feel happiest with my hair blown out and makeup on. I’ll put on an outfit I feel confident in and leave my apartment looking put together. If you go to work feeling like a slob, you are not going to feel your best. You can fake your confidence a bit by just looking put together. Trust me, you will feel better if you are not worrying about your appearance all day.

Make a plan

The day before I messed up or didn’t get something done that I should have. This time, I schedule things in my day that will bring me joy and rearrange my schedule to better fit my needs. I’ll come home from work and do a quick workout or actually make a real dinner that doesn’t involve a microwave that night. I like to overthink each decision I make the next day to make sure I don’t make a mistake again or find a way to ruin my mood. Sometimes we can’t prevent everything bad that comes our way, so that is when you call up your friend to get a drink after work to vent after work.

Change up your routine

If I am finding myself having bad days, it is because something in my life needs to change. Am I giving myself enough alone time? Do I need to adjust my bedtime to get more sleep? Or am I giving myself too much alone time? One of my favorite things to do is to take a long way home after work and go in the opposite of my direction to just walk around the city. I can do it on my own, it doesn’t cost anything and it is actually really relaxing after sitting at a desk all day. My worst fear is that my life will become too repetitive and days will blur into each other. I try to do as much as I can when I am not at work so I can look back on the week each Friday and feel like I did something. Go to the gym, get dinner with friends after work or just walking around the city, all things to look forward to in the week.