I was getting dressed one morning recently and as I pulled my shirt over my head, I realized that not only did I have it on wrong side out, but backwards too. After chuckling to myself, I had an unsettling thought. What if that sets the tone for the rest of my day?

Have you ever had that kind of day when everything you do is either backward or inside out? Yeah, me too. Here’s how I choose to handle those days.

1. Hit the reset button. When things are going wrong in your day/week/month, it is okay to take a breather from whatever is causing the stress. Take a walk, listen to your favorite music, go to a movie, read a book. By spending some down time doing things you enjoy, you can turn that bad day feeling around.
2. Laugh at yourself. The inside out backwards shirt incident is worthy of a little chuckle. And so are many other slip ups during the day if you take the right attitude about them.  Next time one of those annoying blunders threatens to disrupt your day, laugh it off.
3. Learn from it. Are there missteps that you can fix if you start paying more attention? I recently tripped on an irregular surface along a sidewalk I walk often. Total face plant, cracked rib and all. Now when I walk on that route, I pay very close attention during that section. I may still be a klutz, but I won’t fall THERE again!
4. Stop Fretting.  As author Wendell Barry says, “All right, every day ain’t going to be the best day of your life, don’t worry about that.”

And I say learn, reset, laugh it off, and move on.