Optimizing your bad days.
Working as a youth drug abuse counselor, I see a lot of patterns in the way people think—especially the kids I work with. One of the biggest struggles I see is black-and-white thinking. If I’m not going to do it perfectly, I won’t do it at all. If I can’t be 100% clean, I might as well relapse. If I can’t get my life together overnight, what’s the point? This kind of thinking is a trap.
I had a conversation the other day that really stuck with me: your good days will stay good, but your bad days—that’s where we see growth. That’s where the real work happens. That’s where you level up.
What Are Your Bad Days Now?
I think about what my bad days used to look like. Waking up and smoking heroin. Stealing money. Lying. Getting caught up in the cycle of feeling like trash, numbing the feeling, then feeling even worse. That was my baseline.
Now? My bad days look different. I hit snooze on my alarm when I know I should get up. I eat outside of my scheduled routine and feel off. I get distracted and I’m not present when my wife is talking to me. I’m sick and feel low energy. My problems are still real, but they’re different. My bad days aren’t destructive anymore—they’re something I can optimize.
Optimizing Your Bad Days
Your good days don’t need much work. You wake up feeling good, your energy is solid, you’re locked in—you don’t need to force anything. But your bad days? That’s where you grow. That’s where you have the opportunity to get better.
Right now, it’s sad season. People are sick. People are depressed. The weather is trash. And the thing about these seasons is that they expose you. When you don’t feel great, who are you? What do you fall back on? Because that’s the real you.
That’s why routine and structure matter. When you don’t feel good, when you don’t want to show up, when you’re exhausted or overwhelmed—that’s when you need to lean on the systems you’ve built. That’s when you put your head down, trust the process, and move forward.
I have two choices today: be a victim or attack the day. That’s it.
The world is not against me. The world is working with me. It’s conspiring to help me.
Maktub—It Is Written
In The Alchemist, there’s a concept called Maktub, which means “it is written.” It doesn’t mean everything is predestined and you have no control. It means that the world is always moving you toward where you’re meant to be—if you’re willing to listen.
If you lean into the lessons, if you optimize your bad days, if you recognize that every struggle is an opportunity to grow—then you start to see that nothing is random. The bad days? They’re necessary. They’re pushing you forward.
So today, you have a choice. Will you let today happen to you, or will you attack it?
