How to Hit the Reset Button on a Bad Day
Have you ever had one of those bad days where something unexpected throws everything off? Maybe you got stuck in unexpected traffic, got lost doom-scrolling, or just felt like nothing was going right.
If you’re someone with ADHD, days like these can feel even more overwhelming. Your executive functioning skills may take a hit, leaving you feeling like it’s impossible to get back on track.
But here’s the good news: You can hit the reset button at any point in your day.
As an executive functioning coach for adults with ADHD, I’ve seen firsthand how small shifts can turn things around. In this post, I’ll share five practical strategies to help you restart your day and get back on track—because it’s never too late to make a change.
My Crappy Morning: A Lesson in Resetting a bad day
Let me give you a little peek into my day recently. It started off like every other morning—alarm goes off, I snooze it (more than once), and then take my dogs, Moose and Georgia, outside. Moose managed to step in poop, and in my half-awake state, I thought, “No big deal, I’ll just wipe his foot off in the entryway.” Big mistake.
Next thing I knew, there was poop everywhere—on my hand, on the floor—everywhere. I know that’s TMI and gross, but I need you to picture the chaos.
Cue the mental freakout. My brain immediately went into all-or-nothing thinking: “The day is ruined. I’m in such a bad mood now. I can't record a podcast. My whole day is ruined.” So much drama.
And my partner swooped in and cleaned everything up and saved the day. Literally.
He reminded me, “It’s only 7 a.m.” That simple statement pulled me back to reality. My day wasn’t ruined. It was just a moment, not a whole-day disaster.
Why You Get Stuck in All-or-Nothing Thinking
Your brain loves to catastrophize.
Executive functioning skills—like emotional regulation, planning, and flexibility—can feel out of reach when something unexpected happens. This often leads to all-or-nothing thinking, where a minor setback feels like the end of the world. Recognizing this pattern is key to managing it, and it’s one of the reasons why executive function coaching for ADHD can be so transformative.
You can reset, reframe, and keep going.
5 Strategies to Restart Your Day
Name What’s Happening: The first step to getting back on track is naming the situation. Say to yourself, “I’m feeling frustrated right now,” or “I’m overwhelmed.” This helps your brain process the emotions, and gives you a little space to pause and reflect. It sounds simple, but it works.
Challenge Your Thoughts: Remember, your thoughts aren’t always true. When your brain starts saying things like “This day is ruined,” you have to challenge that. Is the whole day really ruined, or are you just frustrated by one moment? Naming and reframing those thoughts can help you see things more clearly.
Change Your Scenery: Sometimes, a simple change of scenery can do wonders for your mindset. Move to a different room, take a short walk, or step outside for some fresh air. A new environment helps shift your thinking and can make it easier to reset.
Move Your Body: Physical movement helps your brain break free from being stuck. Whether it’s stretching, dancing to your favorite song, or a quick walk, moving your body helps release that mental tension and gives you a little energy boost. This is a great strategy for ADHDers who may struggle with motivation or focus.
Take the Smallest, Most Realistic Step: Once you’ve identified the problem and moved around a bit, ask yourself, “What’s the smallest, most realistic step I can do right now?” It might mean getting back to your plan or adjusting it. Either way, the goal is to take one step forward and get unstuck. This is a key component of executive functioning coaching—breaking big tasks down into manageable pieces.
When to Adjust the Plan
Sometimes, sticking with your original plan doesn’t make sense after a rough start. Let’s say you were planning to go to the gym after work, but the day has drained you, and your energy is low. Instead of pushing through, you might decide to take a walk or do part of your workout at home.
Adjusting the plan doesn’t mean you’re failing; it means you’re being flexible with your time and energy. That’s a win.
Give Yourself Permission to Re-prioritize
When something throws off your day, something has to give. If a task takes longer or unexpected events pop up, remember you have limited time and energy. It’s okay to reprioritize and adjust your plans to fit what’s realistic.
So often, we feel like we have to do everything—but that’s just not true. Check in with yourself and decide what really needs your attention, and what can wait.
Final Thoughts: You Can Always Reset
Bad days happen, but they don’t have to stay bad. Give yourself credit for noticing when things aren’t going well, and know that you have the power to reset—whether it’s 7 a.m. or 7 p.m.
Practice being kind and patient with yourself, because you deserve it.
And remember, you’re not alone in this journey. Bookmark this one for the next time you need a little reminder that it’s never too late to reclaim your day.
How do you get unstuck & take action? Create your own individualized toolbox!
Sign up for the free on-demand training and discover:
My proven 3 part formula to help you get “unstuck” and take action
How to build a toolbox so you can finally finish the tasks that have been on your to-do list forever
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Sarah Lovell (00:00)
Have you ever had one of those days where something throws the entire day off? You're feeling disappointed and frustrated and it feels impossible to get back on track. The whole day feels ruined. Maybe you had unexpected news dropped on you, felt paralyzed trying to plan for the day, or you found yourself doom scrolling for way too long and now you just can't shake that funk.
Well, guess what? You can hit the reset button on your day at any point in time. It's totally possible to turn things around even when it feels like the universe is conspiring against you. In today's episode, we're diving into five practical ways to restart your day and get back on track, even when it feels overwhelming and awful. Ready to reclaim your day? Take a deep breath and let's do this together.
I start my day the same way every single day because I have two dogs. And so without a doubt, my phone alarm goes off to wake me up. I usually snooze it at least once if I'm being totally honest, sometimes more. But the dogs really get the day going. Like they are eager to get outside. And so I, every single day.
I get out of bed and I take the dogs out to go to the bathroom. I get them their breakfast. I make my coffee. That is every single morning, the flow that I do. And then what I do after that depends on the day and how I'm feeling and all of that. But I know that that is how my day starts. And I started my day that way this morning, but then it just derailed. So when I had the dogs out to go to the bathroom, Moose and Georgia, my two dogs,
I was definitely in autopilot mode, like awake, but not totally there. And Moose managed to step in poop. And I know this is like a TMI story, but I just like have to share it because it was, now it's funny. In the moment I was like, my gosh, what is happening?
So in my head, I thought, okay, he just got a little on his foot, we can clean this up, it's not that big of a deal, sometimes this happens, right, I guess, I don't know, not really. So I, my, again, like morning low energy brain fog, totally not firing on all the cylinders yet, I was like, okay, I will take him into the entryway and wipe his foot off in the entryway.
In retrospect, obviously, as I've told other people this story, they're like, what were you thinking, bringing him into the house with poop on his foot? But that's what I did. And it was way worse of a situation than I thought it was, because as soon as we got into the house and I tried to wipe his foot, I realized there was way more poop on it than I thought. And so in trying to wipe his foot with paper towels that I have by the front door, I managed to then get
poop on my hand. And at this point, I yelled up to my partner to come help the situation, because I needed more support. so he came down, took Moose outside. I went and cleaned my hands and got the stuff that I needed to help clean up Moose more. And when I got downstairs in the entryway, I realized
my gosh, there is poop all over the floor now because Moose had stepped and spread poop in like 10 different spots in the entryway while I was trying to manage this situation that I thought was not as big of a deal as it was.
So basically, my partner and I were able to clean Moose up, clean the entryway, and everything worked out fine. Like it was not the worst situation it could have been, although it definitely was not great. But immediately, my brain went into all or nothing thinking and started like catastrophizing what this meant for my day.
realistically only took 10 to 15 minutes of management of like cleaning up moose, cleaning the entryway, like re -getting back on track. But my brain was like, this was the worst way to start the day. Now I'm in a cranky mood. That means because I'm not in a good mood, I can't record a podcast episode because I don't want it to be like I'm grumpy on my podcast.
And that means if I can't do my podcast, that means my whole plan for the day is thrown off. That means I should probably cancel the yoga class I'm gonna go to in the evening. Like my brain just started going into overdrive of how this one incident was going to domino my entire day. And at that point, this was not funny. Like now it's funny. But in that moment, I was like, my day is over.
And like our brains do that. Our brains go to that extreme thinking as a way to try to protect us. And in this situation, it wasn't really protecting me. Like I needed to reframe it for myself. And it's really hard to do that when your brain has fully activated and you're in that thought process. And so my partner who was slightly...
removed from the situation, even though he was helping me manage it and clean up, said, it's only 7 a The day isn't over. And I was like, my gosh, that's exactly what I needed to hear in this moment to kind of just like take a deep breath and be like, you're right. Like my whole day isn't ruined. This weird amount of this weird morning and weird time is an isolated event.
Like I could let this carry through my whole day and like be in that all or nothing thinking of like my day is ruined or like this has totally changed my plan for the day when in reality that wasn't the case. And so this is something that I actually talk about with clients a lot, but sometimes we need that reminder for ourselves of like you can notice your thinking, challenge it, shift it.
with some reminders for yourself. And then that becomes a more positive domino effect of instead of letting the domino of the dog stepping in poop this morning tumble my entire day, I'm going to remove a domino from that, from the lineup and say, okay, I had a weird morning. I was not expecting this. My, everything feels a little bit off and weird, but I can reset.
And that is exactly what we're gonna talk about today. How do you notice it, name it, and what are some strategies that can help you reset? And this is something that I do practice in my daily life. Like I've practiced resetting my day at like four o 'clock in the afternoon, right? Like when, for me, that's kind of my wrap up time for work. And when I start reflecting and say, I didn't get much done as I wanted.
or I'm feeling stuck or overwhelmed about projects that are coming up. and letting that then like cloud the rest of your day, being able to shift your mood or shift your mindset, which then helps you shift your mood. And I wanna just say like, feelings are valid. Like you're allowed to feel frustrated and annoyed and...
all of those things. Like don't want to say that we should never feel that way because they do serve a purpose. But I don't want it to paralyze you or overwhelm you to the point where you're like, my whole day is ruined, right? That all or nothing thinking or like this one thing is going to impact everything else during the day. And in some situations it might. I know the story I'm giving, the example I'm giving is kind of a silly one.
like a literal crappy way to start the day. I recognize that sometimes the things that interrupt our day or the things that pop up unexpectedly are significantly more impactful or affect our emotions in a much heavier way. And so I want to acknowledge that like there will be some days that this type of a reset won't be appropriate or won't serve you because the thing that's impacting you is
a bigger deal. And so I want to just go into that with the caveat of, you know, this doesn't apply to every day. And if you have things that are like more serious, more emotional, this may not be the right fit. But this is still something that I think can, we can take what's helpful, adjust it to fit for you and leave the rest. So let's talk about
some different reasons that you might want to restart your day, because there's lots of different things that could be impacting you. So the example I gave is something unexpected happening, something outside of your control, right? Like I start my day the same way every single day. I really never had that happen to me. So, right, it took extra time. It took extra energy and problem solving and prioritizing.
to figure out how do I solve this situation. Clearly I did not do my best thinking in that moment, bringing the dog in the house with poop on his foot, right? But things that are outside of our control or unexpected can sometimes cause this shift in our mood, shift in our thinking and domino effect our day. So let's come up with some more normal examples. So let's say your boss or a coworker,
calls you in for an unexpected meeting. So right there, that might be a stress spike of what is this meeting going to be about? Are they adding things to my plate? Am I in trouble for something? So this unexpected thing causes an elevation in our feelings and in our thoughts and stress and stuff like that. Maybe you get stuck in traffic, and then your whole day is thrown off.
Like you spent an extra 45 minutes because there was an accident or a detour or whatever, and now you have to re -plan your day because you quote unquote lost time. So all of these things connect with our executive functioning, time management, planning, organizing, prioritizing.
The main reason that you would benefit from restarting your day is when your mood or energy are impacted. And so that can be things outside of your control, circumstances popping up, like you're planning to cook dinner, you walk into the kitchen and there's dishes everywhere, you thought the kitchen was in better shape to clean or to cook, and then you end up.
having to clean before you can cook, or you're missing a primary ingredient and you're like, well, now do I even want to cook? Right? Like that frustration pops up. So basically like whether you can pinpoint a reason for a mood shift or not, if you feel cranky, irritated, frustrated, annoyed, stressed, anxious, or any other uncomfortable feeling, it can make it really hard to do the things you want and need to do.
And then that can lead to paralysis, overwhelm, that all or nothing thinking of like, well, if I'm feeling like this, I can't do the thing today, or today is not the day for it.
Another reason that you might have some of those uncomfortable feelings is your expectation of yourself or the shoulds that you put on yourself of if you didn't get as much done as you wanted to during the day. Maybe your day started great, you were checking things off the list, but then a shift happens, your energy shifts, your mood shifts, and you aren't feeling as productive or aren't getting as much done as you would like to.
And then instead of being able to give yourself credit for the things that you did do during the day, it feels like the whole day is a waste, right? That we pinpoint the things that we didn't get to and we focus on the things that didn't go right. And so then our brain focuses on that instead of all the things that did happen or did go right. So again, that all or nothing thinking of if I didn't do everything, nothing counts.
So there can be lots of reasons that your day kind of goes off the track or your mood shifts and it feels like the day is ruined or the day is over or I didn't get to do the things I wanted to do. So let's talk about when you do experience that, some strategies to restart your day. So first, naming it for yourself.
There is a lot of power in naming a situation, naming emotions, and helping your brain understand what is happening. So literally saying to yourself, I'm feeling stuck right now, or this is an uncomfortable situation, or things were going good and now it feels like they're not, or whatever that is for you, but naming.
Naming how you're feeling, the literal emotion. I'm feeling frustrated right now. I'm feeling overwhelmed right now. I'm feeling paralyzed right now because that is the first step to even noticing, there's an opportunity to restart my day here. So your thoughts aren't always true. I'll repeat that again. Your thoughts aren't always true. Your brain is some, as we've talked about on this podcast,
Your brain feeds you information and thoughts that in theory are there to help us sometimes and protect us, but they aren't always true. Right? Like the whole day is ruined is a thought that your brain might feed you. And there's opportunity to challenge that. Your feelings on the other hand are always valid. If you're feeling whatever emotions are popping up for you, like
it's okay to have that feeling, even if it's uncomfortable.
So I wanna just acknowledge that we can challenge our thoughts and acknowledge our feelings as a way to start resetting the day.
So once we've figured out, okay, I'm feeling a certain way, I'm thinking a certain way, now you're going to check in with yourself. And again, one of my favorite checking questions is what is going to make the most impact for me right now? So you're checking in, what do you need right now? And sometimes it's something as simple as checking in on your basic needs. Do you need a drink of water, a snack? Do you need some quiet,
time or space to yourself? Do you need a dopamine boost? Do you need to take action? Do you need to ask for help? Do you want to talk with somebody? Right. So checking in on what do you need in this current moment?The third thing that can help you reset your day is changing your scenery. going somewhere new, even if it's to a different room in your house, can sometimes help you shift your mental space. So literally getting up and moving.
especially if you're feeling mentally paralyzed, getting up and moving helps your brain shift thinking a little bit. So that is the fourth step as well, move your body. So getting up, going to a different space, moving your body, whether it's going for a short walk, taking a stretch break, just like...
standing and breathing, doing a silly dance, putting music on, whatever. Whatever works for you in terms of like getting yourself up and moving. Moving your body helps your brain move thoughts.
So then the fifth step of this is to kind of go back to your checking question of what do you need right now? What's going to make the most impact for you? And taking the smallest, most realistic step to do something that will help you get unstuck and kind of restart. So are you going to keep going with your plan that you had?
for the day or for that moment? Or are you going to adjust the plan? So this is where checking in with yourself and seeing what's going to serve you best is really important because sometimes our brain wants to do one thing when the other thing is actually going to be the most impactful thing. So in my example of this morning when the dog stepped in poop,
My initial thought was, well, my whole morning is thrown off now. I'm not going to do the things that I was going to do after this because I'm in a grumpy mood, because that took extra time, like all of those things. But when I challenged my thought on that, I was like, no, I still have time. Even though that was unexpected, I still have time to do the things I want and need to do this morning. And I can move my body.
and shift my thinking and give myself some reframes to help me get back on track and stick with my plan, even if it's slightly adjusted. So for me, sticking with the plan was the right fit there.
An example of where it might make sense to adjust the plan is if your
Let's say your plan was to go to the gym after work and you were looking forward to it. It's something that when you, after you exercise, you feel really good. but let's say work went late, you had way more work projects on your plate. You are mentally exhausted. You're physically exhausted and you stayed late at work. So checking in with yourself of
Do I stick with my plan exactly? Or do I adjust it and say, maybe going to the gym today isn't the right fit and you reschedule and you're not abandoning the plan, you're adjusting the plan, right? Reframing it for yourself. Or you say, okay, I don't have the energy to go to the gym and do my full workout, but when I get home, I'm going to...
go for a walk, or I'm going to do part of my workout from home instead of going to the gym, right? So again, adjusting the plan to fit, whether that's moving things out or doing them in a different way.
Something I've been talking about a lot with clients and I've been noticing and practicing for myself is that when something in your day goes up, something has to come down. So what I mean by that is if you are adding more to your to -do list or things are taking longer, whether it's,
something that you're choosing to do, or it's being like unexpectedly put onto your plate, right? If something is going up, something has to balance it out by coming down. And I joke with my college students that as assignments and projects and studying goes up, I don't want the sleep to be what goes down. Although in some cases that is part of the equation and you're finding the right balance of,
I still need to be able to get a good amount of sleep, but maybe you're waking up a half hour early, right? So if your day is getting derailed and something is going up, whether that's the amount of time you're spending on a project, your frustration, right? Something else has to balance it out. And so this is where our executive functioning skill of prioritizing comes in.
and the reminder of it's okay that you can't do it all right now.
I think that is such a hard one for so many of us because we want to be able to do everything. We want to do it well. We want to feel good about how we're getting things done. And when something unexpectedly comes in and derails our day, it can be really hard to reprioritize. so again, having tools in your toolbox to help you check in and
make those decisions and adjust your plan so that when something goes up, you can make an adjustment.
we all have limited time, energy, and resources.
So if you're having a day where you're trying to reset it for yourself, reset your mood, check in with yourself, readjust your plan, I want to remind you that you don't have to do everything right now. Check in with yourself on your energy, check in on what the rest of your day, week looks like, and know that you can give yourself
permission to reprioritize, to ask for help, to let people know what's going on so that they understand the situation if your reset impacts them at all.
We all have days that feel like this, where it feels frustrating and overwhelming and like, ugh, I can't believe this is how my day went. And so even if you're not able to shift your thinking in that moment, just know that tomorrow actually is a new day and practice being kind and patient with yourself because...
you deserve to give yourself credit for the things that you're doing, for the ways that you're problem solving for yourself and the ways that you're supporting yourself. And there's no perfect way to do that. There's no perfect way to manage overwhelm or to restart your day. So give yourself credit for noticing it, naming it, challenging your thoughts.
and being kind and patient with yourself.
So if you found this podcast episode helpful, please make sure that you're following the podcast or subscribed so that you get notifications when I release new episodes. If you're someone who finds yourself wanting to restart your day, bookmark this episode, come back to it when you're having one of those days and know that I'm always in your corner.
supporting you along the way.
