What to Do on Those Bad Days?
On your bad days, do this one thing
I encountered the idea called “Moving The Chains” for the first time in Ryan Munsey’s book F*ck Your Feelings: Master Your Mind, Accomplish Any Goal, and Become A More Significant Human in the summer of 2018.
It was one of the first “self-help” books that I read and it’s still one of my all-time favorites.
Besides the main idea of the book that we shouldn’t act based on how we feel but act based on our values and goals, the idea of “Moving The Chains” resonated with me a lot!
In this article I’m going to talk about what is the concept called “Moving The Chains” and how we can implement it on our “Bad Days”.
What is “Moving The Chains”?
Move The Chains (#MTC) is a football analogy that instills the “simple, one-step-at-the-time process that ensures continued progress.”
In football, if a team would score 3,4 yards every play, they will never punt and they will score touchdown after touchdown and will probably win.
If we translate this principle to our everyday life: #MTC is the single most important thing or activity for a given day that has to get accomplished that day no matter what happens.
By moving the chains day after day, you move your mission forward and make more progress than you ever have.
What to Do on Those Bad Days?
The concept of “Moving The Chains” can be applied to our bad days as well!
Like Ryan talks in his book:
“It’s important to acknowledge the fact that from time to time we all have bad days. That’s why I love the #MTC analogy. On a bad day, I can do the one thing, move your mission forward and then it’s okay if I just shut it down and spend time in recovery or recharge mode.
It’s not about grinding 24/7 or hustling all the time with no days off. It’s about balance. It’s about being able to do this for 20 years, 30 years, 40 years. … It’s about consistency and longevity. And I found that achieving my proverbial 3,4 yards for the day I can keep my mission on pace and then, if I need to, I can focus on making sure the rest of that day makes the next day better. It’s about making sure that the next day is not the second consecutive bad day.
So give yourself permission to just be. Be still, be sad, be tired. Whatever it is. Think big picture. Remember, it’s about the climate, not the weather.
Get in your 3,4 yards for the day and then take care of yourself and your future.”
So on your next “bad day”, when you don’t feel as good, when you feel a bit burned out and when you don’t feel like doing anything, ask yourself this question:
“What can be the one thing that I could do today that will ensure that my mission will move forward?”
Determine what that one thing — the #MTC — for the day will be, get it done and then spend focus on self-care and recovery.
This way you’ll keep your mission on pace and make sure that the next day won’t be another bad day.
If you’re interested to learn more about Ryan’s work, check out his book F*ck Your Feelings, his website or his publication here on Substack called The Pursuit. I personally find great value in Ryan’s content and teachings, I hope you will too!
Literature:
Munsey Ryan, F*ck Your Feelings: Master Your Mind, Accomplish Any Goal, and Become A More Significant Human, 33–34.
This is a great analogy. My training is in science, so I tend to look at this as lowering my activation energy (a chemistry concept). If I don't have the energy to do the whole task now, what portion can I do now that will help me be able to conquer the whole task later? For example, my household chore nemesis is the dishes. I've found that even if I can't convince myself to do all the dishes today, if I just put away the clean dishes today, then somehow it takes less mental energy to convince myself to do the dishes the next day. I lower my activation energy required to do the dishes because I've cleared one small hurdle. That's similar to your concept of moving the chains. It's how I make myself move forward many days!