It’s easy to be on your best behavior when most things go well. Working well on a team? No problem. Finishing writing that paper? Why not? Smiling at all your professors, classmates and colleagues? No problem at all. Feeling generous and helping strangers out on Sheridan? Absolutely! It is a good day, and we are cruising through life. Now, the more important question is who are we on a bad day? We may be absolute stars as people, but how we behave on a bad day can adversely affect our productivity as well as how people perceive us, especially in the workplace.

Imagine you have not slept well for days because you have been trying to balance all your schoolwork, extracurricular activities and job applications as well as your social life. Or suppose you woke up on the wrong side of the bed one morning or you had an intense argument with your best friend last night. Or assume you did not get the job you were so sure you were going to get, and now your future looks bleak. All these, among many other things, can trigger the start of a bad day. Needless to say, we can associate negative emotions with bad days. We could be feeling anxious, stressed, frustrated, disappointed or simply aggravated. Under such circumstances it takes little to tip you over.

Given that we are feeling some sort of negative emotion on a bad day, chances are we are allowing our behavior to reflect some of those emotions. On a bad day, we might be less willing to help our peers or volunteer for tasks. We may snap at our team members and interact less with people, becoming more withdrawn. In the worst-case scenario we may even lose control and have an emotional outburst in public. Whereas most of our best friends might try to understand and accommodate our emotions when we are having a bad day, people we work with might not know why we are behaving the way we are and might just perceive us as negative people. Even though we may be positive 95 percent of the time, that one day can prove vital in shaping our reputation at work or school.

Moreover, letting our negative emotions take over on a bad day is also likely to affect our productivity and decision-making capabilities. We may be stressing over something that has happened or anticipating something that will happen, which will make us unable to focus on the task at hand. If disappointment levels are high, our energy levels may drop and lower our motivation to work. And if we are feeling negative, our decision-making abilities will be skewed, and we will be less likely to evaluate all options fairly with an inclination to choose the safest, although not the best, option.

However, we still need to make momentous decisions, have important meetings and deliver major presentations on bad days. Life does not stop and check if we are having a bad day; it carries on as normal. Ergo, it is vital to learn how to actively manage negative emotions and not let them overshadow our true personalities and abilities. Especially when we are in a situation where we may be exposed to having frequent bad days, we need to manage our emotions and not let them manage us.

Once we raise self-awareness and actively realize that we may be having a bad day and are susceptible to behaving out of sorts, half of the problem is solved. It is then worth setting some time aside and reflecting upon why we are feeling as aggravated as we are and how to best manage our emotions before going to work.

It is natural to have negative emotions from time to time, but expression of negative emotions via actions that adversely affect one’s professional reputation, productivity or peers should really be an exception rather than the norm.

Raisa Chowdhury is a McCormick junior. She can be reached at [email protected]. If you want to respond publicly to this column, send a letter to the editor to [email protected].