A couple of weeks ago I had a bad day. Actually, it was a terrible day. Every piece of news I got was disappointing. Did it affect me? I still have bruises from the rock I tried to hide under.

Guess what? In the coming weeks you will have a bad day, too. Whether you are an entrepreneur launching a new product, an employee aiming for a promotion, or simply someone going after a big goal in your other 8 hours, you will experience disappointment and setback. How you respond to disappointment could determine your eventual success or failure. Why? A really bad day can, at best, cause you to lose momentum, and at worst, cause you to lose your will to continue.

Here are five tips to survive a bad day:

Don’t add more pressure. Forget about turning lemons into lemonade. The first rule to follow when trying to turn around a bad day is to not try to turn around a bad day — that’s nearly impossible and puts way too much pressure on you. Your goal should be to survive the day and minimize the long-term damage by agreeing not to make any decisions. After a barrage of bad news, your decision making ability will be all messed up. Take a break and, if possible, escape…

Escape. It’s easy to get too analytical and try to think your way out of a bad day, but often this can just cause you to dwell on the problem. Sometimes it makes sense to escape. Go see a movie. Go dancing. Play with your kids. Do whatever it takes to distract yourself and stop obsessing about your bad day. Your “problems” will still be there when you return, but you’ll come at them with a fresh mind.

Insulate yourself. One of the best ways to shield yourself from negativity is by wrapping yourself in a “positivity condom.” Wake up 10 minutes early and write about those things for which you are grateful on a daily basis. About a week after I started doing this, I got some really bad news. The very first thing I thought was “this sucks!” I was shocked and angry. After about 20 seconds of this, I immediately thought back to what I had written earlier in the day. It instantly changed my perspective.

Eliminate overgeneralization. What happens when you’ve been doing great on your diet but suddenly find yourself with an empty bag of Doritos in your lap and an unnaturally orange substance covering your hands? Usually generalization. This is where you turn a single negative event into a never-ending pattern of defeat, and it’s this kind of thinking that can cause you to give up after a bad day. The solution? Attack the belief. Write down all the reasons why this bad day is really just that — a bad day — and not a sentence to a life of failure.

Avoid personalization. Personalization is another cognitive distortion. It is when you take credit for an event for which you didn’t have any control. Many of the negative events you will face will be beyond your control, but you might blame yourself. Got laid off? It might not have anything to do with you and everything to do with the company, but if you personalize this you’ll beat yourself up over it. Again, the solution here is to attack the belief. For each negative event, ask yourself, “Am I responsible for this or was this outside of my control?”

When you throw down the gauntlet and commit yourself to improving your life, you will face challenges. If you can follow these bad day tips, you’ll keep your motivation and you’ll spend a lot less time under rocks.

Well, here we are two full months into 2010. This is usually right about the time of year when many people start to fall off the wagon and forget about those goals and resolutions that they set for themselves on January 1st. Hopefully you are still moving full speed ahead towards your goals, but if you need a little bit of extra motivation, I thought I would share some more of my favorite motivational quotes with you. I hope you enjoy them!

“People of mediocre ability sometimes achieve outstanding success because they don’t know when to quit. Most men succeed because they are determined to.” – George Allen

“I’ve found that luck is quite predictable. If you want more luck, take more chances. Be more active. Show up more often.” -Brian Tracy

“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan “press on” has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race” – Calvin Coolidge

“Only by contending with challenges that seem to be beyond your strength to handle at the moment can you grow more surely toward the stars.” -Brian Tracy

“Don’t let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish something stand in the way of your doing it. The time will pass anyway; we might just as well put that passing time to the best possible use.” -Earl Nightingale

“Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.” -Henry Ford

“Become a ‘possibilitarian’. No matter how dark things seem to be or actually are, raise your sights and see the possibilities- Always see them, for they are always there.” -Norman Vincent Peale

“Your decision to be, have, and do something out of the ordinary entails facing difficulties that are out of the ordinary as well. Sometimes your greatest asset is simply your ability to stay with it longer than anyone else.” -Brian Tracy

“Don’t waste time waiting for inspiration. Begin, and inspiration will find you.” -Jim Rohn

“Do not think of today’s failures, but of success that may come tomorrow. You have set yourselves a difficult task, but you will succeed if you persevere; and you will have a joy in overcoming obstacles—a delight in climbing rugged paths which you would perhaps never know if you did not sometimes slip backward. Remember, no effort that we make to attain something beautiful is ever lost.” -Helen Keller.

Hopefully these words of wisdom were able to give you some extra motivation- they always seem to do the trick for me!