Embrace meh: 6 surprising benefits of feeling like shit

Feeling like sh*t, or 'FLS', is one of the most common elements of the human experience. I dare you to find someone who’s got through a week without FLS in the last year - because everywhere I look, I see tired, jaded people having a tough time.

I reckon that’s OK. There’s no contract we sign when we become adults that says we need to or get to feel good all the time. Just pressure to pretend that we do to our children, colleagues, or friends. We know that everyone else FLS sometimes, too, but we don’t honour that part of our experience.

Instead, we bury, mask, or try to run from it. And advice on how to feel better is plentiful. Apathy, low mood and malaise are treated as terrible afflictions that require minimising or fixing as quickly as possible. We’re told to… get outside. Go for a run. Talk to a friend. Smile more. Eat better. Write it down. Take a holiday. To do anything that pushes those entirely normal feelings away before they get the chance to take hold because god forbid, we don’t feel great today.

And let’s be clear: sometimes that’s helpful. Nobody wants to be stuck in a pit forever, and taking care of yourself, as you would a loved one, is extremely important. But in other ways, it’s entirely unhelpful.

We don’t get to have a meaningful life without a healthy dose of suffering. Happiness, gratitude and success are relative concepts, and humans are complicated. Sometimes, we FLS because we can’t get what we want. Sometimes, we FLS because we got what we wanted. Sometimes, we FLS because we don’t know what we want. Sometimes, we FLS, and we can’t understand or explain why. That’s cool. We’re all doing it.

Rather than pushing these feelings to the side or feeling ashamed of having them, there’s benefit in a good bit of occasional rumination. If we can tap into it, the evidence suggests some surprising upsides to malaise.

(Now, I’m mindful of the Alicia-McKay-ness of finding the upside of depression. It reminds me of a conversation I had with my best mate one seedy Sunday morning where, after a hard night on the gins and a morning in my PJs, I had a burst of inspiration and started scribbling ideas on a whiteboard. I remember the exasperation from my friend vividly- “FFS, do you have to turn a hangover into a productivity hack, Alicia?!” Fair call. So, no. I’m not saying you must turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse. FLS sucks.)

However, it’s worth reflecting on the dangers of expecting always to be OK and whether we can be OK with not being OK—and do that in a way that doesn’t require us to take a duvet day and hide.

I want to live in a world where we can turn up to what we love and care about, even when we don’t feel 100%. And I want to live in a world where we don’t feel ashamed about doing that.

I want to live in a world where we see the value of showing our good, bad and ugly sides to the people we care about, the people we work with, and the people we lead without a layer of embarrassment.

I want us to model a healthy way of living and permit others to do the same. You might enjoy this article if you’d like to live in that world. If not, that’s cool. Haere ra.

When we fully accept our humanness in all its forms, we can do the same for others.

By deeply understanding our experience and extending that understanding to others, we become more empathetic, compassionate, and, ultimately, more effective.

We develop more user-focused products, workable solutions, resonant marketing strategies, and meaningful connections. We lead change programmes that tangibly engage people. We have better-quality conversations, create more empowering work environments, and build strategies focusing on touching people's lives rather than ticking a box.

Our vulnerability, shared appropriately, doesn't detract from our credibility. It builds trust and adds power to our message. Nobody wants to be led by a perfect example of inspiration they can't hope to measure up to - it just makes us feel crappy in comparison. People want to be reached, and they can only be reached if we show up as ourselves, whatever that means.

Feeling like sh*t sucks, but it is a normal and useful part of being a person - and it has some upsides.

Here are six benefits of having dark days.

Benefit 1 - Compassion

Everyone is struggling—seriously, everyone. Lisa O’Neill once told me to assume that everyone’s life is hard, and I’ve yet to disprove that.

And hey, that’s fine in theory, but sometimes you don’t know until you know. Genuine compassion and acceptance of others are harder without the humbling experience of your own battle.

Depression can be lonely, but it can also be a unifying experience. I’ve spent my life being the most competent person I know, with little patience for the perceived inactivity of others.

It wasn’t until last year, when I found myself unable to think clearly or perform basic tasks, that I suddenly understood how challenging it must be to struggle like that regularly. I reached out to friends and family who’d been through similar times with a combination of apology and vulnerability.

It was similar to when my third daughter was born. After two fairly easy babies, I’d developed that parental smugness that people with compliant children get, and I thought (and said!) things like “If they’re hungry, they’ll eat…” and “I wouldn’t tolerate that in my house…” Thankfully, Harriet arrived to cure me of my unfounded and insufferable superiority and to teach me that some kids are just hard work no matter what you do.

(And that, hungry or not, some children would rather starve than admit defeat. And that I will tolerate all sorts of things for the sake of a moment’s peace.)

What or who can you relate to better now as a result of FLS? How can you extend that compassion into other areas of your life?

Benefit 2 - Connection

I turned up uncharacteristically early for a meeting a few months ago and caught a client in a fluster. She confided that she was organising school holiday care for her kids, which was a constant source of stress for a single mum.

Catching her in that moment inspired a brilliant conversation about the juggling of working parents and everything that means. It showed me a new dimension to her usual high-powered brilliance. The trust and connection we built in that meeting permitted me to drop my “professional woman out to schmooze” mask, too, and I’ve never forgotten it. If I’d turned up 10 minutes later, when she’d regained composure, we would have missed a lovely opportunity.

Meaningful conversations and relationships aren’t formed when we turn up with our armour on. Nobody wants to be friends with a perfect person, and nobody wants to be led by an inspirational robot without flaws.

When we can share our softer sides, we open up new opportunities to reach others, which is great for us and them.

Share your struggles with others around you - and try to catch your surprise at how many others have similar experiences!

Benefit 3: Creativity

Innovation is an overused buzzword, but at it's heart, it’s about solving problems. When we see the world differently, we gain a new lens for old problems, which can be helpful.

By understanding people and their lives more deeply, especially the things they’re finding hard, we can generate more creative ideas to reach people on a new level.

Whether that’s a more intuitive user experience, a change programme that considers human error and disengagement, or a service offering that addresses pain points more effectively, it’s not just positive a-ha moments that give us innovation.

Human-centred innovation considers both ends of the stick—what we aspire to and what we avoid. We shape better cities with empathy for people’s safety and personal challenges. We design better products when considering what’s making people’s lives difficult. Netflix isn’t so successful because it makes great movies; it’s successful because it provides a solution to people with busy lives who can’t watch scheduled programming.

How can you bring your current discontent into your problem-solving? What does it tell you about the struggles of others? Can you help solve them in some way?

Benefit 4: Comparison

When everything’s good all the time, we don’t appreciate it. It’s a human design flaw, making FLS a useful puzzle piece.

Problems are like cockroaches and glitter - even when the world ends, they’ll still be there. The trick isn’t living a problem-free life - that makes us complacent and ungrateful. Instead, we should aim to progressively upgrade our problems and make them ones for which we can be grateful. Everything worth having requires us to struggle, but we get to pick those struggles based on what matters to us and enjoy the satisfaction when things go to plan.

Having kids is hard work some days, but being a good parent and raising good humans matters too much to me to quit the struggle. Doing meaningful work feels like a heavy load at times, but I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to reach people and share my thinking with the world. I’m willing to suffer for these things, and the tough times make the great days so much more satisfying.

Put your current problems into perspective by considering how much progress you’ve made. Past You would have loved the problems of Today You. Tap into the comparison and appreciate your next easy patch, safe knowing that a new batch of upgraded problems awaits you.

Benefit 5: Courage

The real nasty, when it comes to depression, isn't sadness... it’s hopelessness. Feeling like crap is manageable when you have a healthy perspective on how temporary it is. But it's much harder to cope when you don’t have confidence that things will ever get any better or faith in your ability to improve things.

The silver lining to FLS now and again is the reminder that you’ve been here before, and it’s all been OK. Every feeling or challenge you’ve had in the past has ended, and remembering that can give you the boost you need to get through a new batch of bulls*t. While it might seem counter-intuitive to layer historical negativity on top of a low mood, it can remind you of your resilience.

Think about the worst things you’ve been through before. Remember how terrible they felt then and how you thought you’d never get through. Remind yourself that you did, and therefore, you will again - but better this time, with the benefit of all that resilience you put in the bank. Pat yourself on the back.

Benefit 6: Clarity

The Rolling Stones were right when they sang: “You can’t always get what you want.” Especially if you don’t live your life in a way that makes it possible.

When we don’t feel good, it's often a sign that something is out of alignment or needs to change. If you persistently don’t feel good, your body could be telling you it’s time to change something important. If your life is out of balance with your values, or you’re taking on unsustainable or unsatisfying levels of stress or effort, you’ll find it harder and harder to feel buoyed by your daily activities.

If you FLS all the time, stop putting coping bandaids on a gaping wound. That thing you’re most afraid of changing or keep putting off doing something about? It’s probably that. Start there.

In summary

• Everyone feels like shit sometimes

• FLS is normal so we should normalise it

• Six benefits of FLS are:

  • Compassion - we develop more empathy

  • Connection - we form meaningful bonds with others

  • Creativity - we develop richer ideas and solutions

  • Comparison - we appreciate good things more fully

  • Courage - we gain confidence in our resilience

  • Clarity - our sense of what truly matters becomes stronger.