Daily Gratitude: Make this your daily affirmation – or something similar. It’s important that we think these kind of thoughts and it helps to say them out loud too. You know that my go-to affirmation is “everything always works out for me”. I use that all the time but also supplement it with this one. Have you ever noticed how, if you’re in a bad mood, it’s easy for everything to seem yucky too? It becomes a vicious circle and we have to work even harder to get out of that mood. If we can just look at all that happens as having some positive reason, then it will help to elevate our mood. When something seems bad, think about another time or event that wasn’t so terrible. Think about how it could be worse and be grateful. For most of us that just takes some effort. I know there are those in dire circumstances where it’s extremely hard to do this (people who are dying, lost a loved one, or who have lost everything in a fire or disaster for instance). If they can try to do this contrasting work too, it would be helpful. If they can’t then I’m sure we all understand that things are just too tough at that point. The rest of us don’t really have an excuse. Wouldn’t you rather go through the day finding good in something? Wouldn’t that make you feel better? I encourage you to start doing it, every single day and start with small things. If something is already good, tell yourself and the universe, how grateful you are. Then if someone cuts you off in traffic “declare it good” and think about the smiles you’ve seen on others’ faces even if you have to go back to a week or a month ago (I hope people smile at you more than once a month ). As with everything I recommend, start small but you have to be consistent. I think that once this becomes a habit, most of what you experience can be seen by you as not so bad after all. We could be starving in some third world country after all.