No matter what is bringing you down, there are two things that can be done to pick up your mood.

• Relentlessly find ways to be grateful – This doesn’t just mean show gratitude, it means spending time and effort busily finding things for which to be grateful. A friend told me he was actually grateful for the seasonal flu.  Why?  Because he knew it would go away within a week and that his health would return.  That’s working at gratitude. (He was almost back to 100% in less time).

• Never giving up hope – Try this: the next time you or someone else is down in the dumps, see if you can identify their lack of hope.  Humans don’t do well without hope and sometimes we are the ones to kill it off because of how we think.  Think of hope as fuel – the more we pump it in, the further we can go.