16 ways to boost your mood right now

1. Before doing anything, ask yourself, “Will this boost my mood?”
This tip is best matched to an already pretty-good mood. If you’ve just come out of the weeds of contrast and want to make sure you stay flowing for a while, be very conscious of your actions and don’t let anything take you down.

2. Bring your worries to light.
If you have negative thoughts that you know are holding you back, but you don’t want to talk about them because you think that would be perpetuating them, know that it’s ok to let them out! Talk to someone about them and they’ll help you see it’s not serious. Write about it. Just get the negative thoughts out and process them. You don’t have to do this, but if you are so obsessed with a problem that you can’t distract yourself into feeling better, the best thing to do is push straight through the discomfort and move on. The object is to get to a point where you can laugh and say, “Isn’t it funny I care about this?” and the thoughts will lose their power. The longer you hide from them, the more powerful they become.

3. Look at creating like working out.
You have to stick with it, schedule it, and do it even when you don’t feel like it.

4. The only thing worth talking about is how to feel good or how good you feel.
Am I right, or am I right?

5. Take care of your things.
When you take care of the things you have, you are projecting a vibration of appreciation. What you appreciate grows in value. When you take care of your vehicle, your vehicle takes care of you. And so on.

6. Decide to be a success story.
You don’t have to take any action other than thinking, “I’m a success story.” Let the universe fill in the details.

7. Clean off your desk.
Literally and metaphorically. If you don’t clean the old work off your desk, you’ll never be able to let new work flow through. This applies to moments in time as well. If you keep dwelling on past moments, even if they’re good, you won’t be present enough to allow even better experiences. It can be hardest to let go when things are going well, but that’s definitely the best time to stop thinking about how well things are going! When you let go of the past, the present will fill with much better things.

8. Stop caring about what others think!
A repeat tip, because I need a reminder frequently! YOU create other people’s perception of you. Your thoughts about what they think of you, create what they think of you. If you don’t think about what other people think, they don’t think about you!

9. Release resistance.
As I mentioned in the introduction, when you encounter a negative thought, try thinking “I’ve decided to feel good about that and let it work itself out.” When you stop projecting a vibration of lack about something and just feel good, it really will work itself out!

10. Stop feeling bad about all the would-have, could-have, should-haves.
Don’t beat yourself up for not having done something you wish you had. There is no possible way you could have known you wanted it if you hadn’t been shown what you didn’t want first. Even if you would have done that thing you wished you had done, you would just wish you had done something even more! Think of each life experience as an iteration, or a level in a video game. Try to remove the concept of time and look at each moment as a chance to apply what you’ve learned. Just because you sucked at the level once doesn’t mean you won’t try again! It all takes practice.

11. Don’t allow anything to affect how you feel.
Seems strange, but that’s what it comes down to. You can’t let the negative get you down, but you also can’t rely on the positive to keep you up. Anything outside of you that makes you feel good (a relationship, food, sex, drugs) will also make you feel bad at some point. The only reliable source of feeling good is within you. That’s why feeling good from conscious breathing or lifestreaming is so wonderful to me—they keep me focused on feeling good in each moment.

12. Practice loving unconditionally.
I am just beginning to learn what this feels like! But now that I’ve held the feeling, it gets easier every day. Unconditional love is not caring if your crush gets a new boyfriend. Unconditional love is not caring if you ever see the person ever again, even if you want to. Unconditional love is deciding to love someone no matter what they do. It’s a state of mind, more than an emotion you feel around specific people. It’s the same thing as “feeling good no matter what,” because it comes from within you; it isn’t caused by something or someone you experience. It’s something you choose.

13. Decide you’ll be happy no matter what happens.
Want a specific outcome? Just decide you’ll feel good either way, and it’s yours.

14. Put things in perspective.
Filled with worry? Have a giant knot in your gut? Want things to go your way? Just relax and think, “I’m here to live. It doesn’t matter what happens.” Even if every possible thing went wrong that could, it would still just be a funny story in 5 years. Nothing is serious in this life. There is no evil, there are no errors, there are no flaws. Realize that no matter what happens, you’ve already won the lottery: you’ve been selected to live here and now! What a gift! Get out of your mind and enjoy the spread!

15. Surrender to the ability to receive.
Let it come to you. When we get our minds out of the way, life takes care of us. We were put here to discern preferences and then receive what we desire. We can give up the struggle. We can relax. Take a deep breath and stop trying. What you want is already making its way to you. When you really let go, you’ll see your reality is trying to serve you 24 hours a day. Can you allow it?

16. Be what you want to see.
To close this week’s edition of Tuesday Tips, we have one last cryptic piece of advice. If you want to see a triangle, be a triangle. Be the peg that fits in the hole.