From time to time our passionately held beliefs - our exciting goals for the future - lose their oomph. Maybe we've come up against a problem we just can't see our way around. Or perhaps we're just exhausted from working too hard. Like a soufflé taken out of the oven at the wrong moment, we sit gloopily in an unattractive puddle: deflated, de-motivated and directionless.

At times like this, I tend to indulge in huge bouts of self-pity. I get a masochistic enjoyment from seeing how miserable I can make myself, recalling item after item of my depressing circumstances. The client who cancelled. The workshop that didn't go so well. The too-few hours I've spent with my daughter that week. My terrible hair cut. The freezing weather. The lost house keys (again). The fact that my parents will die someday. The fact that I will die someday....

You can see I become a veritable Eeeyore!

(Eeeyore is the gloomy donkey in Winnie the Pooh, for the uneducated amongst you).

Whilst it's inevitable that we should have our down days, we don't get anything accomplished by wallowing for too long.

The fastest way to lift yourself out of a bad patch is to remember what you already have in your life to be grateful for. (I know, it's the LAST thing you feel like doing).

Consider the following list, and remember even where something is causing you stress, you can always find positive aspects. For example, career-changers might not see much to be grateful for in their current job, but if nothing else, at least there is the salary!

What can you find to be grateful for, right now, in each of these areas?

1. Family

2. Friends

3. Work

4. Your home

5. Where you live

6. Your health

7. Your finances

...keep going!

What three things did you feel the most gratitude for?

Now you need to find a way to keep these at the forefront of your mind. Think of a regularly occurring event that you can use as a prompt.

Let me give you an example. My parents gave me a new electric toothbrush for Christmas, with a clever digital clock accessory. The clock counts down the tedious required two minutes of brushing, finally rewarding you with a little smiley face. I have to say it's the longest two minutes of my life.

What better way of using this dead time than recalling the best things about your life?

If you don't have a fancy toothbrush, what time will work for you?

I leave you with a final solution, advocated frequently by my mother (or more accurately, Shakespeare):

"Sleep, that knits up the ravelled sleave of care.

The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath,

Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,

Chief nourisher in life's feast"

Sweet dreams!