You notice how when you weren’t really trying, you felt a bit better. The first thing to do is to stop trying to think positively about yourself. It’s as pointless as thinking negatively about yourself. Just come to realize that nothing you say about yourself will ever, ever be who you actually are. When you notice thinking about yourself (positive or negative), just let it be, and know it isn’t you.

That’s what I do, Charles. I revise my philosophy as deeply as I can. To be honest I have been very happy for years now, because all the underlying philosophies and perspectives have been shifted. When I do want a ‘quick fix’ I will quickly count 10 or 20 things I’m grateful for right now (when you do it, it could be anything from ‘the air I’m breathing now’ to ‘successfully completing the marathon yesterday’), I may ask myself if I really, absolutely know my beliefs in that moment are true (and dispute them in the cognitive behavioural therapy / rational emotive behavioural therapy sense) and I might also meditate and come back to what is really happening now – direct sensations such as my breath, what I can see, hear, feel etc. and come away from being lost in thought. It all depends on what I’m experiencing. Often the best thing to do is just be mindful, experience it without judging it, to let it be without labelling it.

You say “don’t make a mountain out of a molehill”, Charles, but if you change the mountain, you’ll stop seeing those molehills.