Test: What’s your personal mood booster?

When you thrive on new ideas and experiences, feeling under stimulated can quickly undermine your mood. There may be a limit to how long you can tolerate feeling stuck in a routine before it chips away at your emotional resilience. Lack of challenge often undermines mood in people whose core values revolve around learning and personal growth.

If you instinctively set yourself a new goal when you’re feeling low, you may know from experience that achieving and pushing yourself out of your comfort zone – physically, mentally or emotionally – usually delivers the mood boost you need. But you can resort of quick fixes at times so it’s worth pausing and thinking through your choices to make changes that last.

What kind of challenge you need to bring about a lasting mood boost might differ depending on your circumstances and what else is going on in your life. Next time you feel stuck, rather than going straight into planning mode, try pausing and being curious instead, treating your feelings as valuable sources of information about what needs are not being met.

In the meantime, finding small ways to engage your imagination on a daily basis will help support your mood, so stay present and open to micro opportunities to do something different throughout the day.