Personal Development Ideas

Personal growth: The mood factor in our problem-solving November 13, 2017

Current thinking among many self-improvement writers is that our anxiety over a particularly troublesome problem may be directly related to our mood.

The reasoning is that if we are in a buoyant and elevated mood, a difficult financial problem, for example, will seem more solvable in our minds.

And we will therefore be better able to come up with potential solutions.

And it’s true – the better our mood, the greater our optimism, and the more open we are to new approaches.

But if we are in a darker mood, solutions will not seem so apparent.

Within this scenario, the advice is to wait until our mood changes from a “down” mood to an upbeat mood before we try to tackle difficult problems, some of which may not appear to have any solutions.

A problem arises however, when the very seriousness of the problem and its apparent insolvability is the actual cause of our being down, anxious, and possibly feeling depressed.

In this case, we can’t necessarily wait for our mood to change to a more positive one, because the problem in itself is contributing to our “down” mood.

Two approaches might help us:

(1) Because physical factors can influence mood, we can do the obvious things that will make us feel better physically and emotionally: we know the list already –  reduce or cut-out smoking, consume less alcohol (it’s a depressant), less caffeine, moderate exercise, don’t get over-tired, reduce sugar/carbohydrates (unless there is a medical reasons not to do so), get sufficient sleep..

And equally if not more important,

(2) Start taking actions, no matter how small, towards a solution of the problem…even if we don’t seem to be making much progress, taking actions can add to our self-confidence and help us to at least imagine that solutions are possible.

Finally, we need to continue working on developing our emotional and problem-solving potential through our chosen personal development program.

When we hit difficult times, we can get so absorbed in spinning our worry-wheels that we forget to continue taking the self-actualization program steps that have worked for us in the past in helping us to feel better.

—Dennis Mellersh