Most conflicts and miscommunications can be solved by asking someone what they intended to do or say rather than assuming the worst. It doesn’t mean you are being naive. It means you seek the positive and, in doing so, set the precedent for others to do the same. You create an upward spiral of interactions and build trusting relationships.

If things aren’t going your way, don’t worry about solving the big problems. Focus on finding one small bit of joy every day that gives you even the slightest feeling of happiness. The brain is a muscle. Practicing that perspective re-trains the brain and has a flow-on effect. When you have enthusiasm that is genuine and vibrant and real, it becomes an energy source. It creates electricity in your sense of self and the challenge of living becomes easier because you are genuinely filled with energy and excitement.

One of the biggest situations where we find ourselves failing pray to negativity is comparison. Rather than seeing other people’s achievements or successes as a sign of your failings, or pretending you don’t care, use it as a way to identify and understand what you want. Consider it a means of identifying something you feel is lacking, and then take specific action to attain or achieve it. If it’s out there for someone else, that means it exists and it’s out there for the taking for you too. Turn it into a goal to shoot for.

Some people call it manifesting, I call it clarifying. It’s not about wishing and waiting for things to come to you without any action, it’s about taking stock of what we are saying we want and how we are behaving. By actively taking time to think about and get clear on what you truly want, you make it easier to identify and say no to things that aren’t serving those goals. When you do this, you have the space to recognise and make decisions based on the things that will get you closer to your goals.

In the ‘pursuit of happiness’ we often suppress our emotions and jump straight to what we think is the ‘socially acceptable’ response. When we do this we are telling our brains that how we feel is not important – and this makes it hard to delineate true emotions, both negative and positive. When our rights are violated, we should feel angry. When we lose someone close to us, we should feel sad. When we fall in love, we should feel giddy. When we achieve something new, we should feel proud.

Our emotions are important and they help keep us safe and reinforce our connections with people. Try to re-connect to your emotions, watch the feelings rather than judge them. There is no perfect way to respond. There is no perfect form of decision-making. There is only how you feel at this very moment. Think of your emotions as signals of what is important to you. If we stop thinking of other people’s expectations, or even all the logistics and just tune into ourselves, you’ll find that you have a pretty good sense of who you are, what you like and what you need. Trust yourself.