Recently, a few clients have approached me in a bad mood. They’ve felt stressed or overwhelmed by a growing list of unfinished projects, tight deadlines and bosses who constantly urge them to “do more with less.”

While my clients remain committed to their work, they reported having a tough time feeling good about it lately. Here are the five steps I shared with them to snap out of it.

1. Make a list of small wins

Start a log or journal of things that are going well and add a few specific things to it daily. Look at it often. Regardless of how many things you feel aren’t going well, force yourself to think about the things that are going well (at home and at work).

Identify a productive meeting. Think of a meaningful conversation you had with a colleague over lunch. Perhaps you learned something valuable at this week’s town hall. Maybe your son scored a run in his little league game, or you finally fixed that kitchen cabinet. Great, put it all on the list.

What we think about grows, so the more you choose to focus on the good, the more you’ll automatically and immediately start noticing the good. This works the opposite way, too. So, the longer you refuse to do this, the longer you’ll feel that everything’s broken.

2. Don’t want to celebrate

When it comes to acknowledging specific outcomes or results, don’t wait until you’ve achieved them to celebrate. If you wait until the destination to acknowledge progress, you’ll miss all the joy in the journey. If you don’t celebrate along the way, you may never even reach your destination because people get so discouraged.

Regardless of how big your objective is, set milestones along the way and make the time to observe and notice progress. This means you’ll have to direct some of your focus towards lead measures (instead of just lag measures). Lead measures are predictable and influenceable actions or behaviors that ultimately help us arrive at our goals.

If you wanted to lose 50 pounds, you wouldn’t wait to see the final number on the scale to celebrate for the first time. You’d likely acknowledge your progress at 20 pounds, and you’d probably also celebrate what you were doing to achieve that progress: going to the gym, drinking water and eating healthier. We should celebrate lead measures along the way with everything that we do.

3. Watch your language

If you’re feeling down, there’s a good chance that you’ve been framing things negatively, especially in your conversations with yourself. Negative self-talk is a true thief of happiness.

Last week, an ambitious client told me that he “sat around and did nothing for a whole day, then felt guilty,” because he was so burnt out from work. I offered my highly driven client a reframe for his language. That’s because I chose to see his use of time differently from how he saw it. Instead of “sitting around and doing nothing,” I believed he was doing a very important “something:” resting, reflecting, recharging and reenergizing so that he could be his very best self the following day. It’s easier to feel comfortable and supportive of our decisions when we choose to frame them positively.

I’m not saying you should let yourself off the hook for being intentionally lazy, unethical or unkind. However, assuming you’re doing your best, it might make sense to give yourself a little grace. How you frame the tough situations you’re in is completely up to you. Berating yourself (or others) or whining isn’t going to make your problems disappear.

4. Tune into percentages

You won’t survive spending all your time on dreadful tasks. Make it a point to schedule 10% of your time (for example, at least five hours in a 50-hour workweek) doing fun things you enjoy.

Years ago, my company went through some downsizing, and I was asked to spend an inordinate amount of time in budget meetings focused on who and what we could cut. These were my least favorite topics, and it was harder to enjoy my work than usual. During that professional season, I made it a point to still host a weekly book club with other passionate leaders and recognize a few people each day. I also asked employees to send me success stories, which I made time to read daily.

Seeking out creative opportunities to smile kept me sane during this tough time. If you’re frustrated at work but aren’t forcing one or two simple joys onto your daily calendar, your frustration will quickly turn to misery.

5. Begin with the end in mind

The hardest of times feels easier when we remember our why. If you don’t have a vision statement for your career or your life, make one. If you already have one, make sure it’s in a place where you see it frequently, like your bathroom mirror, and start consulting with it daily.

Vision statements work best when we can make them actionable. If you look at some of the tenants on your mission statement and think, “I have no idea how I’m actually living that right now,” you’ve uncovered a big part of your problem. We feel our best when we align our behavior and how we spend our time with what we say is most important.

Even if you don’t know where you want to be in the future, you can probably identify who you want to be. Thinking about who we want to be is always a matter of acting on our values: for example, transparency, authenticity, courage, compassion, curiosity, etc. If you’ve identified your core values, then start each day by asking how you can live them. You’ll immediately feel a greater sense of control and clarity in your days.

Tough times are inevitable, and they come for all of us. I guarantee that using these simple five steps will help you navigate these moments in a far better mood, which will help you conserve the energy required to actually move yourself forward.

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