One strategy to understand what's wrong with a broken machine is to go through a process of elimination. First, identify those parts that are functioning fine from those that may be causing some problems. Second, test the 'possibly broken parts' one at a time until you find out what may be the problem. Psychological health can be similar. When we are 'broken' we may find ourselves reacting to something more strongly than we would have under 'normal' circumstances. If you find yourself reacting strongly, it's time to evaluate what else you may be reacting to. Have you not been getting adequate sleep and nourishment? Have you been under a lot of stress? Are the demands on you greater than your available resources? Answering yes to any one of these or similar questions may be the reason behind being out of balance, or being broken. Once you identify the underlying challenges, try to correct them if they are under your control, or seek some other healthy resolution if they are not, and see if that facilitates improvement in your overall disposition.

Can't find the spring in your step? Lliving a life that doesn't seem to be going anywhere? Consider choosing to add something to your life that would increase its value. Are you missing out in relationships with depth, in your spiritual connections, in giving to others or nurturing yourself? Are you spending hours in a job that is inconsistent with your personal goals or morals? The business world speaks often of "value added" in terms of production - at each stage of the production process, they want to understand what value is added at that particular time. Consider the same for your life. Given where you are at in your life at this very moment, what is the next piece of value that you could add to your life? Make sure it's manageable and able to be accomplished so that you can glean from that value and move forward with a little more spring in your step.

Did you know that thinking privately about happy moments may not only provide additional boost to your mood but also be a better way of staying happy than writing about or analyzing these joys? In an elegantly-designed study published in 2006 in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Dr. Lyubomirsky and colleagues asked participants to identify one of the happiest days they had ever experienced, and then instructed them in one of the following conditions: a) think about the positive life experience and replay it over and over; b) think about the positive life experience and analyze their thoughts; c) write about the positive life experience over and over as if rewinding and replaying a cassette tape; or d) write about the positive life experience and analyze the event. Each participant was asked to engage in their particular condition for 15 minutes for 3 days, and then participants were re-evaluated four weeks later. Can you guess what the researchers found? They found that long-term positive affect (continuing to feel happiness, joy, etc.) four weeks later was most profound for condition A, where participants thought about the positive life experience, replaying it over and over without analyzing it.

What does this mean for you? Thinking and reminiscing about your positive life events, your joys, your triumphs, your 'happy thoughts' on a regular basis can help sustain your good mood. Try to avoid analyzing the good event, just relish in it. Just like Peter Pan in the movie Hook, perhaps finding your happy thoughts will give you the strength to fly.