Most of us are driven by our mood and feelings for doing things.
The problem is that your moods are driven by your heart and emotions, which is quite mercurial in nature.
- You are happy now THEN you get upset the next moment.
- You want to study now THEN you don’t feel like studying the next moment.
- You love someone THEN you start hating her because she did not pick up your call.
- You are feeling bad THEN you get charged when you get a call back from someone you love.
If we are not in control of our emotions, we can’t control our destinies because emotions change every moment and they often move in zig-zag manner resembling Brownian motion as shown in the figure below.
As soon as your emotions are cooled, your rational mind is back.
Then you start feeling guilty since you have wasted so much of your time without doing any productive work.
As soon as you feel guilty, your negative emotions are back in command and your rational mind goes for a toss.
You don’t feel like studying or doing any productive work since you are in a bad mood again.
Best Way to Get Over a Bad Mood
You can break this cycle of bad-mood-unproductive-life-bad-mood by developing productive habits for daily life and by following it strictly.
You must develop a schedule for the day with as little flexibility as possible. Thereafter, you must force yourself to follow the schedule, even if you are not in the right mood or don’t feel like doing the work.
Your mind would be moving back and forth, and would not allow to focus on the work. However, keep forcing your mind towards the object and control your actions. Once you learn to discipline your body by the power of your will, your mind too shall start following your orders. You would find very soon that your good mood is back and you have got your focus and motivation to do the job.
You must balance your mind and heart, your logic and your emotions. Don’t allow one to rule over the other. Treat them fairly and they shall become good friends. Then your heart shall understand the logic of your head and your head shall listen to the feelings of your heart. Together, they shall help you winning the game of life.
Originally written as an answer on Quora.