SPECIAL EDITION: 100 pick-me-ups for when life’s bumming you out

Giveaways will be back next week, but for now here’s something a tad different.

Jun 27, 2023

This list has truly been a joy to compile. May it bring you much joy as well, especially on days when you’re feeling blah. : ) Want more of this type of thing? Let me know in the comments.

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Snazzy up your snacks cupboard. We usually go for dried fruit, almonds, fruit cups, crackers, Arnott’s Shapes, muesli bars, and chips from the health food aisle. It’d be nice to mix it up a little with salsa and corn chips, hot chocolate sachets, mac & cheese packets, instant ramen, olives, and edamame for a change.
Take care of your body with a nice, relaxing mobility flow like this one.
Try one of those diamond art kits.
Have some dark chocolate – it’s good for you and yay, chocolate!
Reread your favourite books from childhood.
Change your bed karma – buy new sheets, pillowcases, and a quilt, or put fresh ones on the bed and revel in that clean laundry scent.
Dabble in a new social media platform.
Cook like a punk rocker and try your hand at chocolate-coated bacon or Coca Cola chicken or avocado fudge.
Go to your nearest fish and chip shop or games arcade and play pinball.
Search for your nearest street library online and pay it a visit.
Eat fairy bread.
Buy or borrow a hula hoop and look up tricks to try on YouTube.
Visit a museum – it may help with anxiety and burnout.
Learn to draw zentangles.
Enter a competition.
Get into macro nature photography.
What are Stephen King’s favourite novels? Check out the list here and see how many you’ve read (for me, it’s three). Read one you’ve missed.
Go to a playground and swing on a swing.
Whip up a microwave mug cake.
Buy some googly eyes and stick them on stuff around the house, or do some #eyebombing around the neighbourhood to bring a weird moment of mirth to others.
Visit your local library and borrow the weirdest book you can find.
Practise wolf whistling if you haven’t yet mastered it (join the club!).
Try flavoured dental floss. Cinnamon, maybe?
Consider installing a secret hiding place in your home.
Make a tiny flip book.
Plan your ideal road trip, including the snacks you’d take and where you’d stop off along the way.
Pay someone a compliment.
Wander a thrift store, take a photo of the strangest thing you find, and send it to a friend who’ll appreciate it. Or maybe take it home.
Take yourself on a date to somewhere you’ve never been – a shop, a café, a tourist attraction, or a nice park.
Start a garden, even if it’s planting a packet of cheap and cheerful flower seeds or putting a pot of herbs on your windowsill.
Invent your signature cocktail or mocktail. Are you fruity or milky?
Make a playlist for a friend.
Declutter your emails (I have 33,657 – yikes) or SMS messages.
Buy yourself some kind of novelty lolly – a Kinder Surprise or pop rocks or a big pinwheel lollipop – and enjoy with gusto.
Find a secret, hidden location on a walk – trot down an alleyway or peer through the fence into a construction site. Is it just me who gets a thrill from this?
Try false lashes. The more ridiculous, the better.
Listen to the juicy revelations in the Family Secrets podcast by Dani Shapiro.
Watch videos of early-career Robin Williams and Whoopi Goldberg.
Start a list of things that make you laugh – jokes, memes, witty phrases, etc – and look back on it on sad days.
Meditate or if you, like me, find it too difficult to ‘clear your mind’, try one of the forms of active meditation. I wrote about this for Nourish magazine here.
Cut out pics from magazines and create a collage.
Walk your neighbourhood (or someone else’s) with the aim of finding a colourful fence, tree or monument, and take a selfie in front of it.
Draw a portrait of someone you’re fond of – whether person or pet. It doesn’t have to be photo-realistic, just created with adoration in mind.
Sign up for an improv class.
Bookmark this calendar of miniatures by Tatsuya Tanaka to enjoy the daily wee scenes of delight.
Learn how to flirt in another language.
Start a journal where you note down wins large and small. These could be anything you’re proud of – finally doing 10 push-ups on your toes, making a new friend, scoring a raise at work, learning to cook risotto, fixing that hole in the bathroom wall. Look back on your list at the end of the year. You’ll have achieved more than you’d realised!
Make a list of your 10 favourite smells and seek them out more often.
Plan an outlandish theme for your next birthday party.
Take a nap, but drink water first – I find you wake up much more refreshed when you’re not dehydrated.
Find a bookshop or library that has a ‘blind date with a book’ display and buy/borrow one. Or, if nowhere near you does it, suggest it at your local library.
Volunteer.
Up your gift-wrapping game. Look up the glorious blog of Hello Sandwich for inspo and reuse + recycle packaging, craft supplies, and trinkets into a gift recipient’s dream.
Watch one minute of innocent delight in zoomed-in art form.
Invent your own bespoke ice cream flavour and see how it tastes.
Plan your perfect day and then make it happen, or at least, part of it.
Memorise the lyrics to one of your favourite songs so next time you play it you won’t have to fumble your way through it. Or, if you’re up to it, perhaps a rap?
Go wild, go crazy with a new hair colour or a new style. Sometimes we get stuck in a hair rut. I know I sure have.
Write to your personal hero and explain what they mean to you.
Draw something every day in a journal.
Do the splits or a backbend (gently).
Make friends with salad. If you despise it like I used to, chances are you don’t actually hate salad, just boring ones. Learn how to make them kick-ass here. (I suggest adding burger sauce – it makes everything taste like a Big Mac.)
Try your hand at nail art – smiley faces, flowers, stars – whatever you please.
Pop some cash in an old purse in the back of a cupboard for you to find one day when you’re running low. Future you with thank you!
Use that gift you got for Christmas or thing you’re saving for best.
Learn all the dance moves from a pop song video.
Leave a singing voicemail for a friend.
Cultivate a beachside resort vibe at home – make yourself a virgin or full-strength pina colada, plait your hair, stick a flower behind your ear, listen to tropical house music, and watch Forgetting Sarah Marshall or The White Lotus.
Follow @Fesshole on Twitter.
Have yourself a little at-home spa day. Exfoliate, moisturise, mask, wash, dry-brush, soak, tan, refresh. All the things that make you feel pampered.
Try break dancing.
Find a friend and a photo booth. Take the silliest pictures imaginable.
Buy a ukulele or a harmonica and learn how to crank out some tunes.
Bake cupcakes and decorate them in X-rated ways or buy ready-made ones and adorn them with lollies.
Text a friend you haven’t seen in a while.
Head to a dog park or playground where owners regularly walk their puppers and say hello to all the good bois.
Eat something you’ve never tried before.
Remember bucket lists? Write yours and make plans to tick off a few items.
Have a lazy day in bed. It’s good for the soul once in a while. Order food in or make your favourite no-fuss meal and lay like broccoli.
Decide on your burlesque name, if only to amuse yourself.
Find a come ‘n’ try activity near you and sign up to go along.
Explore Urban Dictionary and learn some raunchy new phrases.
Write a list of people (friends, relatives, public figures you admire) who are older than you and still kicking ass.
Up your cheese-on-toast game with bougie additions. My faves? Mushrooms, onion relish, marinated chargrilled capsicum, and Swiss cheese.
Pimp your pre-bedtime routine with the likes of a luxurious silk pillowcase, soothing lavender spray, warm milk drink, bath bomb, face mask, and a gentle book.
Try making simple beaded jewellery. It’s so satisfying to finish a pair of earrings or a bracelet in an hour or less with a few easy tools.
Try writing a poem – a limerick or a haiku are easy places to start.
Make a greeting card for a friend.
Write a list of healthy foods you enjoy and resolve to eat more of them (mine would include watermelon, pineapple, almonds, roasted pumpkin, and eggplant).
Even if you’re coupled up, fling off your bra and indulge in your secret single behaviour when they’re out of the house.
Just for kicks, buy a lottery ticket and daydream about what you’d buy if you won.
Wake at dawn and do yoga in the silence.
Pick some cheerful flowers or pieces of greenery and stick them in a jam jar on your dining table.
Listen to a new podcast in a totally different genre to what you’d usually pick.
Find a better way to store one thing in your house that gets on your nerves.
Tickle the toe beans of a tiny animal.
Give dry brushing a go, provided your skin allows it.
Rethink your morning routine and change it to serve you better.
Start a blog or a newsletter.
Create a list of positive affirmations that resonate with you. Write them in a journal or on a notes app on your phone. Read them when you feel blah.