Challenge: Credit crunch dragging you down? Other people getting all the breaks? Learn how to develop an optimistic mindset and reap the rewards.

Solution: Change your mind. By seeing yourself as unlucky you create a self-limiting belief; think like that and it will soon become true. It also works the other way round (luckily). Psychologists Seligman and Schulman found that insurance sales agents with an optimistic mindset sold 37 per cent more in their first two years than their pessimistic colleagues.