We all have our low moments. We all have times when we feel sad, overwhelmed, or frustrated. When we experience these moments of feeling low, a great way to pick ourselves up is with inspiring quotes. These 45 feeling low quotes can help provide a kick of motivation, a light of hope, and a dash of wisdom to get you feeling good again.
As with all of my other quote posts, my format is to provide the feeling low quote and write my thoughts about each one.
For this particular post, I’ve broken the feeling low quotes into different categories but as you will see, a quote can cover more than one category. Your interpretation of the quote may be different. A quote may speak to you, whereas depending on your situation another one might not, so feel free to use them however you like.
As long as they give you the inspiration to move forward, that’s all that matters. 🙂
Disclaimer – This post contains affiliate links and I may receive a small commission if you make a purchase after clicking on my links. Any compensation I receive does not affect the price you pay.
Let’s dive into 45 feeling low quotes that can help pick you up when you are feeling down.
Feeling low quotes – Doubting yourself and feeling not good enough
What sets you apart can sometimes feel like a burden and it’s not. And a lot of the time, it’s what makes you great.” – Emma Stone
This quote reminds me that what we sometimes consider our faults are actually our best features or our strengths. If you are spending too much time trying to fit in or feel different from others, start thinking about what sets you apart as a blessing and not a burden.
You have been criticizing yourself for years, and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.” – Louise L. Hay
The first time I read this quote, it had a big impact on me. I can’t tell you when or where I read it but at the time I felt like it had been written for me (that’s what I mean by a quote speaking to you!)
I had been criticizing myself for years and it wasn’t helping. I’d try to bully myself into feeling lovable and beat myself up emotionally for being a procrastinator and it only made me feel worse. Self-hatred is exhausting.
Self-love on the other hand changes all that.
As the quote says, try approving of yourself and see what happens. (I can tell you right now, it will be transformational).
You are the greatest project you will ever work on.” – Unknown
As far as projects go, you are the most important one. Sometimes when our focus is all over the place and we are doubting ourselves, we just need to be reminded of that.
I say if I’m beautiful. I say if I’m strong. You will not determine my story, I will.” – Amy Schumer
You determine your worth. Not anyone else. Not your partner, family, children, friends, and certainly not some random person on the Internet. Know your worth – always.
Related resources – (my two favorite books for feeling better about yourself)
- How to Stop Feeling Like Sh*t: 14 Habits That Are Holding You Back from Happiness – Andrew Owen
- You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life – Jen Sincero
Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
All too often we look outside ourselves for peace, acceptance, and validation. But they all come from within.
The very thing that can improve your life is inside your right now, waiting for you to show up and own your power.
You are the peace bringer.
If you’re offered a seat on a rocket ship, don’t ask what seat! Just get on!” – Sheryl Sandberg
To me, this one speaks to opportunity. Sometimes when we are feeling low and bummed out, we fail to see opportunities.
We might fail to see wonderful options because we have lost confidence in ourselves. Jump on that rocket ship and get your confidence back.
Related posts to help improve your self-esteem and self-worth –Â
- 12 Things to Remember When You Feel Not Good Enough
- 10 Powerful Ways to Improve Your Self-Esteem and Self-Worth
- 10 Ways to Have More Confidence
- Know Your Own Worth
Feeling low – Lacking motivation
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
We often make the mistake of waiting for motivation to strike. Until that happens we sit and wait. But that’s not the way it works, we have to do something, get our body and minds in motion and then motivation comes to play.
Get enthusiastic, do something to raise your enthusiasm and excitement levels.
Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.” – Dale Carnegie
This one sums it up perfectly. You need to take action.
Don’t sit around thinking of taking action, actually get up and do it. That’s how you conquer fear, learn to be courageous, and succeed in life.
Every day begins with an act of courage and hope: getting out of bed.” – Mason Cooley
Not quite ready for the two take-action quotes above, that’s okay. The first thing you need to do is get out of bed.
I want you to go one step further than that though – get out of bed with a plan.
Mornings are an incredible time to be productive and creative. Your mind is fresh and rested and you can often have interrupted time before the rest of the house wakes up. This post you are reading now would not have happened without my morning routine of getting up at 6 am and writing for a couple of hours before I start my full-time job.
You might not fancy writing for 2 hours (and that’s perfectly fine :)) but make the time straight after you get out of bed meaningful for you!
Related book – The Morning Miracle: The Not-So-Obvious Secret Guaranteed to Transform Your Life (Before 8 AM)
Be messy and complicated and afraid and show up anyways.” – Glennon Doyle Melton
We are all messy and complicated. We are all afraid even if we seem calm and confident on the outside. It’s okay to be messy, complicated, and scared – just show up anyways and give it your best. That’s all any of us can do.
Over time ‘our best’ gets better and that’s where the magic is.
Making bad decisions doesn’t make you a bad person. It is how you learn to make better choices.” – Drew Barrymore
We all screw up. Sometimes we make bad decisions. You might be lacking in motivation because you made a bad decision and you are scared of making another one.
Making bad decisions is how we learn to make better choices in the future. Learn from your mistakes, reflect on what could have been done differently or better (without beating yourself up) and get your decision-making confidence back.
When the finish line seems too far away, remember how you felt when you were back at the starting line. Regain that motivation to recharge your momentum.” – Tori Sorensen
Your problem might not be starting but finishing. Sometimes when we have a huge goal to achieve we can feel tired and exhausted before we get anywhere near the finish line. That’s when we have to call on all of our strength and remember why we started in the first place and use that motivation to get us over the line.
You have worked so hard, don’t stop now. Keep going!
Feeling low – When things feel out of control
Worrying doesn’t empty tomorrow of its sorrows; it empties today of its strengths.” – Corrie Ten Boom
Feeling low and worrying often go hand in hand. Something is upsetting us, so we worry about it.
I used to think that worrying was a sign of something being really important and that if I worried about it enough I could be prepared for if the worst happened.
Turns out none of those things were true. I often worried over trivial things (fooling myself into believing that they were important things) and worrying never ‘prepared’ me for anything.
All it did was ramp up my stress levels and put me more on edge (often for no damn reason at all).
Related books to help with worry and anxiety –Â
- Rewire Your Anxious Brain: How to Use the Neuroscience of Fear to End Anxiety, Panic and Worry – Catherine M. Pittman
- Retrain Your Brain: Cognitive Behavioural Therapy in 7 Weeks: A Workbook for Managing Depression and Anxiety – Seth J. Gillihan PhD
- Let That Sh*t Go: A Journal for Leaving Your Bullsh*t Behind and Creating a Happy Life for Yourself – Monica Sweeney
If you want to conquer the anxiety of life, live in the moment, live in the breath. – Amit Ray (OM Chanting and Meditation)
This one is all about being mindful and being in the moment.
Being in the moment means not living in the past and not stressing about the future. Stop time traveling and be in the now. And yes take a few deep soothing breaths while you are at it.
Each day you only have a limited amount of time and energy. Don’t waste it stressing about things you cannot control.” – Karen Salmansohn
When we are feeling low, we tend to spend our time and energy badly. Energy is a precious resource. Spend your energy on moving your life forward and making progress (even if it’s in the form of baby steps).
Life is 10 percent what you experience and 90 percent how you respond to it.” – Dorothy M. Neddermeyer
At first, this concept can be hard to wrap your head around because it often feels the other way around – like it’s all about what happens to us. It can feel like it’s all about our problems.
But it’s our emotions, and actions that do the responding to those problems. Calm your responses to the problem. By calming your response to the problem, you give yourself a better chance of working through it.
You can’t change what’s going on around you until you start changing what’s going on within you.” – Unknown
You can’t change other people. Changing what’s going on around us, starts from within. If you want less anger in your life, you need to take a close look at your own anger issues. If you want to be judged less, start by being less judgmental of others.
Start with yourself, you are the only person you can change.
You can’t do anything about the length of your life. But you can do something about its width and depth.” – Evan Esar
This one really got me thinking! We can’t control the length of our lives and yes I won’t lie that can be scary (particularly as we get older) BUT we can control the width and depth of our lives. This means giving our lives more meaning, more purpose, and more love – not just trying to tack a few extra years on the end of life.
Those extra years are great but it’s what you do with them that really make the difference.
Feeling low quotes – Feeling lost
One of the most healing things you can do is recognize where in your life you are your own poison.” – Steve Maraboli
We humans have a knack for self-sabotage. We don’t always see when we are our own poison. We blame other people, deny our feelings, and live in denial.
The healing begins when we recognize the truth and take steps to stop self-sabotaging our lives.
Related resource – The Mountain is You: Transforming Self-Sabotage into Self-Mastery by Brianna Wiest
I started reading this book this week and it has been an eye-opener when it comes to self-sabotage. I’m only one-third through this book and I’ve already learned so much about myself.
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” – Albert Einstein
We can sometimes feel lost because we go looking for solutions in the same situations that caused our pain in the first place.
I remember many years ago I moved interstate with my partner and three months later he walked out on me. I was devastated. For months, I felt lost and every day I came home I looked for his car hoping he would come back. One day his car was there and he had returned but he was still the selfish, awful person he had been before. Nothing had changed.
I realize now instead of wishing for him to return to solve my problem, I should have taken the time to improve my self-worth and work through my abandonment issues from childhood.
I was the solution to my problem – not him returning. You are the solution to your problems as well.
You are allowed to feel messed up and inside out. It doesn’t mean you’re defective – it just means you’re human.” – David Mitchell (Cloud Atlas)
We all feel messed up and lost sometimes.
You are not alone in those feelings (though I appreciate it can feel that way at the time). Stop beating yourself up, accept yourself as someone who is flawed but growing as a person, and start working towards getting yourself back on track.
Sometimes when you’re in a dark place, you tend to think you have been buried; what if you’ve been planted?” – Unknown
This quote helps to flip your thinking. What if this suffering and struggle are leading you somewhere else, somewhere you better are meant to be?
Perhaps you have been planted so that you can grow into a better version of yourself.
Until you’re broken you don’t know what you’re made of. It gives you the ability to build yourself all over
again, but stronger than ever.” – Melissa Molomo
When we are at our lowest, it can feel like we are broken. Rock bottom certainly doesn’t feel good but it is a place to start moving up from. Looking up you can see your mistakes and your challenges and you can face them head-on. You can and will rebuild.
It’s never too late – never too late to start over, never to late to be happy.” – Jane Fonda
It’s never too late – you just have to NEVER give up.
Sure you might have to change track because something didn’t work out the way you wanted it to (we’ve all been there, that’s for sure) but Plan B can sometimes be more wonderful and more rewarding than we ever imagined.
Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.” – Dalai Lama
When I read this one, I often think of my love life. Looking back I see not ending up with the guy I thought I was madly in love with at the time was a huge stroke of luck because he would have made my life a misery.
Sometimes not getting what we thought we wanted is a blessing.
Related posts –Â
- How to Start a New Chapter in Life
- What to Do When You Feel Trapped in Life
- How to Stop Feeling Left Behind in Life
Feeling low quotes –Â Feeling sad or heartbroken
Cry. Forgive. Learn. Move on. Let your tears water the seeds of your future happiness.” – Steve Maraboli
This quote speaks to me of heartache and loss. When you need to have a good cry, do it. Get those feelings of sadness and loss out. Forgive yourself for your mistakes and any part you played in your pain.
The more you deal with your emotions (as painful as they are) the more you move through your pain. Moving through that pain is the only way it stops being so painful.
Sadness flies away on the wings of time.” – Jean De La Fontaine
This one sounds like – Time heals all wounds, doesn’t it? If I’m being honest I used to dislike that quote because it felt like it was trivializing the time it actually takes to heal (which can feel like a very long time when you are in the midst of it).
It does take time to heal and you should honor yourself, give yourself that time, and when the sadness is ready to fly – let it go.
You can’t keep the birds of sadness from flying over your head, but you can keep them from nesting in your hair.” – Sharon Creech
I really loved this one because it formed such a visual picture for me.
There are a lot of things out of our control that we can’t stop from happening and it’s normal to feel sad when bad things happen. What we do have a say over is how long we allow that misery to stick around.
Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for the truth.” – Benjamin Disraeli
I’m the first to admit, I have apologized for my feelings a lot over the years. We might feel weak because we cry or feel ‘too emotional’ if we don’t bounce back from a setback as quickly as people would like us to.
It’s important to remember that healing looks different for different people so don’t be ashamed of your feelings.
Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad. – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Some people are better at hiding their sadness and pain than others which is why we should try to remain compassionate and caring towards others.
Equally, we need to direct that compassion towards ourselves as well. Be kind to yourself when you are feeling sad.
There are wounds that never show on the body that are deeper and more hurtful than anything that bleeds.” – Laurell K. Hamilton
Sometimes we are facing a struggle that people can’t see on the outside. We might look okay but inside we feel devastated. This is an important time to reach out to loved ones and let them know what is going on in your life.
A gentle but important reminder – If you are struggling with depression or severe anxiety, please reach out to a trained medical professional for help.
Feeling low – Seeking strength and hope
It’s interesting how often we can’t see the ways in which we are being strong.” – Lena Dunham
When we are feeling low we often focus only on our failures or weaknesses but it’s important to recognize our strengths and achievements. Take a moment to reflect on your achievements and accomplishments.
Really see all the ways you have been and are being strong.
Most people are stronger than they know. They just forget to believe in it sometimes.” – Keith Scott
You are stronger than you know. You have already overcome so many challenges and you’re still standing.
Believe in how strong and amazing you are. Don’t let anyone make you forget.
I’m proud of the woman I am because I went through a hell of a time becoming her.” – Unknown
While this quote uses the word woman, it can certainly apply to men as well.
We need to be proud of ourselves. Not in an arrogant, braggy, I’m better than anyone else way, but in an, I know my worth and know what I am capable of, type of way.
Keep faith. The most amazing things in life tend to happen right at the moment you’re about to give up hope.” – Unknown
This quote is all about hope. Hope is what keeps us going when we are feeling down. Sometimes the only thing we can do is keep believing and have faith that better things are around the corner.
Once you choose hope, anything is possible.” – Christopher Reeve
Hope keeps us going. It helps us face a new day and find the strength and courage to move forward.
Choose hope. Keep choosing it over and over again.
Owning your story is the bravest thing you’ll ever do.” – Brene Brown
I love this one. Knowing ourselves and being truly honest with ourselves is the bravest thing we will ever do.
And you, my friend, are brave.
The good life is not one immune to sadness but one in which suffering contributes to our development.” – Alain de Botton
While this quote mention sadness, for me this one is all about personal growth.
We become wiser, better people by solving our problems. It’s not just about what you go through but how those hard times helped you grow and develop.
Life is like a rollercoaster it has its ups and downs. But it’s your choice to scream or enjoy the ride.” – Unknown
This quote speaks to choice. It talks about the choice we have to scream our heads off, complain to anyone who will listen, make ourselves miserable and not be happy.
Or we can buckle up, enjoy the ride, and find joy and happiness on the rollercoaster.
Always remember you have choices.
Related posts and resources –
- 20 Questions to Ask Yourself If You Had a Tough Year
- 10 Hope Quotes to Give You Hope During Hard Times
- How to Make Yourself Miserable – 15 Behaviors That Will Make You Miserable
- Burn After Writing – Sharon Jones (This is a brilliant little journal to help to get to know yourself better. I bought one of these for my niece recently and loved it so much I bought another one for myself!)
Feeling low quotes – Bring the joy
Every day may not be good, but there is some good in every day.” – Alice Morse
I know on those really crappy days where it feels like you just want the earth to open up and swallow you, it can be hard to find the good.
But keep looking, on hard days it might be only a tiny sliver of good but it’s still there. Find something to be grateful for every day. Gratitude is what brings joy and peace into those crappy days.
Get your gratitude on with a gratitude journal –
- Good Days Start with Gratitude: A 52 Week Guide to Cultivate and Attitude of Gratitude – Pretty Simple Press
- The One-Minute Gratitude Journal – Brenda Nathan
Laugh loudly, laugh often and most importantly laugh at yourself.” – Chelsea Handler
I know for myself, sometimes when I am feeling low it can be because I am taking things and myself way too seriously.
I might worry too much over something that isn’t important, think someone is mad at me when they’re not, or just be overthinking in general.
It’s in these moments that I need to remind myself to stop taking it all so seriously and that I need a good laugh. That’s when I watch something funny or dance around the house and laugh at myself. Works every time.
A good laugh is sunshine in the house.” – William Makepeace Thackeray
Let the sunshine in your house. Let laughter into your life. 🙂
Life will bring you pain all by itself. Your responsibility is to create joy.” – Milton H. Erickson
You certainly don’t need me to tell you that life sometimes brings pain. We all know that, we have all experienced it. But life also brings so much joy, love, happiness, laughter, beauty, and wonder.
It is your responsibility to create joy. That’s where your focus should be.
My mission in life is not merely to survive but to thrive and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humour, and some style.” – Maya Angelou
What are you passionate about? When are you at your most compassionate? What makes you laugh and brings joy to other people? What style and creativity do you bring to this world?
Whatever that means to you, do more of it and make it your mission.Â
There are so many beautiful reasons to be happy.” – Unknown
I thought I would finish with this one because there are so many beautiful reasons to be happy.
Unfortunately, we are feeling low and feeling down we don’t always see them. We don’t look for them. We just get caught inside our own heads and our own problems.
This quote is a reminder to look for beautiful reasons. Your beautiful might be a brilliant blue sky outside your window, your precious cat or dog, or a pretty flower in your garden. Whatever it is find your beautiful.
While you are at it, find the beauty within yourself and let that bring you joy.
How to make the most of these feeling low quotes
An excellent way to get the most of these quotes is to journal about them. Pick a few that resonate with you and write down all of your thoughts, feelings, and emotions. Make sure you write them down and not just say them in your head because written down they will be a lot more powerful.
Make sure you include what outcomes and positive next steps you want to bring about by doing this exercise.
Another option is to use a quote as your mantra. When you are struggling, clear your mind, take a few slow deep breaths, and say your quote to yourself. Use it as your mantra and inspiration. Use it to calm and ground yourself.
We all have our moments of feeling low. Don’t let toxic or negative thoughts take over. See thoughts for the often fleeting, constantly changing things they are, process them if you need to, and send them on their way. Then get back to the business of being you, because you are all sorts of amazing.
I hope you enjoyed this post. Please share it with your friends on social media. Sharing is always greatly appreciated. 🙂
Read Next – 10 Inspiring Ways to Do More of What Makes You Happy