Have you failed lately? It’s hard to imagine anyone reading this who hasn’t failed in a big or small way in the last few days.

So, think of a current failure. If you are like me, you do not have to think too long about this. You may have felt failure as a parent, as a spouse or partner, as a child, as a boss, as a neighbor, as a human… I know I have quite a few failures that I can refer to – just from recent days and weeks.

So, get one of these failures in mind. Got it? Now, what are you most grateful for about that failure?

Really…answer that and stop reading for a few minutes to to give yourself time to consider this. What are you thankful for about your failure? You might just think about it, write it down, or say it out loud.

Depending on what it is you have identified as your failure, there are a multitude of possibilities for which you could be thankful. I can’t even list them all because I can’t even think of all the possible failures you’ve had. A few possibilities though, are that, because you “failed,”

• A relationship was ultimately strengthened

• You got a job you like better than the one you had

• You learned to measure your words before letting them come spilling out – and this helped you in a situation where the consequences of letting them spill out would have been significant

• You had a discussion with someone about your failure and found some solutions or possible help

• You met someone after you hit her car at the grocery store (with your car)

• You got feedback on a presentation you did that you will use when creating an upcoming presentation (that is of even more importance than the one you ‘messed up on’)

• And the list goes on and on….

As Michel de Montaigne said, “There are defeats more triumphant than victories.” You may not have had one of these triumphant defeats or failures in the last few days – or maybe you have. I will bet you can think of one of them from this recent year, however.

Ponder – and be thankful for – those defeats, i.e., those failures. Begin to announce mentally and verbally your thankfulness for failure. It is very attractive.

Let me say again, be grateful for your failures. With each failure, say a word of thanks. As Meister Eckhard said,

“If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, ‘thank you,’ that would suffice.”

If the reason you are tense is because you are worried, here’s a tried and true idea that you may need to revisit if you’ve tried it before, or test it out for yourself if you never have before.

To make, use, and benefit from a “Worry Jar”…

1. You need to have a physical worry jar and it can be a can, large jar, box, basket…whatever.

2. Label it for what it is, i.e., Worry Jar (Worry Basket, Worry Box).

3. Write down every single thing you are worried about. It can be gigantic events like global warming, economic crashes, raging fires in your community, floods, plagues, locusts…whatever. Big stuff you are worried about.

You may very well have medium-sized things you are worried about, e.g., whether your child gets into the college she wants, whether your grant proposal that funds a portion of your salary will get funded, whether your spouse will have an affair (you can see that I have not escaped the news lately), if your house will be finished on schedule, etc.

And then there are the smaller items such as, a new haircut turning out right, if you picked out the right card for your mother, whether or not the shoes you just bought are going to match the jacket you hoped that they would that is currently at the cleaners so you can’t look at it right now, if you are going to run out of milk before the next time you go to Costco to buy the double gallon pack. etc.

Hey, we all worry about myriad items…I know.

So just write it ALL down. Any and all things about which you are worrying.

4. Now, put all if these individual items in the jar so that they can be there when you need them.

5. Once a week, get out every single one of your little pieces of paper and sort them into 4 piles:

1. Didn’t even happen.
2. Happened and I survived the consequences.
3. Happened and I didn’t survive the consequences.
4. Still worried about it.

Put the ones from the last pile back in the jar. Well, I guess if you have something in #3, then you won’t be able to do anything with any of them, right….

I’m serious…there are many versions of using a worry jar…and the idea works. It helps us gain some perspective. If your tension is arising from your worries, try out the worry jar.

Do you sometimes wish that things were different for you? Have you often thought of, “If only…”? What if you combined those two ideas – and turned them into actions you could take?

Let us start with you making your own list of things that you would like to be different. It might be relationships you have, certain work that you do, something about your physical being, or other practices in which you engage. So make your list and then read the rest of the article.

Now, looking at your list, you need to begin to think about “If this, then, this.” That is, you will consider, “If this (relationship, work, practice, or habit) is going to occur, then this (action, conversation, etc.) will need to happen. You can set up a page that has lots of sentence frames like this:

If ________________________, then _______________________.

Now, begin to fill them in. Let me give you a few samples first:

• An example would be, if I am not going to work with high maintenance clients, then I need to talk with my colleagues to find out if they want these clients or if we need to verify the ease of working with the person before our firm ever takes them on.

• Another example would be, if we are going to donate money to a special cause instead of buying gifts at the holiday season, then I need to have a way of letting people know that this is our choice and we encourage them to do the same.

• Here’s another: If I am keeping the door closed on cynical, negative language, then I need to remind the people in my house that I don’t want to hear such language and will just take myself out of the room if that is the level of discourse they are engaged in. (I know… I make it sound easy, don’t I?! HA!)

Write out if ______________ (I intend to keep the door closed on x) then ______________ here is what I will need to do.

It is not some magical occurrence to make changes in your life, that is, closing or keeping closed certain “doors” in your life so that your life can be better next year than it has been. You need to be deliberate about keeping doors closed that you just don’t want to pop or creak open this next year.

So with your if, then statements, I imagine you found yourself with some work to do.

1. Maybe there are conversations you need to have.

2. Maybe there are phone calls you need to make.

3. Maybe you need to schedule time weekly to take care of something.

Keep in mind, If this, then that. Be purposeful and deliberate about your decisions to stay on the upside vs. on the downside. If you are going to stay in an empowered, positive frame of mind, it involves taking actions based on the decisions you make.

You can do this.

Doc Childre of HeartMath® said:

Managing our emotions increases intuition and clarity. It helps us self-regulate our brain chemicals and internal hormones. It gives us natural highs, the real fountain of youth we’ve been searching for. It enables us to drink from elixirs lock[ed within our cells, just waiting for us to discover them. 

How do you know if you have no emotional energy pockets?

It is different for all of us but here are some commonalities among human beings:

• We feel drained and we will often say, “I’m just emotionally exhausted.”

• We feel depleted and tapped out emotionally.

• We either react in a hyper-emotional way or a hypo-emotional way to particular events. The emotional response is out of kilter with the event. That’s a clue.

• We are short-tempered with people we care about and with ‘everyday’ people.

• We feel depressed (although others may be noticing and we aren’t).

• We….you add your own here.

What do you need to do to create some emotional energy pockets? You will have to answer for yourself, but if I may I make some suggestions…

1. Disconnect from anyone you can who sucks the energy right out of you. It does not give you a pocket yet, but it at least stops some of the ‘outflow’ of energy. You can choose to disconnect for a short time or you can disconnect forever. I recommend the latter in nearly every case.

2. Open up some emotional space (that’s the pocket) where you give yourself what you need. If you need time alone, get that time alone. If you need time to laugh with someone, set up that time. If you need to call someone who loves you no matter what, call him or her. Just tell them what’s going on and let them minister to you.

3. Imagine yourself enfolded in a cocoon. You are protected. It is not that you can not breathe and it is not that you can’t grow, but you are protected while you gain some strength.

4. Trust your inner self, your intuition, to direct you. As Andrea Hess says, your intuition is like a radio station playing softly in the background, and if we just listen more carefully, it is not that what is playing is unfamiliar because it has been playing softly in the background for awhile. It is just that now, we are listening. Tune in and see what your SELF tells you.

5. Get a massage. Massages are fascinating because although most people go to get a massage because they have a physical need, they end up getting emotional (and other) benefits as well.

6. Get some sleep. Our bodies, minds, and souls need sleep. Make arrangements to get some sleep – for many nights in a row. One night of good sleep is not enough to replenish your emotional energy pockets – and even many nights are just part of what you will need if you have become significantly depleted emotionally.

When you are emotionally sapped, i.e., when all your “pockets” are gone, then you are unable to be fully present personally or professionally. No one is served when your stress and exhaustion have taken their toll.

These are just some of the questions I wish I had asked my Mom. You may find this helpful in prompting your own thinking about questions to ask your mom or your dad (or someone else you care deeply about).

1. What do you most regret about your life? What would you have done differently if you could have?

Imagine the lessons that someone in their sixties, seventies, or eighties could teach you.

2. What strength do you wish you had possessed in earlier parts of your life, such as your teens, twenties, thirties, and so forth?

Notice and ask about why certain strengths repeat themselves in your parent’s answer and why other ones change.

3. What are you thinking about now…about death?

I started thinking about this question soon before my dad died and wish I had asked him. Now, as my mom is reasonably close to death, I wish I could ask her this question, too. However, it’s not a bad question to ask someone anytime, particularly as they get older. It would provide insight just knowing different people’s answers.

4. What has been your biggest disappointment in life? And, what has been your greatest accomplishment in life – so far?

Wow. Especially as your parent ages, you may receive some incredibly honest answers. Why would they need to posture at this point?

5. What do you wish you had asked your mother, father, siblings, or others before they died? What are those questions that you really wish you had sought out answers to – before it was too late to do so?

If you have a mother like mine, she has thought about things like this. Or, if she hasn’t, your question will prompt some fascinating reflections on her part. Believe me…I wish so much I had asked questions like this instead of just talking about things that flat out didn’t matter.

I have many regrets about my life, but right now, the one weighing on me most heavily is regrets related to my mom. I wish I had learned more from her when I could. These questions could have led to some of that learning.

There are thousands of people who will be reading this post. I know we have people reading who have one drawer (and only one drawer) that is a little over-stuffed and that clutter stresses them out. It may not be necessary for them to repeat this process.

However!  For everyone else, you can identify with some version of the following:

• you have a whole desk that needs decluttering – or  

• maybe you have an entire office that has gotten out of hand – or  

• maybe your garage is a stressor on your relationships because no one can park a car in there and no one can find anything that is ‘stored’ in the garage – or  

• maybe the department where you work has a ‘storage room’ that has become a junk room and with the budget cuts, you need to make sure every spare pen, ream of paper, box of rubber bands is used before ordering any more and you have a sneaking suspicion there are actually supplies ‘stored’ in the storage room so you need to get in there and get it squared away.

Very few of us have only one tiny area that needs decluttering (and that we need to de-stress over). That’s why you have to ’rinse and repeat’ whatever practices you put into play when you are getting rid of clutter. You will need to toss, clean, resist getting ‘new’ junk, over and over until you have removed all the detritus, all the unused, all the unloved and unneeded items from your space. It may take a few days to do this or it may take months. Either way, it’s worth the effort.

Remember, your goal is peaceful, predictable productivity and by decreasing your clutter you can decrease your stress and move closer to your positive place of being energized by your work and home instead of dragged down by the stress.  Expect a journey to that goal.  I’ve been on that journey for over 20 years now…and I wouldn’t have persisted if I didn’t know it made a difference. 

And you are invited to learn more from the full-color Get a Plan! Guide(R) to Ridding Your Workspace of Clutter to REALLY get going on decluttering.  This special Get a Plan! Guide(R) will give you (and others with whom you work) suggestions and motivation to start de-cluttering your workspace (and even your home).

Can you change some of the events that are currently stressing you out?  Are there others over which you really have no control or even any influence?   Hmmm…it might be time to consider what belongs in the various categories for you.

To help you visualize the idea we’re talking about in this article, just draw a series of 4 interlocking circles that go from right to left across a piece of paper you have turned sideways, i.e., landscape. Label each circle thusly:

Total Control -> Significant Impact -> Some Influence -> Zero Control

Take a look at the third circle and label it as ‘Some Influence’ on your Venn diagram.  What belongs here are those people, situations, activities, thoughts, etc. over which you have…yes, ‘some influence,’ but not any control.  Make a list now for each of the following – i.e, a list of those where you may have some influence (vs. control):

• People

• Situations

• Activities

• Thoughts

• Responsibilities

• Other

I hope you stopped yourself before you wrote down some of your first ideas in these categories.  For example, if you thought, ‘Well, the situation with the stock market is really upsetting me,’ but then you realized that you have essentially no control over that – and essentially no influence.  So, there’s no sense to continue worrying about it, right?  I know this is easier said than done.    

Recognize that your influence may be felt in myriad ways.  For example, 

1. Let’s say the plight of women in underdeveloped countries weighs on your mind constantly. You read about it, worry about it, talk about it, and just feel a heaviness about it nearly constantly. You don’t have complete control over what happens and while you could make choices that would allow you to have significant impact on certain women, realistically, this is something you could classify in the ‘Some Influence’ category. You could write articles, write letters, post on blogs to bring the untenable situation these women are in. Think about what Nicholas Kristoff does in this area, for example, in his writing for the New York Times. Or, you could donate money that would make a difference. You could pray. You could engage in many different practices that would influence what is happening in this area

2. Another example of something that would be in the ‘Some Influence’ circle would be your distress over some of the actions and decisions of people in government. You can’t control that and in most cases, you can’t make a Significant Impact, but you can exert Some Influence. Whether it’s by voting, voicing your opinion, appearing on various shows, energizing your neighbors, writing, or many other options. Recognize that you will have some influence when you do this, but it’s not under your control.

As an adult, particularly as an adult who wants to maximize productivity and contribution to the world, figuring out where you can influence what is happening is crucial.  Do some thinking on this and recognize whether you might have been spending some time unproductively trying to ‘make’ something happen (or ‘make someone change’ – ha! We know how well that works).  Instead, exert your influence – and make a difference where you can. 

Do you radiate positive energy?  Does it have an impact on others?  Are you unsure about what qualities you may want to be radiating out to others?

Winston Churchill said:

“I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else.”

There are people you know (and I know) who radiate everything that is positive (vs. everything that is negative). For example, contrast the person who radiates

• Passion vs. Apathy

• Positivity vs. Negativity

• Kindness vs. Disdain

• Thankfulness vs. Ingratitude

• Light vs. Darkness

• Creativity vs. Destruction

• Optimism vs. Pessimism

• Brightness vs. Dullness

• Intensity vs. Colorlessness

You can probably think of additional contrasting pairs. We want to think about the positive radiance factor of the ones in the first part of each pair when we are assessing ourselves on the Radiance Scale.

First, let’s look at two definitions of radiance from www.MyFavoriteThesaurus.com:

• The quality of being bright and sending out rays of light

• An attractive combination of good health & happiness

Hmmm…sounds nice doesn’t it?

Let me explain the idea of the concept of a Radiance Scale.  Draw a series of embedded circles.  Put at least 5 circles with each one somewhat larger until you have filled up your page.

YOU are at the base or core of the Scale. You will want to consider how metaphorically ‘radiant’ you are (using our previous definition, i.e.,

• The quality of being bright and sending out rays of light

• An attractive combination of good health & happiness

Once you have thought about your particular radiance, you can begin to determine how far out you radiate through the various layers of other people.

There are ways of thinking of who else is in the various strata and how far out your impact goes through them. You could think of family as being near the center of the diagram, co-workers maybe being a little bit further out, acquaintances being in the next level, and those you don’t know being toward the outside.

There is not one way to think of this because each of our lives are structured differently and are intertwined with other people’s lives in a host of ways.

As you consider the idea of a Radiance Scale and make your own assessment, ask yourself these questions:

1. How radiant am I?

2. Do I display light, gratitude, optimism, hope, and delight – and at what intensity?

3. Do I want to increase my radiance so that I glow or shine even more? Or, would it be better if I turned it down a bit?

As an adult, you can exercise the executive functions you possess as a part of your cognitive system as an adult human being. You can use those executive functions to control and manage your other cognitive processes. So, determine your radiance and then strategically control and manage it so that YOU, first and foremost, are taken care of and then, and only then, can you strategically make an impact on others. 

Do you think any dust has accumulated under piles of clutter?  Is it possible that there is dirt somewhere in the midst of piles of stuff that need to given away.  Would you find any cobwebs around those places that haven’t been sorted lately?

Let’s just agree that the answer is ‘Yes.’

A simple way to keep the de-cluttering process moving and to keep yourself motivated while you are getting organized is to clean the spaces where you are working just as soon as you take the ‘stuff’ out. 

For example, let’s say that you decided to start with one bookshelf. The best way to proceed is to remove everything from that bookshelf including books, VHS tapes, notebooks, knick-knacks, plants, pictures, piles of papers, whatever is there.

Once you have taken everything off the shelf, take a wipe, a damp cloth, or some other cleaning rag and clean off or out the whole area. Really wipe it down (and all you have to do is take one look at the rag and you’ll know it’s a good thing you’re doing this). I’ve worked with people who were horrified when they started doing this because we needed rag after rag – and it’s why I always taken a giant container of wipes whenever I do a productivity day in someone’s office. I know we may need all 75 wipes!

The reason this is one of the easiest ways to decrease clutter and decrease stress is this:  Just seeing an empty and clean shelf, drawer, file, or wherever you are working, makes you more deliberate about what you choose to put back.  There’s something sacred about a place that is not just clutter-free but is also CLEAN. 

Give it a try and see what a difference it makes. Folks, I’m telling you it’s the little things sometimes that make a big difference!

And you are invited to learn more from the full-color Get a Plan! Guide(R) to Ridding Your Workspace of Clutter to REALLY get going on decluttering.  This special Get a Plan! Guide(R) will give you (and others with whom you work) suggestions and motivation to start de-cluttering your workspace (and even your home).

As a leader, do you want to be considered a lion – or a sheep? I think I know the answer, but in case you need any additional encouragement, consider these characteristics of sheep:

1. Timid, fearful, easily panicked

Hmm…are these words that you want to be used to describe you? Timidity in the face of today’s challenges doesn’t seem like the attribute we want to be displaying as leaders.

2. Dumb, stupid, gullible

Clearly, the sheep characteristic of being stupid or gullible is one to eschew. 

3. Stampede easily, vulnerable to mob psychology

Oh, my goodness. Look at this one. I think all of us are seeing examples of sheep all around us. All you have to do is turn on the news and see the mob psychology that is going on. But let’s think about the workplace or other places where you spend substantial amounts of time. It only takes a few to get everyone else worked up. With universities – as just one example – taking tremendous cuts, many faculty and staff are taking on the group’s mentality instead of seeking out their own mentality. 

4. Little or no means of self-defense; can only run

Sheep have no means of self-defense, so of course they run. As a leader, you are stronger than that and you do have means of self-defense – from negativity or other difficult situations.

5. Easily killed by enemies

Although this characteristic of sheep applies to completely killing the animal, for us, let’s consider that we don’t want to be figuratively killed off. We don’t want to lose our focus, our drive, our heart, our purpose, our intent, our strength, or any of the rest of what makes us who we are. Sadly, I talk with people sometimes who say, “I’ve lost my way,” or “I just feel dead inside,” or other similar phrasing. As leaders, you need to keep your focus and intent.

6. Jealous, competitive for dominance

Envy and jealousy are two of the less-attractive emotions. Domination is never particularly attractive either. So that’s all I’m going to say here.

7. Easily “cast” that is, flipped over on their back, sometimes from too much wool. Sheep are unable to right themselves and will die of starvation if not turned over by shepherd.

WOW…this is a very interesting one, I think. Sheep can be flipped over and then can’t get back up without the shepherd turning them back over. Helpless.

8. Need the most care of all livestock

Can we say, “Needy?” A “needy” leader. Not a pleasant image, is it? If you are high-maintenance, that might be considered sheep-like. Baaaa…

Leaders need to be lion-like rather than sheep-like. I know you know that, but if you need encouragement,