Some people seem giddy all the time while others are always gloom and doom… but the healthiest emotional mix is appropriate to what’s actually happening, with as much positive outlook as possible.

Ever notice how some people are always supercharged with happiness to the point of coming across as a little creepy, while others always have a cloud of gloom over their heads?

It’s all right to be gloomy. Yes you read that right. It’s all right to be gloomy… when you need to be, but you’ve got to be giddy when you should be too.

Just like how a good cup of cappuccino has just the right amount of coffee to wake you up, a frothy milk smoothness to soothe you, and perfect balance of bitter and sweet… a healthy mix of both negative and positive emotions is a good balance as well.

Think of how you used to be as a child. If someone told you a goofy joke, you laughed. If you got hit by a bully, you cried. But as you grow up, you start resisting these emotions. You pick a couple of emotions that you feel are appropriate to express in society and you express these few continually without really trying to find that balance.

But self control doesn’t require suppressing your emotions. Self control is about how you express them. The trick is to learn to express ourselves in a socially acceptable manner, while still being able to feel and experience the emotions too.

You might have heard that laughter is the best medicine. And it is. But a little bit of gloom from time to time is good medicine too. Emotions shouldn’t be restricted to what a self-help book asks you to do or what is appropriate in a social situation. Emotions should be natural and should stem from what you really are feeling in a situation. If you didn’t like a joke you heard you need not force a laugh or if you really didn’t feel sad about a certain piece of moving news you don’t need to force the emotion. Forced emotions put stress on you and steal away your spontaneity.

First, experience and feel the emotions, then direct your actions and reactions with purpose and control.

All that been said, whether gloomy or giddy; you’ve got to keep up that positive outlook.

What do you think of when you hear the term positive outlook? Do you picture a smiling face? Well positivity doesn’t mean that you need to keep up an ear to ear grin at all times. It merely means that you keep the faith that you hold in yourself or in the situation and you don’t let negativity and self doubt take control. So even if a certain situation brings a wave of gloom over you, while feeling the sadness, you’ve hold onto your positive feelings toward the outcome. So you are allowed to mope with the gloom for a moment… but you can’t let it crush the hope out of your life.

You don’t have to abide by the “generally accepted” correct emotions. Your emotions are your own and you don’t necessarily get to choose which ones are invoked. But you do get to choose what to do about them.

Even when you can’t be lost in a fit of uncontrollable giggles, even when the somber, gloomy face takes over, keep that die hard positive outlook alive!

Everybody has an unproductive day once in a while, sometimes for the most trivial reasons.  Maybe you couldn’t stop thinking about what your friend said about you or maybe you just didn’t feel like getting out of bed. A single unproductive day occasionally may not bother you much, and it may even be the break you need to recharge and refocus.

But a series of unproductive days could really put you back on your schedule, make you feel stressed out, and even affect your self esteem. But be it a single unproductive day or a series of them; if you want to move forward, you need to treat the wasted day like you would treat an expired carton of milk. Throw it away and move on and use the next one wisely.  This day is gone but how can you counter the ramifications?

Triage the loss before it’s final

Usually, you see a lost day coming.  You realize you won’t be able to get done what you wanted to get done.  Decide early what things you can let go, and what things are critical.  Try to juggle in some less critical things that you also enjoy doing and see if they’ll fit in instead.  If you don’t feel like working on the car, painting the house, finishing your cousin’s wedding album that to promised to do… maybe take the time with your spouse and kids and fit in a surprise outing together.  This may be just the break you need, and it can also buy you time tomorrow to get back to what you need to do.

You have to realize that “me days” are not wasted!

Everyone needs days for themselves.  Everyone needs days they can spend doing nothing.  Everyone needs time to disengage, let the mind run free, or even not run at all.  So don’t be afraid to give yourself a day from time to time.

Get over it

Before you do anything else, get over it!  First off, if it was just a single lost day and you enjoyed it and relaxed, then stop thinking about the day as being wasted.

It’s a better idea to simply let the day go rather than waste more time moping about the unproductive day. Stuff happens! It’s all right, you can power through this.

And if it was a day of dealing with outside stuff that popped up, then realize that most of that stuff had to be dealt with eventually.  Getting it dealt with now could just give you a sense of relief rather than a sense of loss.  You just have to see it from the right point of view.

Where did I go wrong?

Often asking questions of yourself is the best way to figure out where you’ve messed up.

Being bold enough to ask yourself where you went wrong in the first place is the starting point to combating the effects of an unproductive day.  Retrace your steps and try to figure out what factors led to you being unproductive.  Could it be a series of unproductive phone calls or web chats?  Or was it some silly thought that buzzed in your head the entire day?  Think about each factor and make a note of it.  Don’t overlook the trivial ones too: bad lunch, tickle in the throat, sight of neighbor’s annoying dog etc.

Things to NOT do

Instead of focusing on what you should be doing, focus on what you shout not be doing first.  Often, you focus too much on what to do and in the process you might tense up with anxiety, procrastinate and end up feeling quite miserable and emotionally worn out.

Think about the things that you simply must not do; like wallow in bed long after you wake up or drink too much the night before a busy day or chat online late into the night and end up drinking a six-pack of Red Bull to pull you through the day.  Once you eliminate the strict no-no’s you wouldn’t have a similar situation in the future.

Urgent/important

An easy way to get back on track is by segregating things into what’s urgent and what’s important.  When your phone rings it’s urgent since you need to pick it up before it gets disconnected.  But if it’s your friend who just called up for the heck of it, it’s not important just urgent.  You can always talk for a bit and then hang up saying that you’ve got something important to do.  Focus on what’s important rather than what’s urgent.

Make up for the backlog piecemeal

So you had an unproductive day or a series of them and you’ve accumulated some backlog.  The only way to deal with the backlog is piecemeal.  Break down your work over the week or the next couple of weeks, and tackle one thing at a time.  Don’t look at the whole list and get discouraged.  Only think about the task you are doing.

You might choose to work a little longer each day but it won’t stress you or bother you since you are choosing to work in order to accomplish each task.

Or you might choose to dedicate an entire day, and work long to knock off the list.  Just remember that it’s one task at a time.  If the tasks are errands, you may need to plan them so you can chain them together into a series, but you are still doing only one task at a time.  But if you choose to make it up in a hard day… make sure you plan for the downtime you’ll need to recharge afterwards.

Be a success junkie

Instead of getting addicted to the adrenaline rush from procrastination, get addicted to the feel-good effect of success in even the smallest of challenges.  If you’ve got ten reports to do, break it down and enjoy the success you get from completing each one.  As you wade through all your work, the feelings of accomplishment only increase.  If you enjoy the feeling of success from mini challenges, you won’t be motivated to procrastinate or let your day go by unproductively.

Also, it helps a lot if when you get 9 of those 10 reports completed, that you can feel 9 small successes and 1 small failure (I do hope you did the most important reports first, right?) rather than feeling 1 big failure.

While you may have your occasional wasted day, don’t let it bog you down with negativity. Tackle it practically rather than letting it get to your emotions. By tackling unproductive days with days of continuing productivity, you end up being more productive overall and increase your satisfaction and morale in the process.

Of course, many will quickly respond that no, you should always tell the truth. But just as quick to respond are the legions of people that would lie just a little bit in order to spare someone’s feelings.

While the battle between should and shouldn’t will continue to rage for future generations, we can probably all agree that even if you should in theory always tell the truth, not every battle need be fought today. As Gramma used to say: discretion is the better part of valor.

While we (in the US) use the word elegant as a proxy for glamorous, the French use it to indicate a developed social grace, what we would call a certain je ne sais quoi. Here in America we don’t really have a common word, or even a common phrase that is used for this quality. Which is probably why we use the French term for “duh, I dunno” to describe it.

While I can say “social grace” and you probably get some idea what I mean, it’s not a concept frequently discussed or very well defined in our culture. I’m not sure if our lack of a word reflects our lack of value for social grace in general, or if our lack of social grace reflects our lack of a word and a national dialog on the matter. Regardless, it is an often overlooked quality and the essential ingredient in any recipe for maintaining your integrity and staying true to your beliefs. It is that elegant middle ground between tactless and spineless that so few seem to master.

Yet, even without a clearly defined concept, each of us knows at least one person that somehow seems to float above the petty and the meaningless, radiating an aura of grace, blending connectedness, and tact, while never straying far from their core beliefs. When in doubt, imagine what this person would do. Imagine how they would handle the situation that you are facing.

So getting back to our original question, yes, you should tell truth but yes you should also be as respectful as possible and spare the feelings of others from unnecessary bruising. There are many techniques you can develop that will help you avoid having to lie while still being respectful and elegant.

One valuable technique is to reverse a request for affirmation with a gently probing (yet sensitive) question. For example, a close friend asks you “was I wrong to bla bla” and you feel compelled to say “oh no, of course not” even though you know your friend was in the wrong. The challenge here is to be honest while not undermining either your friend or your friendship. By reversing with a question, you can disagree gently, and give your friend a chance to explore their error. For example, you could say “I dunno, I know you’re sensitive to bla bla’s games… but did it require that strong of a response?” Here you are reaffirming your friend’s source of offense, while neither supporting nor rejecting the validity of what was done.

The signal that you should have picked up on above was when you felt compelled. That pressure, whether a friend seeking affirmation or peer pressure in a group, is a sure sign than your integrity is about to be compromised. Often the same approach can be applied successfully. Namely, agree with the feelings and question without quite disagreeing with the actions.

Sometimes an alternative could be to agree with the actions reluctantly, while pointing out that there may be other points of view. Or you could point out that if the roles were reversed, you doubt that the opinions would stay the same. And if pointing it out seems a little strong, you could ask if rather than state that.

While there are countless techniques you can employ to deflect the pressure to lie, they all have one thing in common: they all can be employed to preserve your integrity in the face of a complex reality.

Well, it’s starting to come together in detail now… In a previous post (link), I discussed my goals for the program itself, and now I can report on the progress so far.

From a recent comment:

The fact is that people, to be happy, need to understand and accept who they ARE first, and then try to move this state to something compatible. To be a star you don’t have to sell your soul. Helping people, making other persons happy and successful is an alternate way.

Also, don’t be mad at me, but I find it kind of funny that you tell people self help books are not the solution, yet at the same time you plan for one, somehow…

The good news is that he’s right on both counts. He’s exactly on point.

First, I’m not developing a self help book. While it turns out that while I can knock out a killer article, I run out of creativity and charisma way short of a full chapter, let alone book. I’ve tried a few times over the years to take my model of the psyche and turn it into something people can use. Quite frankly, I’ve given up.

Second, my model of the psyche is built on acceptance of who you are today, then working to become who you want to be tomorrow. This core concept that I invented (hahaha) is thousands of years old…. it’s the concept of zen surrender.

Along the way, I’ve done a lot of research and reading and there are three books that stand head and shoulders above the rest. These authors have said what I was trying to say better than I could ever hope to say it myself. Sure, each of them is presenting only a part of what I feel should be the whole, but they overlap each other in material while complementing each other in point of view. Each has a lot to offer to anyone, and taken together they develop a unique synergy, each one building on and contributing to the others.

But as I handed out these books and encouraged people to read them, I had the same experience over and over. People take these magic books, they even read them from cover to cover…. and yet their life doesn’t really improve.

How can this be possible? How? It’s all right there!! Don’t you see?

And yes, they all see. Everyone sees. Everyone understands. They can repeat the material back to me. And yet they remain powerless to take action, to do in their own lives!

So where does that power come from and how can I unlock that power inside them? It comes from doing. What? Hey Einstein, we have a chicken and egg problem here. How can I do if I don’t know how to do?

Well the answer is that you give up your pride, set aside your expectation of doing good… and just do with whatever ability you have today. And you suck at it. But you keep doing it. And then one day you notice HEY! I suck slightly less at this than I did before! This is progress! And you keep at it. Little by little you keep at it.

I often use the analogy of hitting a baseball. You can read all about it, read 10 or 20 or even 30 books about hitting a baseball. Boy, you’ll know everything there is to know about hitting a baseball, and from every possible point of view. But your body on the other hand will have never swung a bat. It will have no muscle memory, no skills, no strength. You will be utterly and completely powerless to unlock this phenomenal power hitting baseball slugging knowledge you have inside you.

See the parallel?

Well we learn these so called life skills the same way we learn to swing a bat. By trial and error. Lots of trials and lots of errors. And a few hits in there along the way. Except a true zen master bats probably bats around .950 in the emotional big league. Me? I’m still working my way up through the minors.

Anyhow, the program takes the work of three great masters, and breaks it down into step by step lessons. The same way you learn to ski, or snowboard, or ride a bike, or swim, or knit, or cook, or really pretty much anything you’ve learned in life.

We start with the fundamentals, simple drills and exercises that seem kinda silly at first. Like stepping into a pitch that’s not even there, and swinging a bat you’re not even holding. And we do them over and over and over. And feel silly as *bleep* while doing them. And then we move on to something a little more advanced, but probably just a silly.

Then one day, we get some sign of progress, some clear sign of empowerment and improvement. That’s when we stop feeling silly and we can fully buy in. And we continue, each drill, each exercise building fundamental skills that we need, then we start putting them together in series and in combination. Follow the ball with your eyes, step into the ball, swing through with your head down, CRACK! follow through fully, and step out smoothly into your run to first base. All smooth, all fluid, all practiced a million times.

This is our emotional at bat… it all starts to come together, and we start getting base hits, doubles. One day we were thrilled to just make contact with the ball. Now we sometimes smack one over the fence. We can make contact on demand, so we can call a few plays… hit and run, sacrifice fly, and so on.

We can’t imagine how this could ever have been hard! We have a hard time even remembering our first feeble attempts at swinging the bat!

Well here’s a big juicy secret: While very few of us can ever play major league baseball… almost every single one of us has the capacity to step up to the emotional big league. We can all be successful. We can all be happy. We can all find the love of life and the love in life that we deserve.

And that’s what the program is about.

I have all of the units defined, and 35 of them drafted. Of course, writing them down is quick… then writing them down again so they make sense to anyone but me is painfully slow. But it’s looking good for an early spring launch!

If you haven’t done so yet, sign up for the mailing list on the right. You’ll get occasional blog updates, but more important you’ll get news on the program itself.

Any Questions? Any Comments? Post ‘em below!

John