Recent headlines in MSN read “Major, Major Meltdown in the Mideast!” Israel and Lebanon are at war. North Korea just launched long range missiles that can reach the U.S. Iran is insisting on building nuclear weapons and the war in Iraq shows no sign of ending. No one knows when the hundredth monkey may be found!

Our power is our sense of will. It is how solid we show up in life. It is our groundedness in that no matter what goes on around us, we remain calm. We are centered in our being and grounded in our beliefs. I am sure that we all know such people. They seem unmovable, unstoppable, happy. When we give away our power, getting through the day is work. It takes effort rather than being effort-less. For some people, this is why working at a desk can be more draining than physical labor.

Four never-fail techniques for creating well-being with the Inner Smile, Take It Away, Jin Shin Jyutsu, and Heart Lock-In from HeartMath...

When we automatically react from habit, we may find that we have not considered all of our options. That’s when we are burdened by ‘shoulda, coulda, woulda’ regrets. Even when you must respond quickly in a circumstance, you can take control of your instinctual patterns of reacting. In a few moments, you can access virtually all of your decision-making capabilities, and become 'cause' rather than 'effect'. To feel more in control of your life, try this process for wholistic decision-making.

The right amount of stress can be good for you, such as when an impending deadline pushes you to work faster. Too much stress, however, becomes counterproductive because you start to make mistakes, become confused and muddled, or lose concentration. When you get too stressed, you tend to push yourself even harder, which only increases stress and inefficiency. So, you need to take a moment to stop and think. No matter how much pressure you're under, it'll be more productive to take the time to step back and put things in perspective. Think about what's more important to you and establish priorities. Under stress, you thoughtlessly take up each task as it comes along, without establishing which ones are more or less important to you.

Self-management is really personal management, time management, and life management all rolled into one. It’s putting your hands firmly on the steering wheel of your life and then taking yourself in the direction in which you want to go. Remember the old Confucian saying, “If you don’t change the road you’re traveling on, you’ll probably end up where you’re going.” Every successful man or woman made, at one time or another, a firm decision about where he or she wanted to go and then took deliberate steps to get there.