Kevin M. Touhey, Amazon best selling Author  

With every new year, comes a new rhyme and here’s mine: 2009, the time is right to feel fine.

Are you smiling yet?

I coached college basketball for many years and one of the most important fundamental skills I would repeatedly teach is the ability to pivot. When a player runs into a situation in which their desired path is blocked, they must pivot away from the defender(s) and put themselves in a position to maneuver freely again.

The same is true for feeling states.

If you find yourself in a negative frame of mind, it would behoove you to learn how to pivot into something more positive. It takes practice. In my speeches, I always tell the audience to learn to trap all negative feelings right then right now, and pivot away from them.

The next step is to immediately replace those feelings with something more positive, something powerful. Notice the change and remember how good it feels to have positive thoughts. Stop waiting for something to happen to change your mood; develop the ability to pivot by practicing with each negative feeling state.