Our emotions are based on a perceived set of circumstances and events. I use the word perceived because it is impossible for us to see circumstances and events as they really are. Our brain stores our version of the situation along with the emotions we attached to it. Sometimes the only way we can change the emotions attached to this chunk of memory or change its intensity is to take it out and reframe it.

To do this you have to recall the situation in as much detail as possible; play it back in your mind from start to finish. Then when it is fresh in your working memory play it again. This time add some dimension to it that changes or defuses the emotion it holds.

Use as an example a situation at school where some kids were making fun of you. That could cause feelings of embarrassment and anger. Run through the situation in your mind, then back it up and run through it again. This time put clown faces on the kids that were making fun of you. After all, they were probably just showing off and that’s what clowns do. Also picture the other people who were watching and laughing as puppy dogs. Pick one up and pet it. Add whatever else you want to the new recording of the event. Notice how as you add those modifications your emotions about the experience start to subside. That memory will never affect you in that same way again.

Use your imagination to deal with run away or intense emotions by changing the cause of those emotions to something laughable and benign.

#88 Talk It Through

Perhaps more than any of the strategies in this book, the strategies for managing emotions requires help. At the time the emotion is raging in your mind, you may not be able to think clearly enough to apply any strategy on your own. If that is true, you will need to talk through the situation with someone else.

Your emotions can teach you who you are and what you need, but they are not the best counselor when it comes to knowing what to do. If acting on your emotions has caused some unpleasant consequences in the past, you need to delay action until you have a chance to consult a friend, spouse, parent, coach, or even a therapist. Find someone who is not feeling that emotion to help you formulate your response to it.

Once you have talked it through with others a few times, you may be better at talking it through with yourself. You may have established enough of a pattern of behavior to repeat the responses that have had a positive result in similar situations. If you use those patterns consistently over time, they will become a conditioned, even reflexive response to an emotional situation.

If we recognize the emotion, acknowledge its source and deal with it in a positive way, it will have served its purpose and will naturally dissipate on its own. The problems come when we let an emotion run away with us. We don’t deal with the emotion, it deals with us. It builds instead of subsides, and it slides into the driver’s seat and controls our decisions and our behavior.

People with ADD have a tendency to do the latter. They often fail to recognize an emotion and identify its source. As a result the emotion remains and even intensifies, and drives them to act in ways that are not in their best interest. People with ADD are even more likely to hold onto an emotion for hours, sometimes days. The effects of those run away emotions can last for years, decades or even a life time.

The following strategies may help you to take control of your emotions instead of letting them take control of you.

#85 Distract Yourself

Sometimes an intense emotion just needs time to come back down to a reasonable and manageable level. Sometimes counting to ten just isn’t enough. Ten seconds may not allow enough time for your emotions to dissipate. It may also not be enough of a distraction to do any good at all. Sometimes counting only gives you more time to come to a complete boil. What is needed instead is a better distraction.

Instead of counting to ten, try counting to one hundred by sevens, or count to one thousand in binary: 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64… Even better, do something that invokes a conflicting emotion. If you are angry, try to name all of the hero dogs you have seen in movies: Balto, Benji, Bolt, Lassie, Old Yeller… If you are embarrassed, try to list all the mild mannered people who were really super heroes: Clark Kent was Superman, Peter Parker was Spiderman, Bruce Wayne was Batman…

Once you feel the emotion start to diminish, you will find yourself in a state of mind to deal with the situation with thought and reason. You will thank yourself later for providing the distraction.

#86 Find the Positive

This strategy is an old trick but it still works. Almost everyone has heard the phrase “Look on the bright side.” People who make a habit of looking on the bright side are sometimes referred to as Pollyanna’s, after a movie with that name. In the movie a young girl changed an entire town by getting people to play “The Glad Game” instead of dwelling on the negative.

The fact is we very often don’t see the positive side of a situation is somewhere down the road. It may take a day or even years. During that time we can make ourselves downright miserable. Our miserable attitude can then delay the positive side of the situation from taking place.

For example, if someone breaks up with you, the longer you sit around and mope, the longer it will take you to meet the person you are really supposed to be with. If you stay discouraged about losing your job, you may delay finding the job you were born to do. So getting dumped allows you to pursue the person of your dreams and losing your job allows you to find your dream job.

Playing “The Glad Game” doesn’t mean that you ignore your feelings. You need to feel sad when you get dumped and discouraged when you lose your job. Like all emotions those serve a purpose. It just means that you move on and focus on the possible positive outcome of any given situation.

Sometimes chaos can’t be covered up or ignored even when it is concealed from view. Sometimes the chaos is part of the project that you are currently working on. In that case you may just have to stop and invest the time to organize it.

Try not to let organizing a project overtake the project. Organizing has been known to lead people into a hyper-focused mode, which they don’t come out of until the time they set aside to work on a project has expired. Try to organize only the part of the project you are working on. Make the organization as simple and easy to maintain as possible. Also consider ways to maintain that organization with minimal effort.

If you struggle with organization, go back to the strategies in this book that deal with that executive function: use what worked, keep it simple, make it natural, and build it in. If you need additional help, get it. Some people have a gift of creating organization from chaos. They can not only help you organize, they can also help you develop some of those skills.

#84 Take a Break

Some people are affected by chaos to the point of anxiety. They can tolerate it for a time, but the longer they remain in the chaos the more agitated they become. This can apply to physical chaos, such as a cluttered room or an unorganized desk. It can also apply to situational chaos, such as a meeting that has no structure and where random and possibly multiple conversations are going on at once. Large family or social gatherings can seem pleasant at first but become increasingly agitating over time.

The great thing about these situations is that the anxiety dissipates over time at about the rate that it builds. So taking a break as soon as you feel yourself start to be bothered can allow yourself to quickly drop down under that threshold. If you spend that break practicing some relaxation, breathing and meditation, you will return to the chaos with an even greater tolerance.

If you need an excuse to take a break, you can use the one that is least likely to get any resistance. Say that you need to go to the restroom. It won’t be a lie. You do need to go to the restroom to calm down. Getting a breath of fresh air also works in most situations. If neither of those makes sense in your situation, announcing that you simply need to take a break is valid as well. You can leave it up to others to guess what the break is for.

People on the other end of the spectrum don’t function at all unless their environment is in order and their schedule is predictable. These people can spend so much time planning and organizing that they accomplish very little else.

Life is naturally chaotic. In order to get things done and get where you want to be, you have to learn to cope with a certain amount of chaos and continue to move forward. The following strategies can help you do just that.

#81 Cover It Up

The simplest way to cope with chaos is to cover it up. The saying “Out of sight, out of mind” can be applied in many situations.

If the person sitting next to you at work has a desk that looks like the recycle bin, you can ask to be moved or turn your desk so that their chaos is not within you view. If a part of your own desk is too cluttered for you to concentrate on the task at hand, you can rake the contents into a box or a drawer and deal with it later when you aren’t pressed to meet a deadline. In fact, you may want to keep one drawer or cupboard as your chaos container, and put anything in it that you intend to put in its proper place later.

Make it a rule to store things in containers that have covers. Instead of shelves, use cupboards with doors that can be kept closed. Instead of clear bins, use boxes with lids. Instead of keeping things on your desktop, have a drawer at your desk where clutter can be concealed from view. If those cupboards, boxes or drawers are a bit chaotic they won’t be a distraction.

#82 Isolate a Piece

One way to deal with chaos is to develop blinders. Find ways to block out or tune out the chaos that is not relevant to your current task. Only keep on your desk what you currently need to be working on. If you have several projects going at once, find a place to stash the ones you aren’t working on where you can easily pull them out when they become a priority.

The same thing goes for your time. You may have many things on your plate. Setting aside a time for each type of activity allows you to put away everything and focus on just one activity. The fact that you have a separate time for the other activities will help you ignore them for now.

Sometime blinders come in the form of earplugs. If the environment you are working in is full of random conversation that is not related to your current project, tune it out with a good pair of earplugs. The earplugs will also tell people around you that you need to focus on what you are doing and to not interrupt you with unrelated or unimportant issues.

Sometimes the best way to cope with a new situation is to take something with you from the old situation. Usually the best thing to take with you is a friend. Being with someone you know makes you feel like you belong and that you are in more familiar territory.

Adjusting to your first year of college can be easier if you are sharing a dorm room with a friend from high school. Showing up to the first day of soccer practice is less intimidating if you know someone else on the team. The connections we have in life are an important part of our mental and emotional well being. Take advantage of them whenever you can. Take them with you wherever you go.

If you can’t take them with you, don’t delay in meeting a new friend wherever you go. Your best friend in high school is rarely your best friend later in life. Since your next best friend is out there somewhere, keep putting yourself in situations to meet new people. Welcome change as an opportunity to meet your next best friend.

#80 Find a Mentor

Sometimes change is intimidating because in the current situation you are the expert, but in the new situation you will be the rookie. That can be a source of anxiety, not knowing for sure if you can succeed and regain your confidence in the new situation. Taking the right approach can ease your stress.

First, admit to yourself and others that you have a lot to learn. Pretending that you have a level of expertise that you don’t, only creates more pressure. The best thing to do is to turn to more experienced people for mentoring. Those people will love being recognized as experts just as much as you did. They will normally be willing to take you under their wing and show you the ropes.

Before long your mentor will want to show you off to the world as their talented protégé. Before you know it you will feel just as comfortable and accepted as you were before.

Some people with ADD have an aspect of rigidity about them. It may be the same aspect that makes it hard for them to transition between tasks. They tend to take a single minded approach to accomplishing a task or succeeding at a goal. They fear that any change will distract or sidetrack them and, as at other times, they will lose their focus and motivation and never reach their objective. Sometimes they start to generalize that feeling to all change, whether it threatens their goals or not.

Once generalized they can resist changes as simple as furniture being rearranged or an old shirt being thrown out. They may also resist big changes such as a new house, a new school, a new family member, a new job, or a new city.

The following strategies may help you or your child get past your initial resistance to change and more easily and painlessly adapt to it.

#77 Fake Enthusiasm

One way to cope with change is to psych yourself into it. Often if we act a certain way, the feelings will follow. Career counselors normally teach their clients that if they dress the part, maintain a confident posture, and speak in a confident voice they will be more likely to feel that confidence inside. They can actually psych themselves into being confident. The brain starts to believe the visual and physical clues we present to it.

The same principle applies to adapting to change. If you know you need to embraces a change but you are unable to get there emotionally, psych yourself into it. Talk about it in a positive tone, and with a positive posture. Pretend that you are excited about the change. You just might start to believe it.

If you think that sounds a bit hypocritical, there is a difference. Hypocrisy is pretending you are something you aren’t and judging others based on a standard you don’t personally meet. What I’m suggesting here is to give yourself room to believe that you are going to love your new school, job, home just as much as you did your previous one.

Over time, you may become just as attached to the new as you were to the old if you create a positive space for it to happen. It will also happen with a lot less anxiety.

#78 Explore the Details

Sometimes we just don’t have enough information to know what’s good for us. Many times we react to something emotionally without considering the facts at all. Sometimes we have to explore the details of something new in order to sell it to ourselves.

The trick is to delay your emotional reaction long enough to explore the details. When someone presents a change to you, start asking questions. Once you feel you have sufficient information about the change, ask yourself, “What if?”. Try to think of the most likely scenario. Then think of the best and the worst possible scenarios. The best may look pretty good to you and the worst might not look that bad.

When you present a change to someone else who struggles with this executive function, try presenting the detail first before announcing the change. For example, if you plan to send your child to a new school, take them to the school to look around. Try to find other kids in the neighborhood or at church that attend that school, and get them together to play. Tell them about the reading program or the sports program or whatever they are interested in. Have them meet the teacher and the principal. By the time you are finished they may be begging you to let them change schools. If they still aren’t thrilled at least knowing the positive side of the change will help them adapt to it quicker.

If after defining the problem a solution doesn’t present itself, you will need to brainstorm. Needless to say brainstorming requires more than one person. Your brain has been storming since you started defining the problem. Now it is time to involve someone else.

The best people to solicit for your brainstorming session are the ones who are involved in the problem, affected by it, or at least have an interest in the outcome. You may find that those who are contributing to the problem are the least willing to participate. Ask them anyway, in a non-judgmental way. Suggesting that you are simply looking for things you can do differently may lower their defenses. Point out any benefits they will get from the problem going away. If they still aren’t open to being part of the solution, go on without them. You or someone else will need to represent their perspective the best you can.

All the rules of brainstorming apply to this session. Begin by throwing out ideas without judgment or analysis. Follow that by identifying the top few choices and erase the others. Explore the pros and cons of these final choices until you boil it down to one. Then add the what, when, where and who to form a solid plan.

#76 Keep a Plan B

Give your solution as much time as it needs to do its job. If you are having problems implementing the plan, tweak as many times as needed until it is working. If after a good effort it is obvious that your solution is not going to be a solution, shift to plan B.

Plan B was there from the beginning. It was one of the other options that were identified in your brain storming session. Using the experience you gained by trying to implement your first choice, go back and look at those other options. It may be clear to you at this point which one you should have gone with. Don’t worry; making the wrong choice is often part of the process of getting to the right one.

Personally I prefer not having a plan B or plan C until I need it. Some people function well with backup plans, and in some situation they are absolutely necessary. If they seem to be a distraction to you or weaken your commitment to plan A, keep your options handy but don’t flush out the plan B until you need it. On the other hand, don’t be too stubborn to admit when plan A isn’t working and a plan B is required.

People with ADD may have difficulty solving problems for a couple of reasons. They may have difficulty focusing enough to recognize that a problem exists or that what is standing in their way or annoying them on a regular basis is something that can be solved. Once they recognize that a problem exists, that may have difficulty focusing in on the task of solving it. If they get past that, they may have difficulty drawing from past experiences and formulating possible solutions. If they get past that, they may have problems translating a solution into a plan and organizing themselves to carry out the plan. Lastly, if the plan doesn’t work they often lack the flexibility to go back to the drawing board for a plan B.

The following strategies may help you or your child solve problems in a more timely and effective way.

#73 Enough is Enough

In order to solve a problem you just have to get fed up with it. Nagging problems can go on for years. They are having a negative impact on your life but you can still function, so you just try to ignore them. You may imagine that they will eventually go away on their own. They rarely do.

You obviously can’t tackle all your problems at the same time and few problems can be solved in a day; however, you can make steady progress and improvement by making problem solving part of your daily routine. During daily planning, consider what problems are annoying you the most or are standing in between you and your goals. Single out one or two and say to yourself, “Enough is Enough”. Then use the other strategies in this section to meet the problem head on. With all you have learned about organizing, planning, sustaining focus and motivation, you should be able to see that problem steadily dissolve.

#74 Define the Problem

Once a problem is identified, the next step is to define it in detail. Set aside some time and sit down with paper and pen and put the problem in writing. Identify all the W’s of the problem. What happens, where and when does it normally happen, and who is involved. Solving a problem may be as simple as doing your homework in a different place, checking your calendar before you start working, making a request of someone in a different way.

Be honest about your part in the problem. Changing your own behavior is the first place to start. Define exactly what you do that contributes to the problem. Identify your attitude or beliefs that compel you to take those actions. Identify the emotion or physical needs you are filling. Those needs will have to be addressed in another way in order for you to eliminate behavior that may be contributing to the problem.

If other people are involved in the problem, try to use your empathy skills to identity where they are coming from. You had to identify your attitudes and beliefs in order to change your behavior. It is just as necessary when coordinating a solution with others. Even if you aren’t the problem, taking a more understanding and accepting approach with someone will often return a better response from them.

You will be amazed at how quickly a solution will present itself once you thoroughly understand a problem.

40. And if any sibling will sue thee to thy parents, and take away thy GAP sweatshirt that accidentally ended up in your drawer, let him also have the Nike tee shirt that they haven’t spotted yet.

41. And whosoever shall compel thee to dish them a bowl of ice-cream, go the extra mile and take their bowl to the kitchen when they are done, and go an extra ten miles by actually putting it in the dish washer.

42. Give up the computer to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow the nice new football of thee, turn thou not thou away.

43. Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy cool friends at school, and hate thine annoying sibling.

44. But I say unto you, Love your annoying sibling, bless them when they insist on watching That’s so Raven in the middle of your video game, do good to them when they dump stuff on your bedroom floor because they didn’t know where it really belongs, and pray for them when they chew too loudly in front of your friends, and persecute you by laughing hysterically at their own really corny joke;

45. That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on beehives and on the deacons, and sendeth rain on the nerdy and on the cool.

46: For if ye love only your cool friends at school, what reward have ye? Ten years from now you’ll be lucky to remember their names?

47. And if ye salute your buds only, what do ye more than others? don’t you know that you’re missing out on developing an eternal relationship?

48. Be ye therefore perfect, even as your dad which always lectures you wants you to be perfect.

Ref. Matthew 5

Now that we have discussed relying on the present and the future, we need to learn to tap into past experiences. This strategy also relies on a pause to allow yourself to scan your past for relevant data. That seems simple enough, but it will only work if that data is stored in an accessible format.

A couple of tools we have discussed in other strategies can help you tag your past experiences so that they are more searchable. The first one I’ll remind you of is sharing your life with at least one person you trust not to judge you. Tell them about both the decisions you made that had a positive or beneficial outcome, and also the decisions you made that brought on some undesirable consequences. Talk with them about alternative approaches to your bad decision, so that making the right decision will be easier next time. I can’t emphasize enough how important that person is. No one will be a perfect confidant, so forgive them if they take a jab at you every now and again. As long as they accept you as you are, have your best interest at heart, and are willing to stick around as long as you are working at it, then they are a valuable asset.

The second tool we discussed earlier is your trusted journal. Recording what you did and the results that followed will allow you to format your past experience in your memory in a way that they can better serve you in the future. It makes them both clearer and more accessible. Be sure to also record ways to improve your outcomes; that way your past experiences will arm you with better options in the future.

#72 Ask Someone Else

If we make decisions based on our current knowledge and past experience, it is a vast improvement on just reacting to life with raw emotion. However, what if our current knowledge and past experiences don’t contain the information we need. What if we are still trying to plow our fields with a horse drawn plow, because we have never seen a tractor pulling a cultivator? We could possibly make the best decision we are capable of and still be getting it wrong.

Sometimes we need to tap into other people’s knowledge and experience in order to have a better outcome. The simplest way to do that tapping is by asking a friend or two. Friends can give you great advice, but they can also give you some lousy advice if their own database doesn’t contain the best options either. The key here is to ask the right friend.

Ideally we should find someone who faced the same thing we are facing and had a good outcome. If you are struggling with a social situation, you may not get useful advice from a natural socialite. You will probably get great advice from someone who struggle socially at one time and overcame it.

You can’t always find that ideal person who understands where you are and how to move forward from there, so don’t hold your standards too high. The key is to ask someone-to use other people to expand your knowledge and experience beyond your own. You will be amazed at how much life will open up to you when you open up to others.