This issue is made up of the following sections:

1. Personal Effectiveness Tips
2. Questions for Growth
3. Reality Check

1. Personal Effectiveness Tips
1. Keep in mind this month that you do not have to have all the answers. You will save yourself a lot of grief by understanding that the phrase "I am not sure" is a perfectly acceptable answer to any question posed, as is "I don't know." Anyone that tells you that they have it figured out is full of something anyway, so forget about playing that game.

2. Follow up on your 2005 resolutions. Forget to make any? Start fresh today. Reevaluate the ones you already set and your progress towards their attainment.

3. Remember that stress is an unnatural state: It is completely man made. Look to reduce those stressors that you habitually hang on to as part of your daily drama. Stop talking to people that annoy you or have an ego the size of Jupiter. Delete strange-looking emails from unknown people. Hire a maid and spend time with your family. Go to bed earlier. The possibilities to stop sabotaging yourself are endless.

4. Keep in mind that much of good time management is due not only to managing your priorities (instead of tasks) but to also understanding what NOT to focus your energies on. Many mundane, everyday tasks need to take a backseat to your life priorities if you hope to change things for the better.

5. Regress appropriately from time to time. I recently took the opportunity to go sledding with my three year old son, down the same huge hill I used to sled as a child, during a visit to my childhood hometown. It was my first time sledding in over eighteen years, and it was perfect. Even the snow in the pants and down the back were fun.

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2. Questions for Growth
1. When was the last time you laughed so hard that tears came to your eyes and your stomach ached?

2. What one habit could you undertake that would make a significant difference in the quality of your day-to-day life?

3. Do the words that you choose habitually reflect a positive or negative mental state?

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3. Reality Check

One of my favorite clinical terms is the word anosognosia. It describes a clinical state whereby a patient is unaware of their mental illness. In other words, it is a condition of not knowing that you don't know.

I believe that many people suffer from this disorder, and I am certain that I have suffered through phases of it in my own existence. The everyday symptoms of not knowing that you don't know include:

• a compulsive need to stick to your point of view
• a marked inability to display empathy for the plight of others
• lack of deep, rewarding interpersonal relationships
• excessive substance use to alleviate an underlying existential unhappiness
• an excessive need to be right in conversations
• repeated self-sabotaging behaviors and lack of evident learning from those mistakes

What does this have to do with your life and becoming more effective? Lots. For one, become more adept at identifying those who don't know that they don't know. They just don't get it. Quit wasting your time and energies in these sorts of interactions-they usually are all about the other person, anyway. Second, invest your time more deeply in those who know that they don't know! It is so refreshing to have a conversation with someone who leaves room in the conversation for true discourse of topics. You'll learn more than you can ever teach if you do this. Im constantly amazed at how ignorant I was a month ago. Are you?

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