As women, we are always told to stand up for our ideas and values. I continue to read articles that say women back down too often.

On the other hand, my female clients tell me their problem is picking their battles.

Their problem is knowing both:

1. How to stand up for themselves in a way that doesn’t make other people wrong (unless that is the intention).
2. When to not take a comment or action personally and let it go.

The first problem deals with the tone and reason for standing up for yourself. In working with the archetypes, one of my clients found she identified with the Warrior too often. Whenever someone suggested something that triggered her to react, she took out her sword and cut off their head with her words.

On further exploration, she found that when people didn’t agree with her well-researched work or they kept presenting a different perspective with no attention to hers, her brain interpreted their interpolation as disrespect for her intelligence and a devaluing of her experience.

First, we worked on her awareness—sensing the anger in her body before she opened her mouth. When she could catch this, she would then breathe and choose one word to focus on. In this case, it was the archetype she wanted to develop—the Collaborator.

With this new perspective, she asked more questions before she went on the attack. Then she could determine if there needed to be a comparison of perspectives she could then use to work toward a compromise OR if she needed to take a more direct approach. If she then surmised that her position was not being valued, she could choose to stand up for herself with a more direct message or question to determine why her position was not being taken seriously.

Second, working on her awareness also gave her room to determine if the comment that triggered her anger was worthy of her energy. Some annoying people are not really harmful. And sometimes one question can clarify the true intention of someone’s actions or words.

One of my clients was angry at her boss for not inviting her to a dinner that the rest of the team attended. When she asked about it, he gave her the name of the administrator who created the list. It was an oversight that had no personal meaning. Be careful of assuming the worst.

This leads me to the last tip—assume good intention. Even if you aren’t feeling compassionate, can you first assume good intent? This will open you to being more curious than reactive. From this perspective, you can best choose your battles.

What tips do you have for choosing when and how to stand up for yourself?

1. You can lose weight by thinking about food! For years, neuroscientists have known that when you imagine your are doing something, like playing the piano or basketball, the outcome on the brain is almost as effective as actual practice. The brain records your thoughts as reality. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University found that this phenomenon works for eating too.

If you imagine eating cookies or cubes of cheese before you are actually offered a plate, you are likely to eat much less than if you thought about something unrelated before eating or focused on how hungry you feel. The more you picture the details of eating food, the more you wear down your desire to eat. How cool is that?!?

2. Do you dread negotiating complex deals? If you can, it is better to at least start the process from a distance either by email for phone. Researchers found that when deal makers were at least 15 miles apart, the person with the upper hand was more willing to compromise and the conversation stayed focused on the main issues instead of getting mired in less important points. Physical distance improves the negotiating climate.

3. Speaking of dread, do you ever spend time worrying about an upcoming meeting, interview or exam? Psychologists at the University of Chicago found that if worried students sat down and wrote their thoughts and feelings about an upcoming test, they performed even better than students who just sat quietly before the test. Remove the interference of worrying by putting your worries on paper.

4. Can’t think of any blog topics or a fresh way to approach a project? Go watch a funny movie or YouTube video. New research found that mood boosting media not only increases chances for “ah ha” moments to occur, but the more anxious you are about being creative the less likely you will be. Laughter is the best way to light up your brain.

I’m off to think about food while reading Tina Fey’s memoir, Bossypants. I love when research helps me enjoy life more. Do you have any tips to share with your fellow Wander Women (and men)?

Pattie has been responsible for Fortune’s Most Powerful Women list since 1998. Over the years, she has interviewed the most successful and powerful women in the United States. They all seem to wince at the word power until she had a second interview with Oprah Winfrey.

In her first interview, Oprah swore she didn’t like the idea of being powerful. Three years later, she changed her mind.

Pattie explained that generally when people speak about power, they are referring to the male view of “power over others” or getting people to do what you want them to do.

Oprah told her that when she realized her power was to”have an impact with purpose,” then she fell in love with the idea of being powerful.

Power over others is vertical, looking down on them.

Power as impact is horizontal, influencing the world outward from where we stand.

Are you a woman of impact? Whether you are impacting your family, your work group, your community or the world, you are wielding your power. The more you accept that you are powerful, the more good you can do.

And when we embrace our power, we are better able to empower other women.

Let’s redefine power so we can love it, claim it and use it whole-heartedly.

She answered with the same questions my brain often screams at me:

“I should be the one recognized for that. How did they get the breaks and I didn’t?”

AND

“I have been saying those things for years. How come I’m not the one who is famous for those ideas?”

These are great questions to ask yourself. Obviously, the person you envy took some steps to market themselves that you either didn’t think of or you avoided. Even if you don’t approve of the steps (you think their methods are a bit shady), they still had the courage to step out into the world in a way you did not.

There is a man that every time I hear his name, my stomach turns. He was able to be recognized as a thought leader in how the brain affects behavior at work in both leaders and employees. I had been working in this area for years before he chose this area of expertise. Although my depth of experience, research and knowledge is much deeper than his, he brilliantly aligned himself with other thought leaders and marketed his work in much more profound ways than I.

Arghh!

So what can my envy teach me?

1. What can I learn from his marketing strategy that I can apply to my plans?

2. What stopped me from playing a bigger game like him? If I am so smart with so much more to say, how can I play at that level too?

3. Have I set the right standards for my own success? Maybe I’m not celebrating what I have created enough. And if I want more, how can I thank my colleague for showing me ways to achieve it instead of just envying his success?

I have always said that if we embrace our emotions, whatever they are, we can learn from them. They are there to teach us and help us make major life decisions. Let your envy open up doors you never saw or were afraid to walk through before.

I am a verbal processor. I tend to lay out the foundation for my thoughts before I announce my conclusion. I don’t ramble as much as I used to, but I want you to know what led to my perspective so we both understand what I’m talking about.

This isn’t working so well anymore, especially in my writing. I might be able to engage you face-to-face with my delivery. On paper, I lose you way too quickly. It’s time I lay out my point up front, clearly and concisely.

I witnessed this last week when Huffington posted my article on whether or not women are retreating in life. My title was Women Who Don’t Give Up. Before posting the article, the Huffington editors changed the title to Yoga and Homemaking: The New Future of Women?

I didn’t think the title was as misleading as it turned out to be. My entire premise was to say that although women might like yoga and homemaking, most were not retreating to these as a way of life. After linking to an article that inferred they were, I went on to talk about the women I know who are embracing their grand adventure of life wholeheartedly.

If you look at the comments, you’ll see most of them think I was putting down yoga and homemaking.

So whose fault is it that they missed the point?

There is not much I can do about the shrinking attention span. Concentration drifts after a paragraph or two.  Then if readers stay with the article, most shift to reading just the first line of each paragraph to get to the end. Nicholas Carr said, “Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.”

Right or wrong, this is the truth. I’m guilty of skimming and “power browsing” myself. I haven’t read an entire book for a year.

So I have made a promise to myself, and you, to get to the point sooner and leave the foundation, and the entertainment, for later just in case you want to take a break to go deeper in thought with me.

Then if we get the glorious moment to meet live like I had the opportunity to do this week with two women I met through social media, we can ramble to our hearts content.

If you stayed with me to the end of this post, I would love to hear your point of view on this phenomenon.

No, you shouldn’t let any societal rites, the “good intentions” of friends, or the latest study stop you from exploring, seeking to learn from your vast experiences and taking risks to discover what else you can achieve in this lifetime.

Yes, if you jump around too many times–from job to job, relationship to relationship, house to house–you can lose your sense of purpose and possibly, your sense of self.

I was telling my friend Larry Ackerman, author of The Identity Code, that it was time for me to return to my roots in my business.  I had been dancing all over the map in the last ten years with little focus. If you ask me for my “elevator pitch,” I would lapse into a “deer in the headlights” look.

Then I told Larry about my trip to China and how my hosts were astonished that I didn’t focus my business on coach training and the “heart connection” I was teaching them to have. China is a cognitive culture. Their prior coach training kept them in their heads. For many of my students, it was the first time they trusted themselves enough to let go of “knowing” so they could connect at a deeper level.

I used to teach these skills in my first years in business. I still teach them among other things in my leadership training. I always slide coaching and connecting into my emotional intelligence training. I believe that my practice of “heart connection” or emotional coherence as I’m finding it called in the latest brain research, is at the core of my success.

So even though I will continue to share Wander Woman insights with audiences live and online, I want to explore how to return to my business roots.

That’s when Larry said, “Of course it is time to come home. You’ve been on an odyssey where after many adventures, you take your wisdom and go home. In Homer’s epic poem, The Odyssey, the Greek hero Odysseus (or Ulysses, as he was known in Roman mythology) encounters a number of adventures before he returns home. The same is true for you. Your work will be so much richer now.”

My gut confirmed his conclusion.

What about you? Are you planning another journey this year, another stop on an island to gather knowledge, strength and experiences? Or is it time to head home?

Either way:

• What have the adventures of the last decade taught you?
• What great gift, talent or perspective was your “once-shining star” that you set aside? Is it time to bring it forth in a new light?
• If you are not ready to go home, what else do you want to experience? Know what you want so you don’t wander aimlessly.

I am grateful for Larry’s insights. It feels good to be home. And I’m having fun remodeling my business home to reflect the new decade. When I’m ready, I’ll invite you to the Open House.

To me, the word resolve means completion. This gave me a new look at starting the year. Instead of asking myself what I would like to do, I asked myself, “What would I like to complete?”

When I looked up the word, resolve does mean bringing something to an end as well as making a decision. So then I asked myself, “What would I like to be free of in my life?”

My thoughts drifted from eliminating clutter to saying no to business ideas that take me on wild goose chases.

Then I read Arianna Huffington’s post on resolutions. She suggested, “How about beginning with a list of three things you thought you would do one day but, realistically, you never will. You can just declare them complete. ” She crossed learning German off her list.

I thought this idea would be particularly useful for my female clients. We are born multitaskers.  Before we finish one task, we are planning the next, and the next. Our to-do lists are never finished. We just keep moving around the piles on our desks.

Taking things off the list can be painful. But some ideas and projects are past their shelf life and need to be tossed.

When you declare ideas, projects, or even dreams complete, you free up the space to focus on what is most important to you now. This clears the clutter from your business activities and your life.

As you look forward into the new year and decade, what will you cross off your list? What can you say goodbye to so you can say hello to new opportunities? What dream must you grieve so you can see a fresh path?

I have taken off 1) a group coaching idea, 2) writing a book chapter for a colleague, and 3) redoing my back yard. That’s just the beginning. There is more to peel away.

What about you?

Karl and I chose to see Lake Atitlan while in Guatemala last week. A number of people have told me about the beauty of the lake. The tours added in a boat trip and visit to three villages around the edge of the lake.

Before we booked the trip, we got a tip from a local at dinner that was reinforced by a man on the shuttle bus on the way to the lake. In fact, the man on the bus suggested we only visit one village and take in the sense of it instead of hustling to the many stops we could take.

The tip was to visit the smallest village with a boat launch, San Juan. It wasn’t one of the three most visited. It was less commercial and we wouldn’t be followed around by street vendors.

We needed a peaceful day. It sounded perfect.

What’s more, the village is sustained by a woman’s cooperative of weavers, artists and shop owners. When I discovered that, I naturally desired to support them.

San Juan is a lovely village. We walked up the hill past three generations of women weaving and painting (and some men). The streets are clean. The walls of buildings are painted with beautiful murals. No one pressured us to buy anything.

We had a lovely lunch overlooking the lake in a restaurant run by two women.

It’s true that there were few tourists visiting this town. That was part of its charm. But I couldn’t help but wonder if they could sell enough to live.

Yet the town had been there for many years. The women seemed joyful. And all the residents seemed to take pride in their shared home.

What does it take to be successful? If women, and a few men, come together in “communities” to make a living doing what we love, can we not create a life of beauty, love and peace?

I do some of my best work with my coaching “communities” though we are spread across the world. I honor DJ Mitsch who created The Pyramid Resource Group, a corporate coaching organization. She had the vision of pulling coaches together to not only work big contracts, but to learn and grow together on a regular basis. We meet on the phone twice a month to talk about work, life, celebrations and disappointments. Pyramid is my San Juan.

After leaving San Juan, we took a short “tuk tuk” ride to San Pedro. It was a much bigger town with a noisy, crowded market. I might have enjoyed the lively area if we hadn’t visited San Juan first. But not wanting to lose the sense of freedom I felt from walking the streets of the smaller community, we headed back to the boat launch.

Now that I am home, I look at the pictures and see another world far away. Another world that my heart can follow as I participate in my communities and work to support women doing work we love. I won’t forget.

What communities do you belong to? I would love to read more examples of the cooperative way of life.

Fortunately, a lot more women are also being raised with enough of an education to be right too. But the need to be nice can still be a downfall.

Contrary to Linda Kaplan Thaler’s book, The Power of Nice, there is a limit to the results being nice will get you. Fundamentally, it is better to be nice than rude and we like people who are fair better than those who are selfish. But too much congeniality is counterproductive.

I recently read a number of articles that say people who are too nice repel others. Either they make us feel badly for not being as nice as they are or we judge excessively nice behavior as manipulative.

In the November edition of Scientific Mind, an article titled That’s Nice, Now Get Out by Valerie Ross cited a study where people could kick members off their team for behaviors they didn’t like. The results showed that being overly generous was just as annoying as cheating.

I wonder if this is the reason for the belief that men like bitches more than nice girls. It might not be that they want to be mistreated. They just don’t like being showered with niceness. And maybe they actually respect a woman who sets strong boundaries and shows a tough demeanor when dealing with difficulties.

The answer seems to be to match your “niceness” to the people you are playing with. If they are nice, you can be nice back. If they are not so nice, don’t try to change who they are by being nicer than they are. It won’t work. Take care of yourself instead.

What do you think of this research?

Many people have been forced to rethink who they are and what they do. This is good. We all need to regularly re-invent our work and renew our enthusiasm for our daily lives.

At the same time, many people are lured into the promise, “Do what you love and the money will follow.” This is bad. If you don’t know how to articulate what you do in a way that other people would love to be with you, no one will run to you with cash in hand. If you don’t have the energy and time to do what it takes to create widespread visibility, you will remain a well-kept secret.

It is important to have passion for what you do, no matter who you work for. If people don’t sense your enthusiasm for your ideas and plans, they will be cautious about aligning with you or buying from you. Even if they decide to work with you, if you aren’t emotionally engaged you won’t do your best work.

But passion isn’t enough. Living off love for your work has created many starving artists.

Launch your business or choose your career path with passion. Look for what tasks energize you, what things you look forward to doing and what makes you feel good when your work is done.

Then make sure the work you choose is not only work you do better than anyone you know, but you are providing a product or service people want and are willing to pay for.

What special knowledge or expertise have you developed? Even if you think you don’t want to do what you have been doing anymore, you might find a way you can share what you know that feels better than your last job. Maybe you can help non-profits that have a special meaning for you. Maybe you can coach or teach others not to make the mistakes you made on your journey (then help them to be more successful than you…I’ve done that one although I then have to rethink my own approach). Maybe you can write and speak on what it took to be successful in your field.

Once you have some ideas, you can start the research…yes research. Gut instinct is unreliable when judging the outside world. Look at who your competition will be. Can you do what they do but better? Who are they targeting – are they missing some people you think need your help?

One of the easiest ways to weed through your ideas is to write a business plan. It doesn’t have to be long, but it should cover the basics of who will be your customers, how you will connect with them and how much it will cost to get started.

Follow your dreams, but learn how to hustle.