There was something odd about this morning. The sun was bright orange, low in the sky giving everything an artificially lighted eerie tinge. The early morning procession of international flights into Melbourne were unusually flying north over the eastern suburbs ahead of me as I drive out the freeway. Very odd. I’m hoping the forecast for more hot weather and strong winds is not doesn’t play out into more catastrophe for those in fire prone areas.

Last week was a frustrating one for me but it ended more positively. The turnaround reminded me of two thing about myself.

• Despite some really productive days, I had spent the whole week feeling like I was never catching up. You know that feeling of running away from something/someone in a dream … you can never run free. After being tired through the week, I took some time on Thursday to identify specifically what I could do that would ease the sense of not getting done what I felt I needed to. After dinner with the family, I sacrificed the evening and stuck at my desk until I had knocked off the two pieces of work that got me over the hump.

I know everyone is different, but for me this liberated my spirit significantly. Not only did it help me feel better about work and life, it also enabled me to focus properly on the work I had to do on the Friday, a full day workshop with a new client.

• Maria and I spent lots of time over the weekend talking and planning for a purchase we want to make. It also really lifted my spirits. Despite perhaps sounding like a case of consumer therapy, it was more an application of the ‘spotted dog principle’. I don’t know what it’s properly called in psychological terms, but it goes like this: “Don’t think about a white dog with black spots!”

It is impossible not to think about a ‘white dog with black spots’. It is only possible to think about something else. A brown dog, a black cat or a skinny cafe latte for that matter.

When things are not quite right, as they weren’t for me last week, there are two things to be done; deal with that you can in relation to the problem, then find something else that is positive and give yourself a good injection of it.

So as you move into this week, I hope you can create the space to deal with anything at work that is not quite right, and then overlay that with some other things in life that lift your spirits.