This post continues Friday’s report about how I’m getting a head tune-up. Oh, and I should mention that after putting up that post and writing about Tony Robbins in the tags, Tony’s marketing director started following me on Twitter. This appears to be a coincidence, but now I’m all nervous because I think Tony Robbins is awesome and I’m hoping that if this woman reads my blog, she’ll have a sense of humor because not too long ago I introduced an irrational fear that Tony suggested eating babies and the public relations melee that ensued. Then I searched for that Family Guy episode where Peter sees Tony at a book signing and Tony goes, “TONY ROBBINS HUNGRY!” and eats him like a snake, but couldn’t find it. (WORD! Here it is. DM’d to me by a cool fan.) By the way, I saw Big League Chew at the grocery store the other day. Who knew they still made that stuff?

So anyway, today is Monday and I didn’t used to be like Garfield with the Monday hating, but it’s raining and crappy out and I have to write about non-funny stuff today and I’m like a stereotype, with not being into it being the beginning of a new week. This is common recently. But I’ve learned something. Tim taught me that maybe it’s best if I didn’t try to do the mental “homework” he assigned me until I cheer up some throughout the course of the day. Which is kind of a relief, because this means I get to feel slightly less douchebaggy when it’s first-thing the morning. Slightly.

See, my “homework” was composed of two main things:

1. Set some new anchors

2. Visualize

An “anchor” is a stimulus that makes you think of a certain thing or makes you feel a certain way. Most anchors get set unintentionally. A sound or smell might make you feel comfortable, nostalgic, excited, or afraid. Like, I can’t listen to Social Distortion’s White Heat album without thinking of this deli I used to work at, feeling all happy and at home, and, consequently, thinking about people urinating in the sink.

So to get me feeling all up and confident at will, Tim has me consciously setting anchors linked to good, empowering emotional states like excitement or optimism or whatever. If you can anchor successfully, it gives you a great tool to deal with the less-exciting or less-fun times of life. You just fire off an anchor and then boom, you’re in a better place.

The way you set an anchor is, you create a nice, strong, positive emotional state on your own and then you do something unique to “anchor” it so you can recall that state later. I chose to anchor by pulling on my left earlobe.

You may think this sounds ridiculous, but you’re wrong. It actually looks ridiculous.

And it’s hard, because if you’re in “the Mondays,” you feel like your own worst critic. You know how there are people who are all chipper in the morning, and there are also people who hate the chipper people and want them dead? Try to do this process at the wrong time and you become both of those people.

You’re like, Ya-hoo! And then you’re like, Jackass.

Last Monday, I dragged ass out of bed. Was feeling all Garfieldy. Sat down at my desk and realized I was supposed to do my Tim work. So I stand up, walk around my desk, close my door lest any children or wives wake up early, and proceed halfheartedly to get excited.

“Woo,” I’d say. And then I’d kind of pump my fist.

No excitement. You can’t anchor until you’re all worked up, so I’d try harder. Maybe I’d kind of jump up and down a little.

“Woo.”

And this deeper part of me is like, Sit down, asshole.

That’s when Tim suggested waiting until I was more awake, maybe a bit more alive and happy. Then try to get excited or confident or whatever. Then set the anchors. You know, when you’re not half dead.

After this, I’m supposed to visualize. I’m better at this part. So I’ll sit there and picture being nowhere near Cleveland. Maybe it’s winter, but it’s still warm. I’m sitting on a deck outside of my new bedroom in this cool house in North Carolina in the morning, looking out over a lake. Maybe there are robots in the garage. Cool ones — not that sexy one from Rocky IV that Paulie got all hot for. Maybe like Number Five from Short Circuit, but the evil Number Fives that were all angry and shot lasers. Except that if they’re those kind of robots they’d probably rebel and kill me. So check that. No robots. Visualizing no robots. Robot-free and at peace.

And then maybe later in the day I’d try to set some anchors. But I’d do it quietly, because by then my mother-in-law is sometimes out in the other room watching the baby and you know it has to sound like some kind of bizarre sex ritual going on in my office.

“Woo!” Then pull the earlobe.

Jumping up and down!! Excited!! Then pull the earlobe.

Excited!!! Earlobe.

Yeah, laugh now. You won’t be laughing when I’m driving my killer robot along the Outer Banks, asshole.