If your head seems to be stuffed up with clutter and uncertainty, it’s time to stop what you’re doing, regroup, and either find a quiet place for yourself or solicit feedback from others to regain clarity. We all “hit the wall” from time to time, but it is essential to be conscious of those times and take appropriate steps to clear our heads.

Last week I was the luncheon keynote speaker at an annual conference. Leading up to the introduction as the speaker there are many things going on in my mind ¬ setting up my back of the room products table, remembering to give my typed intro to the person introducing me, putting a glass of water on the podium box, loading the Powerpoint part of my presentation onto the laptop and testing it, testing the sound system in the room, checking the lighting, tweaking parts of my presentation, etc., etc. Something about the room logistically didn’t seem right, but with so many thoughts pinballing around in my brain I had to leave the room and find space to clear my head and determine what was awry. The room I was to speak in was somewhat long and narrow, which meant that people in the back would feel more remote from the “action,” e.g., exercises I planned for the group. I asked the audio-visual and logistics people if we could move my stage area so I would be more central in the room and therefore closer to everyone. It took some rearranging of tables and running power cables, but it worked like a charm!

Taking time to briefly detach from an environment for the purpose of clarity saves the day.