Whether you need more confidence at home (discipline, anyone?), at work (difficult boss?) or just on the road of life, there are simple ways to give yourself a gold star, helping boost your mood and also your likelihood of success.

As a motivational speaker for Fortune 500 companies and an Olympic gold medalist, I have seen what makes an individual most successful in the boardroom and on the slopes. Over the last five years, I have researched the similarities of forty different highly-successful individuals -- including the likes of Tommy Hilfiger, Prince Albert of Monaco, Dr. Stephen Covey, Shaun White and many more. And no matter the field or endeavor, I have found The Turtle Effect philosophy at the core of everyone's success.

Do you ever feel like you're living right on the emotional edge? For the most part, I think I'm a fairly calm person. But since my younger daughter turned 6, I feel like I've been just short of "snap" for the past 4 months. Patience? Bite me.

As I look ahead to the new year, I've been making plans and working to push myself forward with new goals, new ambitions and renewed faith in myself. I have a lot I want to accomplish, a lot I want to read, weight to lose, rooms to organize, work to focus on, things to learn and financial goals I certainly plan on meeting.

I felt my jaw drop when I checked my inbox and saw the email from Stacey, the founder of Hybrid Mom. In a heartfelt note to her readers, she explained the time had come for her to move on. I can’t begin to know the mixed emotions she must be feeling.

I live in a tropical paradise. Balmy breezes, white sand beaches and palm trees offer an enviable landscape. Every winter “snowbirds” flee their bone chilling climates to soak up the perpetual sunshine in my aptly named sunshine state.

My daughters slip checkers under the door as I work. They knock –persistently- to inquire as to whether they can have string cheese. Occasionally, they do this while I’m on the phone with a client. Yet, I run a million dollar business under these conditions, and I am my sole employee. How do I do it?

More times than I’d like to admit, I find myself watching an episode of Dora the Explorer after my son has left the room. My husband has validated my secret interest in children’s cartoons, revealing that while flipping channels on the treadmill at the gym, he sometimes stops at the sight of Diego or The Backyardigans.

Psychology tells us that those who avoid looking inward and getting to know themselves lead unhealed, often unconscious lives, and are more easily led astray by lies and manipulations of leaders whose agendas seem to lend broader meaning to their own misunderstood feelings. Sounds dangerous.

This week The Mothers Well is sending you to British psychologist Professor Richard Wiseman to boost your happiness through simple one-minute exercises.