Sunday Night Success

Sunday Night Success has been quiet for awhile now. No excuses, I haven’t been writing posts, but there are some reasons for the silence, so I wanted to share them here:

1. Moving the blog: I am in the process of changing the blog from www.sundaynightsuccess.com to my business site at www.jeremiemiller.com/sns. This process has had a few bumps in the road, but should be complete soon. www.sundaynightsuccess.com will be redirected to the new location but until that redirect occurs please check www.jeremiemiller.com/sns for updates.

2. Identity issues: as I mentioned in my last post before the silence I attended a big event called “The Wealthy Thought Leader”. This event has resulted in some much needed serious thinking about what direction this blog and my coaching business will be taking. All of this thinking put me into a bit of a paralyzed state, leading to the lack of posts. All of this is now becoming clearer.

3. Out of balance issues: As regular readers know I recently took a part time teaching job while also working on building my coaching business, and doing some consulting work for some other businesses. The part time teaching job and coaching business decisions have been taking up too much time and my writing has suffered.

What to expect

There will be further changes as my own plans become clearer in the coming weeks (more on this later), but I do want to commit to a few things:

1. Starting next week check the new Sunday Night Success home for a return to regular weekly posts.

2. Keep your eye out for a new Personal Geography newsletter next week as I get back on track with sharing my writing about this idea.

That is it for now. The silence is broken. Back on track next week.

Jeremie

I managed to move my list closer to zero by

1. Make pencast of SNS changes – Incomplete.
2. Write “Homepage” – Incomplete
3. Write “Is this you” page – Incomplete
4. Write “How it works” page – Incomplete
5. Write “Last Ditch” page – Incomplete
6. Write “About” page – Incomplete
7. Write “Sign up” page – Incomplete
8. Write “Contact” page – Incomplete
9. Write “Archives” page – Incomplete
10. Write Power Tool – Incomplete
11. Reorganize goals for end of year – Complete
12. Edit Coaching Model – Incomplete
13. Edit Power Tool – Incomplete
14. Write 2000 words for NaNoWriMo – Complete
15. Write 2000 words for NaNoWriMo – Complete
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24. Write 2000 words for NaNoWriMo – Incomplete
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Focus on writing – NaNoWriMo

Although I put a number of different writing tasks on my current action list in an attempt to work the list to zero I wasn’t really planning on getting to most of them this past week. I knew ahead of time that I had fallen behind on my National Novel Writing Month challenge and was going to need to catch up.

So, I managed to sneak a couple other tasks into my week, but the main focus was on increasing my NaNoWriMo word count so that I would at the challenge.

20000 words in a week

I am happy with the outcome: I have never written 20000 words about the same topic in one week before, including seven thousand words in one sitting during a Spokane virtual write-in. I am still about 3000 words behind but that is a far cry from how far behind I was earlier this week.

The upcoming week will probably be focused on NaNoWriMo once again as it is the last week of the challenge and my 50000 word milestone is only a handful of days away. After that my focus will change to the other writing tasks I have put on my list.

I have been working a lot lately on building supportive environments in my life, with an extra focus on improving my physical environment: the objects and places in my life that are either promoting or blocking my success.

SNS on the road

My wife, son, and I are on a road trip as I write this. This road trip to visit friends and family will take me away from the internet for a few days. This has given me an opportunity to review some of the important environments that I will need to have success while on the road.

Coaching on the road

While driving to Fernie, BC I needed to participate in my supervised coaching class which is a requirement for my upcoming graduation. To do this we stopped in a small town with cell coverage and my wife and son went for dinner while I sat in the car and took my class.

Upon reflection I realized I had interacted with a number of my physical environments, some that supported me and some that need improvement:

Supportive environments

1. Honda Element: my wife and I own a great car that is in great shape. By owning this car I had the confidence to take this important class while on our trip because I trusted that my car would get us safely, and on time, to a town with cell coverage.
2. Cell phone: my cell phone gave me clear reception so that I could hear my class, and hear my client during the class. My client was also able to hear me clearly.
3. iPod Touch: I had my phone numbers, PIN numbers, and call details stored in my iPod Touch which allowed me to be organized for the phone call.
4. Ashlea: my wife was an important relationship environment as she supported me in stopping our trip for 90 minutes and keeping our son busy while I was on the call.
5. Scott: my client, Scott, agreed to be coached during my supervised coaching sessions. Without his support I would not have been able to complete the class.

Environments that need improvement

1. Headset: as clear as my phone made the call the cheap headset I use with my phone is not very comfortable and needs adjusting constantly. I do all of my coaching on the phone so a better, more comfortable, headset will definitely improve my coaching success.
2. Cell phone plan: I am making more long calls with my business cell now that my coaching business is picking up. I have a feeling this call, and the other calls I need to make while on this roadtrip are going to put me over my current minutes. I could also probably use a better long distance plan. Improving my cell plan will save me money and give me peace of mind: adding support to my success as a coach.

Focus on your environments, then design them

Thinking of your physical world as one big support environment, and then breaking it down into all of the little environments is a perspective that most people never consider.

However, for me it has changed my whole outlook for the better. I am spending less time and energy on being successful, because now my environments are working towards my master plan.

I would like to challenge you to start looking at your physical and relationship worlds as a bunch of small support environments. Then, pick one of these environments and ask yourself:

How could this environment be more supportive of my success?

There is a book inside of me.

In fact, I have always had the feeling that there are quite a few books inside me. The problem is, somewhere between my high school writing enthusiasm, and joining the “real” adult world I lost trust in my writing skills.

I found that trust again while working for “The Electric Playground” as a freelance, and then staff writer, and entered a period of writing productivity that resulted in many published articles and one published short story. Unfortunately, the real world struck again, I got busy “making a living” and lost my way as a writer once again.

The coaching mindset

A lot has changed for me in 2009, most of it centered around my training as a professional coach. I have been learning about creating and living my dreams, and developing strategies to create supportive environments that are helping me to be successful.

As a coach I know that I can do anything as long as I set my mind to it, make sure it is actionable, and find the resources and supports that I need to be successful. This shift towards achieving my dreams has been life altering, and my perspective on my world is now constantly improving.

The writing mindset

My new coaching mindset has resulted in a return to the idea of not only writing, but being a writer. To succeed in this move back into a writing lifestyle I have filled my life with various support environments:

1. Macbook: I write on the computer and my old PC laptop was cumbersome, hot, and difficult to work on. My Macbook was a big investment, but it was an investment in an environment that has made writing enjoyable again. Totally worth it.
2. Blogging: Sunday Night Success has been the most important writing environment I have created. Setting a post schedule and sticking to that schedule (with a hiccup here and there) has quickly put me back into the writing mindset.
3. Reading: to help me return to my writing ways I have started reading books on the creative process and writing. Reading this material helps support me in developing the writing habits that are crucial to my success as a writer.

4. NaNoWriMo

I have done an excellent job of supporting myself in writing nonfiction, but I still wasn’t moving forward with getting all of those books out of my head. Then I stumbled upon NaNoWriMo.

National Novel Writing Month presents a challenge to all hopeful novelists who are stuck with getting started: write 50,000 words in the month of November. Write an entire novel, or at least get a healthy start, in one month. Just let it all out.

Accepting the challenge and being accountable

I have accepted the NaNoWriMo challenge and started writing my 50,000 words on November 1st. I am already behind schedule (1667 words a day) by a few thousands words, but I plan on catching up.

NaNoWriMo has now become a new support environment in my life that will hopefully help pull me towards my long time goal of writing one or more novels. However, I don’t think the NaNoWriMo challenge is enough, so I will be using Sunday Night Success to help me stay accountable to this challenge. Keep an eye on the top right of the sidebar for my updates on words written. Hopefully you will watch it approach and then break the 50,000 word mark by November 30th.

Are you ready to move out of your comfort zone and into you danger zone?

What goal or challenge have you been avoiding because you don’t have the right support environments in place?

What is one environment you could make today that would help support you in being successful?