Sunday Night Success

When scanning the different spaces in your personal geography you are looking for the supportive environments that you already have in place, supportive environments that you are missing, non-supportive environments that you can change, and non-supportive environments that you need to eliminate.

A dishwasher falls into number two for my family: a supportive environment that is missing.

Many will argue that you don’t need a dishwasher, and for many that may be true. However, when my wife and I review the amount of time, and the amount of energy that we spend (all right mostly my wife at this point, I am working and running my business) on cleaning dishes it is huge.

Remember my two year old son Fionn, from last week?

The amount of energy and time we spend on cleaning dishes is huge.

A dishwasher will be a supportive environment that gives us this time and energy back, energy that we can use on far more important things in our life.

Now we just need to pick a brand and find someone to install it.

What is a missing environment in your personal geography? How much time and energy would you get back in your life if you filled this empty environment? Do you have a recommendation for a good dishwasher?

Want to know more about personal geography? Sign up for the SNS Personal Geography newsletter.

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?

I have just moved into a new home, and it is taking up quite a bit of my time and most of my energy. In fact, most of my weekly actions for the past few weeks, and probably for several more weeks to come, have consisted almost entirely of “house” stuff and related actions.

We all know how draining moving can be, even when you are excited about it. I am finding that when I do have a few minutes to myself, all I want to do is sprawl on my couch and veg out in front of my TV for some mindless down time. I admit to having been less than enthusiastic about participating in the weekly success calls these past couple of weeks…. The motivation factor to get things done, and list more things to get done was pretty weak.

But, I am glad that I have followed through anyway, and persevered in getting through most of the things on my lists. Not only am I accomplishing things that could easily be put off or fall through the cracks, and not only am I helping myself to get through the transition of moving into a new place more quickly, but I always feel better after meeting with my success group on our calls. I come away feeling more energized, more optimistic about the actions I have set for the coming week, and generally better about myself and what I am accomplishing than I would if I had bailed out and just laid around on the couch. So even though I am not always “feeling it”, I push through anyway, and am always better off for it.

-Vicky

Here at SNS we take action every week to make progress in making our dreams come true. By setting clear defined actions every week, being accountable to others and then celebrating those successes makes our progress focused, tangible and way more fun.

But there are times where we are working on something that is really difficult or we just feel down and need a pick up.  In the past I focused on adding coffee to my body to help in these times. While this is close to the right idea – making changes in your body to help the brain become more active or to help raise your emotions – it falls short.

The following are three things that I do to help myself feel happier and better focused through the day.
- Realize that you can decide how you want to feel – figure out how you want to feel, make a clear decision that you are going to feel this way and say it out loud to yourself 5 times.
- Get out of your desk and do some stretches with deep breathing.  By getting your blood flowing through your entire body every 45 mins to 1 hour you can feel refreshed and focused again.
- Change your body language - instead of being hunched over and looking down while walking try walking like John Travolta at the beginning of Saturday Night Fever.  Not only will you look cool but you will feel 10 times better. See – How to Strut

These are just the beginning.  Yoga, tai chi, meditation and many other diciplines have lots of great ideas on how to feel better that take just a moment to preform.  If you have any other ways to feel better then share them with us by commenting below.

You will have to excuse me as I need to practice my strut.

Jason

I am notoriously bad at setting my actions for the week, and then not reviewing them until much later in the week. I have, of course, a general idea of what I wanted to accomplish, but sometimes I will forget about something I wanted to get done until I actually go back and look at what I wrote down.

Today, while trying to complete an action that I had left to the last minute, I was reminded that I could have saved myself some time and energy if I had only reviewed my list earlier. I had an action down to scan some documents and email them to someone. This would have been a task that would have taken all of 2 minutes and cost nothing if I had remembered to do it earlier in the week when I had access to the office scanner. But I left it until Sunday, leaving me with the options of either going to the Staples to get the documents scanned, costing me time, energy and a little bit of money, or not completing the action. In the interest of getting it off my list, I did go to the store and get the action completed, but it was a lesson I will remember.

Procrastination rarely pays off, it is my intention to be more conscious about checking in with my list more frequently during the week.

Within each of us lives doubt.

Within each of us lives temptation.

One of the temptations that I have seen since I started setting my weekly actions is very sinister. What happens is I get to Friday afternoon and a couple actions would not have been completed. At that point an idea would present itself – I could put “complete” next to the actions that are not completed and my success partners would be none the wiser!

Did you see what happened there?

First of all I felt doubt whether or not I was going to complete a couple actions. This doubt exists within each of us. I view this whole thought process as a good sign. I like the fact that I am challenged a bit in my actions every week. This shows that I am pushing myself and that is what I need to be doing to make my dreams come true.

Second I felt tempted to lie. And technically I am right – my success partners would not have known but I would have known. My pride was getting in my way. In turn this cheapens what it is that I am trying to do because I start to doubt myself and the program.

I learned that it is best to shove the pride and laziness away. Try my best to get the actions completed before our next meeting and if I can’t treat the people that I trust and myself with the respect that we deserve.

We are only human and these feelings are to be expected. It isn’t the fact that we have these feelings that makes us more or less it is how we respond that shows us our real value.

_________________

If you are a recovering pessimist check out this post by Jeremie.

Action setting works

Breaking my goals down into small actions each week has changed my life and moved me from someone who had a lot of great ideas towards someone who takes those ideas and gets them done. As successful as my action setting has been, I have found that, at times, I am more successful and feel more energized completing some actions than I do when I complete other actions. I asked myself two question:

What makes some actions easier to complete than others?
What makes some actions more energizing than others?

Answers I already had

I already realize that completing actions that I enjoy is easier and more energizing. I also know that actions that are working towards my vision are easier and more energizing. But even within these types of actions I was finding some were easier to complete and some provided me with way more energy.

Two answers: Action Paths and Action Themes

While I was reading and responding to this post at “When I Grow Up” I realized that it wasn’t the actual actions that were easier to complete, and it wasn’t the actual actions that were giving me more energy, it was the approach I was taking to complete these actions.

When I work on my actions individually I get them done, feel motivated by completing them, and draw some energy from this motivation. However, there are two approaches to completing my actions that boost the whole process: Action Paths and Action Themes.

Action Paths

An action path is a series of actions that are all related to the same goal, and happen in sequence, each next action being dependent on the one that came before. All of the actions in an action path are moving you in the same direction, towards an overall goal. By completing actions, one after the other in an action path, the motivational energy that you receive from each completed action makes the next action more effortless and more energizing. You build upon the success of completing each action and end up accelerating forward towards completing that particular goal.

Action Path Example

This action path idea worked great for me recently when I was organizing my current life plan into a visual format. My action path was:

Write vision statement into flowchart → Write goals into flowchart → Write coaching practice goals into flowchart

I had planned to break this task up over time, but as I finished step one I was feeling pumped full of energy. Instead of focusing that energy on a completely different action I decided to move onto the next step and quickly completed it. Completing the second step gave me even more energy and finishing the final step was almost effortless, the ideas just flowed.

By focusing on my action path I made a huge move forward and, instead of using energy in the process, I felt more energized with each step.

Action Theme

An action theme uses this same idea of grouping actions together in order to build up motivational energy and move you forward effortlessly. The main difference is that the actions in an action theme do not follow each other in sequence. Instead, all of the actions are similar in some way, and grouped into an overall theme, so that the motivation you receive from finishing them is similar, and can build up to move you forward.

Action Theme Example

Writing my blog posts is an excellent example of an action theme. My old method was to write and edit one blog post a week, and I was finding that, although I felt energized by the end product, the process was taking more energy to complete than I wanted. So, I decided to try something new and I started to cluster my writing tasks together all at once and discovered a huge difference:

Old process: write blog post → edit blog post → schedule blog post → feel energized → move onto something else

New process: write blog post → edit blog post → schedule blog post → feel energized → apply energy to → write blog post → edit blog post → schedule blog post → feel energized → etc.

By clustering the similar actions together in a theme I get to take the energy from completing each separate action and use that energy to start the next, themed action. Each completion adds motivational energy directly to the next action and, as the process continues, each action becomes more effortless.

Effortless actions get done

The less effort needed to start and complete an action, and the more energized you feel during and after finishing an action, means you are going to complete more actions and make bigger moves forward in your life. Next time you are planning your actions and how best to move forward on one of your goals think about creating yourself an action path or grouping together similar actions into a theme.

It absolutely works for me, let me know if it works for you in the comments below.

Check out Three Tips for setting weekly actions and Turning big goals into small actions for more help with your weekly action setting.

Weekly actions result in feelings

Every week I set my action list at the start of the week, carry out my actions during the week, and review my actions at the end of the week. This is a very analytical process that helps me to see whether I am successfully working towards the larger goals I have set for myself. However, this past week I realized that, although I find a great deal of value in the analytical part of the process, the feelings I get from the process are an excellent method of guiding me in the right direction.

Each week is unique, and results in a different spectrum of feelings that occur as I complete the actions on my list. I have started organizing these feelings, and the associated actions into three general groups:

Relief Actions
Neutral Actions
Energizing Actions

Each of these three feelings tell me something important about the actions I am setting for myself and how they relate to my overall goals.

Relief Actions

The fact that completing relief actions gives no real sense of accomplishment, and no added energy to my life probably signifies that these actions are not in alignment with my values and vision. They may be necessary, or have seemed necessary at one time, but they are doing nothing to move me in the direction that I want my life to be taking. These actions are worth taking a look at and asking some hard questions:

“What value is this action providing in my life?”
“What value is the goal associated with this action providing in my life?”
“What would happen if I stopped this action and abandoned the associated goal?”

Depending on the answers to these questions I can reevaluate these actions and figure out the next steps I need to take to either make them a positive part of my life, or, if possible eliminate them.

Neutral Actions

These actions don’t really elicit any sort of response in me. These actions are just there, need to be completed, and most likely serve some menial purpose in my life. I would classify most of these actions as the tasks that I need to complete. They don’t advance a larger goal, but they are not associated with something I don’t want to be doing. They aren’t overly exciting, but they need to be done.

Energizing Actions

The actions that build up my energy are the ones that I think are the most important to take a look at. The fact that these actions take energy to complete, but in the end add energy to my overall week shows that they are important to me. They are most likely important because they are associated with something I find enjoyable, and they are in alignment my values, my goals, and my overall vision. When I complete an action and get a feeling of increased energy I need to take notice of what that action was and what overall goal it is associated with. Whatever goal that is, that is an areal I need to put more energy into. That is a goal that is worth working on and moving forward.

Action radar

With this new realization I now have a sort of weekly action radar that I can use to help me alter my course as needed. Relief actions need to be minimized or eliminated, neutral actions are a part of my life, and energizing actions need to become my focus.

I am interested to know how you feel about some of your actions. In the comments below list a recent action you have completed from each of these three categories, or, add a category of your own.

Check out last week’s post on flexibility in action setting for more help managing your energy.

Sustainability is about energy

Completing weekly actions requires energy. When setting your actions each week you need to keep this in mind in order to prevent burnout and ensure that the process is sustainable on a daily and weekly basis. For your weekly actions to be sustainable you must use up no more energy than you are capable of replenishing on a day-to-day and week-to-week basis. If completing your weekly actions is draining all of your energy then, over time, the process will start to falter and the forward movement that is the purpose of the whole process will come to a halt. Action setting is about building momentum, and to build momentum you have to have the energy to work on your actions each week.

Maintaining energy

There are three simple methods that can be used to control the amount of energy you use in your action setting that will help avoid burnout:

1. Limit the number of weekly actions.
2. Set a priority level for each action.
3. Limit the type of actions you set.

Limit the number of weekly actions

There is no magic number of actions to set each week. The number of actions that you set and complete each week while maintaining a sustainable energy level is entirely dependant on the individual. You will need to experiment with different numbers of actions for a few weeks in order to determine the right number for you. You will also want to revisit this number over time and make adjustments as needed.

Set a priority level for each action

Different actions you set will have different levels of importance to you. Some actions will be helping you move towards a major goal. Some actions will be time sensitive and need to be accomplished within a certain time frame. These would both be examples of high priority actions in your life.

Some actions will relate to reaching smaller, less important goals in your life. Other actions will not be attached to any specific larger goal but are an important task that you need to get done. These are examples of low priority actions.

By determining the priorities of your different actions you can organize them more efficiently and make sure that you are focusing your energy in the right direction: towards your larger goals, and, eventually, your overall vision.

Limit the type of actions you set

Not all actions in a given week should have a high level of importance and priority in your life. High priority actions are high-energy actions and, if you have too many of them, your energy will get drained rapidly and never have a chance to replenish. Try to mix up the actions that you set for yourself each week over a range of priorities. By mixing together high and low priority items you can control the amount of energy you put towards your actions each day.

Having a high energy day? Work towards some of your high priority actions. Having a low energy day? You can still experience the feeling of forward movement by accomplishing some of your low priority actions.

My sustainable action setting strategy

After experiencing some burnout in my own action setting process I have now incorporated these three ideas into my weekly action setting.

1. I set myself ten actions each week.
2. I give each action either a high or low priority rating.
3. Four of my actions are high priority actions that are moving my major goals forward. (these are in bold in my weekly list.)
4. Six of my actions are low priority actions, either moving a minor goal forward or completing a stand alone task.
5. Although I set myself ten actions I count a successful week as any week where I accomplish five of the actions: at least two high priority and three low priority actions.
6. Any actions that I do not complete in a given week are either dropped from my list until a later date, removed entirely, or moved onto my list for the following week.

Why do I set twice as many actions as I hope to accomplish each week? It is all part of making your action setting process adaptable and I will take a look at this idea next week.

What do you think your magic number of actions is for each week? How many high priority and low priority actions do you think will work for you?