Sunday Night Success

So much of today’s self help and personal-improvement writing centers around the idea of work- life balance. I have written about it here on Sunday Night Success, and I work on this with many of my clients.

In the past few weeks while working with one of my clients, and just last week in my own life, an interesting challenge to this idea of work-life balance has presented itself:

Is it worth it to live your life out of balance for a planned period of time, so that your life becomes more in balance later?

Counting commitments

To give you an idea of where this post comes from, my current commitments include my private practice clients, my corporate clients in the US, and the work I do helping a coach in Vancouver. I also teach on call, usually one day a week. Did I mention I am working on a book idea?

Things have been great lately. I enjoy all of the work I am doing, I am spending some great time with my family, and having a lot of fun. However, the family finances are still in a bit of flux. I am all right with this, my wife is feeling a little insecure and would love to build up some savings.

Too much on your plate, but that’s OK

Last week I was presented with the possibility of taking on a half-time job teaching math at the high school down the street in my community.

This was not part of the plan.

Taking on a half-time teaching job while working on all of my other projects will definitely tip my work-life balance in the direction of work, something I am not a big fan of doing.

Here is the thing, the teaching job is for four months, it ends in June. The combined income from my work as a coach and my work as a half-time teacher would put my family in the best financial position it has been in the past three years. We would be able to put some savings in the bank. We would be able to buy a dishwasher (an important environment for both my wife and I with a 2 year old son). We would have some protection so that I could focus more on all my other projects without worrying about finances.

Worth it?

Can too much be a good thing, at least for awhile?

This is a tough one to answer when you are living in the situation. My first response is: yes, totally worth it. As long as you set a time limit for yourself and don’t get caught out of balance for an extended period of time, then living out of balance can be a good thing.

Living out of balance can challenge you. Living out of balance can help evolve you. Living out of balance can help you clarify what you really want out of life. Living out of balance can make the return to balance sustainable.

My second response is: nice rationalization buddy, way to convince yourself.

Living out of balance can stress your relationships. Living out of balance can stress you out. Living out of balance can exhaust you. Living out of balance can trap you so you never return to balance.

Living out of balance. Viable strategy or rationalization? What is your answer to the question:

Is it worth it to live your life out of balance for a planned period of time, so that your life becomes more in balance later?

Interested in joining me to hash out some ideas for a book? Subscribe to my personal geography newsletter and join the creative process.

A number of years ago one of my favourite authors, Douglas Coupland, came to Calgary and my wife and I attended his reading.  His quirky perspective on life has always given me food for thought and comfort.

After he had finished his reading and explaining where the impetus of the book came from he decided to take some questions from the audience.

One such question was, “If you were able to go back in time and give yourself one piece of advice on how to live your life what advice would you give?” Interesting question, no?  So this accomplished author with creativity as big as the sky thinks long and hard about his answer.

His response – “I would tell myself,”When times seem tough and the moment seems to be crumbling in front of your eyes go grab a snack.  You are sugar crashing. Eat a granola bar and then see if that makes your situation better.”

The audience thought it was a throw away comment and laughed, in all honesty, I did too. In fact as my wife and I walked back to the car I told her how I felt that his comment seemed glib.

Years have since passed and I have since continued to read his books.

But as I have gone through my life his advice has stuck with me.  And when there were times that I thought I couldn’t handle the stress or didn’t think there was a solution to the problem that was in front of me instead of falling into despair – I ate a granola bar. Sure enough in 10 or 15 minutes I felt better and in turn solutions began to reveal themselves.

Turns out his advice that I thought was too simple was actually great advice.

So if the next time your are struggling in the moment go grab yourself a healthy snack and see if that makes your outlook better.

PS.  My favourite book of his is Girlfriend in a Coma.  Check it out.

For another great post about tools that you can add to your success toolbox check out this post.

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

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.

Six out of eight:
1. Compile notes for Perfect Life Project into a word doc. – Complete
2. Compile graphics for PLP into a word doc. – Incomplete
3. Compile brainstorming notes for PLP into a word doc. – Complete
4. Plan trial session structure. – Incomplete
5. Create a table of contents for PLP. – Complete
6. Listen to PLP audios. – Complete
7. Schedule blog posts for vacation. – Complete
8. Complete Livescribe pen tutorials. – Complete

Why only eight?

Normally I set ten actions each week with the goal of completing half, or five of them. However, this week I was starting my vacation so knew that I would have limited time to work on my actions. Instead of setting myself up for failure by setting my usual ten, I lowered my action list to eight with the goal of completing four.

As this post, and this post discuss it is important to make your action setting process flexible and sustainable so your actions add value to your life and don’t start taking over.

How did you do with your weekly actions?

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?

Six out of Ten

1. Write article for Economic Development Task Force. – Complete
2. Write changes to Economic Development Task Force survey. – Complete
3. Listen to International Coach Academy Discussion Board teleclass. – Complete
4. Listen to bestofthomas.com webinar #2. – Complete
5. Finish 31 Days to Building a Better Blog Days 9 and 10. – Complete
6. Finish 31 Days to Building a Better Blog Days 11 and 12. – Complete
7. Finish 31 Days to Building a Better Blog Days 13-14. – Incomplete
8. Finish 31 Days to Building a Better Blog Days 15-16. – Incomplete
9. Finish 31 Days to Building a Better Blog Days 17-18. – Incomplete
10. Finish 31 Days to Building a Better Blog Days 19-20. – Incomplete

A bad week? Not at all

Only six out of ten this week, which, compared to other weeks for me, may not seem like a lot. However, I think we must all realize that every week is different for a number of reasons: one may end up being busier than we thought, we may be having a low energy week, or one of our goals may end up taking up more time, or have more steps than we originally thought. For me, this week, it was all three:

1. Busy: My son had a very challenging week and took up a lot more time than usual as my wife and I took turns “tagging in and out” of taking care of him and his new found tantrums.
2. Low energy: I am not sure why, perhaps it is directly tied in with our son not sleeping lately, but I had a super low energy week this week and found it difficult to motivate myself.
3. More steps: Day 14 of my “31 Days to Build a Better Blog” challenge ended up having multiple steps, all of them really important. So, although I thought I had chunked my goals down into reasonably small pieces, I ended up having one goal that required numerous steps and should have been broken down into a number of separate steps.

Some answers on Wednesday

Even with missing four of my goals this week I don’t consider my week to be a failure because I try to make my goal setting both sustainable and adaptable. What do I mean by this? Check back for Wednesday’s post which will be on this very idea: How to make your goal setting sustainable.

How many goals do you like to achieve each week to consider it a success?