I Like Golf

Posted on February 11, 2010 by Jason

I like golf.

I like the anticipation of the game.  I like setting it up with my friends.  I like getting my gear ready.  I like driving into the parking lot.  I like carrying my gear to the first tee.  I even like paying for the privilege of playing.

There is something about the game that has an allure to me.

Turning my cell phone off and having some “me” time.  Joking around with my friends at the tees.  Watching my friends succeed on the green.  Walking through lovingly manicured courses.  The anticipation that the shot that I am about to take may go where I want it to go.

My problem lies in the fact that I am not good at hitting the ball.  As a lefty golfer I have developed a habit of hitting every drive that I make left instead of straight.  Left into the rough.  Left into the water.  Left into the sand.  And not just a little left – I am shooting left by 45 degrees or more.  :S

What happens after I shoot left?  The first 5 or 6 shots I can usually suppress my frustration but eventually it bubbles to the surface and my day is ruined.  Friends cannot console me.  The joy is gone but I play on like a man walking through a rain storm who is soaked to the bone.

So for a long time I did what any man would do.  I would try harder.  I would try to force my body to HIT THE BALL STRAIGHT!!  I would practice harder and more often.  I would contort my body in ways to make the ball do what I want it to do.  I would turn my body so when I hit it left then at least it would be straight (this made it worse). All to no avail.

I just figured out my problem.

My problem is that I care where the ball goes more than I care about the process for getting the ball there.

Now I have a new plan – focus on the joy of the movement within the shot and stop caring about where the ball goes.  My shot may not improve at all but by changing what I consider success to be I will find peace on the course.  And this is my real success – peace.

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Sunday Night Success – Newsletter

Posted on February 10, 2010 by Jeremie

If you take a look in the upper right corner of the SNS homepage you will see a brand new sign up form for the Sunday Night Success newsletter. Like the new “Weekly Environment” posts on Tuesdays this newsletter is another experiment to see what happens.

At the moment the sign up form breaks one of the most common internet newsletter rules: I am not offering anything free with the newsletter….yet. At the moment it was most important that I get the sign up form live on the blog. I have what I think is an important and valuable freebie that will come with the newsletter I just haven’t quite figured out the technicalities of setting up the distribution of that freebie.

Freebie or not I hope you will sign up for the SNS newsletter and join me on this new experimental journey. Then, when the freebie is actually available you will be twice as happy!

What to expect from the newsletter

The newsletter is set up to provide a brand new environment for my, and hopefully your creative environment. I am working on writing a book that brings together some of my new ideas about success that I have learned over the past year through my own self-improvement work and my work with coaching clients.

These ideas are raw at the moment, and need to be developed. You can check out the very start of one of the ideas in my post on personal geography. My hope is that you will work with me, by sharing your comments and ideas about the newsletter, and help me write the book one idea at a time.

What other benefits?

Even if you are not interesting in helping develop and clarify the ideas everything I write in the newsletter is helpful in how you operate in your daily life. These are the ideas that I use with my clients and in my own life to be successful. Not all of these ideas will end up on the SNS blog so the newsletter gives you a unique look at some really interesting ways to help yourself move forward and be successful with whatever you are working on right now.

Or, you read a few issues and decide I am a lunatic and it is all pointless. Really, no harm done, and you would get the chance to peek inside the head of a madman.

Will you be selling stuff?

The answer is yes, but only at the very bottom of the newsletter after all of the non-selling information has been provided. If reading offers in a newsletter bothers you, it won’t be a huge problem, you can just stop reading before you get to the bottom. If I ever decide to change this policy (and this is an experiment, it may evolve) I will give warning so you can jump ship.

My number one purpose is to develop my ideas and provide value to you with my thoughts and writing. I would also love to have some of you join me in coaching relationships so we can start moving your ideas out of your head and into reality. For those of you who decide to take me up on the offers I look forward to working with you.

So, I hope you will enter your information below. It should be an interesting time that we spend together.




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Posted in Action/Goal Setting, Environmental Design, Success Posts | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Weekly Environment – 22" Monitor

Posted on February 9, 2010 by Jeremie

Welcome to a new experiment at Sunday Night Success.

I have recently spent a lot of time writing about the idea of shifting perspectives and looking at everything around you as being an environment that has the potential to support or block your success. To help with this perspective shift I thought it would be a good idea to provide a weekly example of something that I consider to be one of my environments, and briefly comment on why I see this environment as being a support or a block.

Let the experiment begin…..


Weekly Environment – 22″ Monitor

Until recently I have been doing all of my writing on my 13″ Macbook, which, for the most part has been a wonderful experience. However, with my recent increase in writing tasks (both my own and my new contract writing work) sitting at my desk and peering down at the 13″ screen was starting to put a strain on both my neck and my eyes.

A quick purchase of a video adapter and a video cable and I attached my Macbook to an old 22″ monitor I had in my office. The positive change to my environment was instant, and my effectiveness as a writer was affected immediately.

No more strained neck or eyes means I can sit and write for longer periods of time, and I now spend more time in the peace and quiet of my office writing instead of sitting on the couch amidst the chaos that only a two year old son can cause.

As an environment my 22″ monitor definitely supports me in being successful.

What is a piece of technology in one of your spaces that is acting as a supportive environment?

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This week's TED video

Posted on February 5, 2010 by Jeremie

Welcome to a new idea here at Sunday Night Success: the weekly TED video.

Ted “is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading” that puts on conferences where thought leaders give talks about “the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and ultimately, the world.” Attendance at TED conferences requires an application, not only to speak, but to sit in the audience.

One day I will sit in that audience and listen to these thought leaders live, but until that day (not to mention the day when I give my own TED talk) I have TED.com to fill my mind with amazing ideas and inspiration. I start every weekday with a TED video for inspiration, it is a source of creative energy for me. I would love to share this inspiration and energy with the readers of SNS.

Starting today, and every Friday, you can visit SNS to watch my weekly favourite TED video and see what helps me tick.

Sit back and enjoy this week’s TED video:

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Closet cleaning = success!

Posted on February 3, 2010 by Jeremie

“If cleaning out your closet everyday helps you achieve your dreams then why not clean out your closet everyday?”

The small things matter

This idea has popped up twice in the last two weeks during my coaching sessions: clients brushing off the silly little things they do as if these things have no effect on why they are having success.

“I always run if I write my runs out on a calendar and make sure I have my iPod with me. Silly things like that.”

And,

“I cleaned out my closet and got this burst of energy. If only I could clean out my closet before every challenging task I have to do.”

If scheduling and listening to music help you run then are they silly little things?
If it works then why not clean out your closet every time you have a challenging task?

Pay attention to what works then do it over and over again

It seems like people like to focus on the big things that help them to succeed: training and education, business systems, mastermind groups, coaches, meetings, etc.; while ignoring the little things that could be just as important.

I start everyday of working from home with two cups of coffee. Cup of coffee number one signals: time to hang out with my son and enjoy the morning. Then I get ready for work and grab cup of coffee number two which signals: time to go to the office and get the day started.

Two cups of coffee. Every morning. In the exact same pattern.

Silly? Perhaps. Does it work for me? Definitely.

What parts of your day do you currently consider silly or unimportant that could actually be one of the small keys to your success?

Posted in Environmental Design, Success Toolbox | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Environments matter: Personal Geography

Posted on January 28, 2010 by Jeremie

“Geography is destiny in medicine” Jack Lord, MD
Have you ever thought about how where you live can have an effect on your health?

I was watching a TED presentation by Bill Davenhall today, the topic: “Your health depends on where you live”. It is just under ten minutes long and well worth watching:

By design if I wanted to have a heart attack I lived in the perfect places

This is the conclusion that Bill comes to part way through the video after mapping out his geographical location over the course of his life. Watching this video started up the gears in my brain (special thanks to Andrea Lee and Thomas Leonard as well), as TED talks generally do, and got me to thinking:

If physical geography has such a huge impact on my health, how does my overall personal geography affect my life and my success?

Forming an idea: Personal geography

I love to talk about environmental design and how it affects the success that we have in our lives. So, what if I took Bill Davenhall’s idea of environment affecting health and applied it to a review of my own personal geography. Instead of limiting the question to how does this personal geography affect my health, expand the question to how does personal geography affect all aspects of my life.

What does the physical space of my home look like? My office? My car?
How much time am I spending in the natural world?
Am I taking care of my body?
What important relationships do I have?
How does my job/business affect me?
What am I reading? Watching? Listening to?

How are each of these different environments, which build up my personal geography, affecting my success?
How is my personal geography helping me to live the life I dream about?
How is my personal geography holding me back? Pulling me forward?

Mind moving fast

Admittedly, this is not the most cohesive blog post in the history of blog posts, but that is all right. I am excited. My mind is activated. I am just trying to get the ideas out and on “paper” so I can start to work on them.
And I could use everyone’s help. As I start to develop this idea of personal geography I would love feedback and comments from all of you. Let’s start with:

What is your first impression of the idea of having a personal geography (personal life geography?)?

Posted in Environmental Design | Tagged , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Goals versus opportunities

Posted on January 21, 2010 by Jeremie

“To reach our goal a straight path we will not follow.” Yoda

There is a vast amount of information written, and being written on the concept of setting and achieving your goals; Sunday Night Success being one of the contributors. Interestingly, within the first few weeks of 2010 I have already fallen behind on, delayed, or completely changed a couple of the goals I set for myself.

Why?

Opportunity came knocking.

The destination or the journey

Goals are your destination: they are the bigger idea that you are working towards. Losing 25 pounds, making $50000, publishing a book, going to Mexico, switching jobs. You set your goal as something you will try to achieve, and, once you achieve it you are done, you have reached your destination.

What is often forgotten is that there is also a journey to enjoy. How you work your way towards that goal can be just as important to changing who you are as finally reaching the goal. In many cases how you get there may actually end up being more important, and more interesting, than the final goal.

Straight path or twisting trail

Not only is the journey important, so are all of the different routes you can follow during that journey. Just because, in January, you determine a certain path will get you from point A to point B doesn’t mean that you have to follow that path. In fact, following such a rigid path may end up restricting you so much that, in the end, you limit your growth, or you are unable to reach your goal.

The journey between now and then, here and there, needs to be flexible. If something changes then be willing to adapt. You may need to change your approach or change the entire original goal; the point is to pay attention to how you are getting there and allow new opportunities to be part of the process.

Sometimes the best decision is to do something entirely different and see where it takes you.

Words versus intent

When an opportunity presents itself that at first appears to be in conflict with one of your goals, take a moment and look past the wording of your goal. Take a long look at what the INTENT of the goal really was.

If a new path presents itself you may find that the way you worded your goal doesn’t fit, but the intent, the real reason you set that goal for yourself fits perfectly.

Or, you may find that the intent of that goal was all wrong in the first place and the new path you have discovered fits you much better.

Opportunity example

One of my big goals for 2010 was: grow my private coaching practice financially to a point where I can cover all of my family’s basic living expenses by September 2010.

In January I received two new opportunities to do coaching work, enough work that it will be difficult for me to grow my own practice as quickly as I wanted too. At first, I struggled with this idea as I realized it directly conflicted with what I had set as a goal for myself. However, when I looked at the intent of my goal: to support my family through my work as a coach, I realized that both of these opportunities fit perfectly.

Yes, growing my private coaching practice will probably slow down, but my ability to provide for my family from my coaching work will rise much faster. The opportunity goes against the goal, but fits the intent and that is what is most important.

Try reviewing your goals for 2010 and determine the real intent of each goal. Does switching from goal to intent open up any new and interesting possibilities you hadn’t considered?

Need some assistance with setting your goals for 2010? Check out Jocelyn’s post on creating a vision board.

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Introducing a new Sunday Night Success team

Posted on January 19, 2010 by Jocelyn

It all started with a tweet in December.   The night before SNS v. 1.0 had discussed 2010 plans for the action team and I thought: “Wouldn’t it be fun, if I created a new group with fun girls? Maybesomeday”

The very next day one of my favourite knitters and flickr contacts replied to a tweet, telling me she admired the SNS group and would be keen to start a new group.

SNS v. Fun Girls was born!

Named fun girls, because that is who we are.  More specifically,  we are:

Caro.  I’ve been following her blog and using her amazing box bags for some time. I was very flattered she wanted to join the group and I’m very excited to get to know her better.  Caro is working on world domination for her business, Splityarn. her first book!book!book! is going to be released by a really impressive publisher later this year!

Danielle, is a bona-fide fun girl and she is clearly the highest energy of our new group.  Marathon training? check.   Coaching synchronized swimming? Check.  Demanding job at a high profile institution? check.   For Danielle, balance is my crazy busy day and she jumped into SNS with the enthusiasm & energy, I imagine, she uses to tackle any project.

StitchyMcYarnpants (aka Deb) is Caro’s partner in world domination (and book publishing).  She’s using SNS to manage her busy life, the process of book publishing, creating a podcast and (we hope) moving an old, broken, stove out of her kitchen.  See her work as the curator of kitschy stitches on her blog, here:

http://stitchymcyarnpants.com/moks06/

Last,  Crystal is hard-working, focused single mom going who just finished an MBA.  She’s embarked on a fairly major job search and is working hard to manage all her priorities while going to bed early (it’s on the list) and find her dream job.

We’ve meet twice and it’s quickly become one of the highlights of my week.  These girls are FUN!!  I’v found it interesting,  with my extraordinary (snort) six months experience as a SNS alumni to see these fun girls experience how the action setting techniques can help achieve goals.   I asked for their first impressions about Sunday Night Success, and they include:

  • How helpful the process of writing down action items every week is.  It’s a little meditative, to sit down, relax, think about the upcoming days in  terms of planning & prioritizing.
  • There are no items too small for the list.  Breaking down activities to be low, low energy items that can be knocked off the list in the blink of an eye is an easy strategy to Get Stuff Done.
  • Accountability rocks!
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Functional versus dysfunctional environments

Posted on January 13, 2010 by Jeremie

Functional Environments

When your various environments are functioning correctly they should be supporting you in being successful. A functional environment, when in place, helps make completing your actions and reaching your goals simpler. The environment, by just being there, provides the structure for success and because of this you need to put less energy into the tasks that you are attempting to accomplish.

Example of a functional environment

Marketing websites and marketing newsletters were two of the environments that I leaned on heavily during the summer. These sources of information provided me with a background in marketing I did not have, and with the support I required to move forward. By not having to come up with all of these ideas on my own, I saved energy.

These two environments supported me in being successful.

These two environments were functional.

Dysfunctional Environments

When environments are no longer supportive and no longer saving energy they have become dysfunctional. The problem is that we do not always immediately realize that our environments have become dysfunctional, and end up continuing with environments that are eating up energy and actually hindering success in some way.

Example of a dysfunctional environment

The marketing newsletters that I received over the summer are an excellent example of a dysfunctional environment that I did not identify immediately, and because of this, they ended up taking energy from me on a fairly consistent basis.

During the spring I read every marketing newsletter sent my way. I would eagerly scan through the information and pick out the pieces that I thought would work for what I am doing. I enjoyed reading the newsletters. However, during the summer I began moving the newsletters to my “Marketing” label in gmail without even reading them. I figured these newsletters were still a supportive environment; I would just need to read them later.

I was being delusional.

Flooded inbox

I finally realized my marketing newsletter environment had become dysfunctional after returning from a three-day camping trip with my family. I opened my gmail account to 45 email messages, of which 41 of them were marketing newsletters and four were from actual people that I correspond with.

I realized I would never have the time to properly read all of them, so started moving them over to my “Marketing” label once again. This required thought, which required energy, and none of this energy was moving me forward.

Wasted energy = dysfunctional environment.

Repairing Environments

Once you have identified a dysfunctional environment you will need to alter, eliminate, or replace this environment in order to stop losing energy.

I repaired my marketing environment through elimination. If I opened and read a newsletter it stayed on my list. If I moved it to my “Marketing” label without opening it, I removed myself from the subscription list.

Nice and simple: I don’t read it, I don’t get it anymore.

What is one simple action you could take right now to clean up one of your dysfunctional environments?

For more on environmental challenges check out this post on quitting environments that work.

Posted in Environmental Design | Tagged , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Then and now: reflecting on 2009

Posted on December 31, 2009 by Jeremie

I had an amazing 2009!

I underwent a lot of exciting changes in my life, both personal and professional. In today’s post, just before the coming of 2010 I have decided to look back at my 2009 and acknowledge some of the highlight “wins” I have experienced.

I think this is an important reflection for all of us to do as, in general, I don’t think people spend enough time acknowledging and celebrating their accomplishments. If everyone could spend more time celebrating the smaller wins they have throughout the year I think everyone would be more successful. Celebrating wins helps you to enjoy life more, and also helps you build up momentum towards being even more successful in the future.

So, join me and celebrate some of your wins in 2009.

Wins for 2009

- Finished my training as a professional coach.
- Built my coaching business from zero to seven clients.
- Helped Andrea Lee organize and produce several coaching resource books.
- Started Sunday Night Success.
- Wrote a 50000 word novel for NaNoWriMo.
- Ran a coaching workshop for small town, small business owners.
- Joined a Mastermind group.
- Learned to meditate.
- Spent first full summer in my new house.
- Watched my son have his second birthday.
- Went on two trips with just my wife to spend some “couple time” together.
- Improved my ability to respond to situations instead of reacting to them.

What were some of your most valuable wins for 2009?

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