A Gift for Yourself 10/16/2009
Be assured that you're not letting anyone down when you can't make a proposed Power Hour. You can just as easily have a Power Hour on your own, and that would create success for you too! The group element is just an option that some have found helpful. Whatever time you dedicate to your 100-Day Project is a gift to yourself. If you were meeting with a client for an hour, you would be entirely focused on them. You wouldn't check email or surf the web while they were in your office to visit you. For one Power Hour, treat yourself as you would your client, and for this hour, your client's project (your 100-Day Project) is the most important project on the table. For all of us, on some level, our 100-Day Challenge Project is the project we never seemed to have time for in the first 265 days of the year. It's your special project now, because it's a project that improves YOU: It makes you better for yourself, the work you do, and the people around you. Isn't THAT worth the gift of an hour today? Power Hour Aftermath: Community Commitment 10/09/2009
Congratulations to everyone who participated in tonight’s Power Hour. And for those who could not make it this time, thank you for sending us your good intentions! We all got a lot done, and many people kept working past the hour, while the irons were still hot! One 100-Day Challenger told me afterwards that for them, it was all about the commitment. Once they made the commitment and started, the hour became easy. This is similar to what Jack Canfield, co-author of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series of books, says about success: That it’s not the level of skill, intelligence, power, money, influence, or anything else that makes a person successful. It’s a person’s level of commitment. That couldn’t have shown up more true than it did tonight. We had committed Challengers from around the state (that I know of!), all present for their work in the same hour-long time-space. In logical terms, this should be no big deal. And I’ll be honest: When I set this up, I knew I would get a good hour of work in, but I didn’t know how the Power Hour could actually be powerful. Hours after Power Hour has ended, I’m still stunned by its effect on me, my work, and from the scattered feedback I've gotten, on you and your work as well. Another Challenger described my feeling best after Power Hour. They said, “Thank you very much for this opportunity,” and I was thanking them back! I felt blessed to be there, working away with you, all of us knowing that we were getting closer to our goals together, and that this hour of work was making a difference. All of us, as 100-Day Challengers, are interested in the other Challengers’ successes as much as our own. Let’s keep raising all the boats in the harbor! Please feel free to drop some comments around this Power Hour: your success, what made it work for you, your thoughts for improvement, whatever! Success can be measured in more than just numbers, so feel free to measure your success in quantities and qualities that you feel good about! More Power Hours (and Half-Hours) are being scheduled, so email your date/time preferences to me directly at SoulmateFromWithin@gmail.com. I’ll set up the teleconference line to last for 15 minutes afterwards, for anyone who’d like to debrief, celebrate, or even get some quick coaching around a hiccup in your 100-Day Challenge. (Any coaches who would like to volunteer their gifts to other Challengers are welcome!) Power Hours 09/29/2009
A Power Hour (or Half-Hour) is a time-optimization technique, in which you set an egg-timer for your optimum focus time ("OFT") and just sit down and work on your project until the timer goes off. Seems easy enough to do by yourself, right? But half the time, I can't get myself to do it or I can distract myself anyway. So here's the group modification that also creates accountability. I invite you to participate with me!
To be invited to Power Hours as they are scheduled, email SoulmateFromWithin@gmail.com. (You can also email me to suggest a time for a future Power Hour.) Here's the schedule of upcoming Power Hours and their links. The Next 100 Days 09/22/2009
Today begins the 100-day countdown to the end of the year. When I found this out yesterday, I began taking this “doomsday” tone: “Only 100 days left in the year!” “What will you accomplish in the last 100 days of 2009?” I might as well have been saying, “How will you live these last 100 days of your life?” Thankfully, most projects are not nearly as dire as life-and-death (Or are they? Hmm….), but it does put that critical physical element into fierce perspective: Time. Historically, I have done fairly well in higher-pressure business scenarios, mostly because I can focus on what’s important without losing my composure. But it does wear a person down, and it’s not an environment I can work in over long periods. So like many people, I steer clear of these kinds of situations by preparing appropriately, by project planning, and by taking proper rest. Then I heard we had 100 days to go in the year. And I started telling myself there were only 100 days left – for everything. And that was a total lie. The truth became real when I printed out a calendar in which I had re-cast the next 100 days in a matrix. (Calendar inspired by @WritingSpirit.) There were no more weeks or months. Just a 10x10 rectangle of 100 littler boxes. The days, weeks, and years became irrelevant squares. I was magically freed of the impending doom of year-end, and a very special thought came to mind: It’s not the last hundred days. It’s the next hundred days. And while there’ll be another hundred days after that (and another hundred and another hundred), if I want something to happen badly enough, I can make each day count in some way toward achieving it actually happening.. I suddenly saw 100 magic steps, 100 exact tasks, a giant piece of work divided into 100 little nuggets of time, each of which would bring me closer to a completed goal. I haven’t been inspired like this for a long time. My 100-day goal is to write and publish a book. (And now that I’ve said it to the entire Internet, I’ve got popular pressure/support to do it!) And that’s what a 100-day challenge is about. I’ve never done this before, but I’m excited about what will unfold by the year’s end. Whatever it is, on this schedule, something must unfold, and for me, that’s an especially tough opportunity to turn away from. Such a short amount of time for something that can make such a difference in a person’s life! The Invitation: Do the challenge with me! You can download my calendar template at the end of this post and play along at home, or add a comment here expressing your goal and how you want to be supported by others in the challenge. You can also check out inspiring video on Gary Ryan Blair, the Goals Guy’s website http://startfastfinishstrong.com. Big thanks to Julie Isaac (@WritingSpirit) and to Gary Ryan Blair (http://startfastfinishstrong.com) for the inspiration. Cha-LAWNGE, Baby! 
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