Hey everyone! The 2nd Sunday of the month is here! (March 8th). That means it’s Support Sunday. Paid subscribers, your Zoom link is below.

Double check your watches because of the time change.

If you’re not a paid subscriber, sign up and get your monthly session with me while slots are available.

And soon, there will be TWO support Sundays, so even more slots will be available.

The Zoom Link for this Sunday below

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Hey everyone! The 2nd Sunday of the month is tomorrow (Feb 8th). That means it’s Support Sunday. Paid subscribers, your Zoom link is below.

If you’re not a paid subscriber, sign up and get your monthly session with me while slots are available.

And soon, there will be TWO support Sundays, so even more slots will be available.

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Hey everyone! The 2nd Sunday of the month is tomorrow (January 11th). That means it’s Support Sunday. Paid subscribers, your Zoom link is below.

If you’re not a paid subscriber, sign up and get your monthly session with me while slots are available.

And soon, there will be TWO support Sundays, so even more slots will be available.

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Hey everyone! Today, Dec. 14th, is the 2nd Sunday of the month. That means it’s Support Sunday. Paid subscribers, your Zoom link is below.

If you’re not a paid subscriber, sign up and get your monthly session with me while slots are available. (Right now I have two. )

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Hey everyone! The 2nd Sunday of the month is this Sunday (November 9th). That means it’s Support Sunday. Paid subscribers, your Zoom link is below.

If you’re not a paid subscriber, sign up and get your monthly session with me while slots are available.

And soon, there will be TWO support Sundays, so even more slots will be available.

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Hey everyone! It’s the 2nd Sunday of the month this Sunday (Oct. 12th). That means it’s Support Sunday. Paid subscribers, your Zoom link is below.

If you’re not a paid subscriber, sign up and get your monthly session with me while slots are available. (Right now, I have two openings. )

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Hey everyone! It’s the 2nd Sunday of the month tomorrow (Sept 14th). That means it’s Support Sunday. Paid subscribers, your Zoom link is below.

If you’re not a paid subscriber, sign up and get your monthly session with me while slots are available. (Right now, I have two openings. )

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Hey everyone! This Sunday, August 10th, is the 2nd Sunday of the month. That means it’s Support Sunday. Paid subscribers, your Zoom link is below.

If you’re not a paid subscriber, sign up and get your monthly session with me while slots are available. (Right now, I have one opening. )

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Hey everyone! This Sunday, July 13th, is the 2nd Sunday of the month. That means it’s Support Sunday. Paid subscribers, your Zoom link are below.

If you’re not a paid subscriber, sign up and get your monthly session with me while slots are available. (Right now I have two. )

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Hey everyone! Support Sunday is back to the 2nd Sunday of the month, which means June 8, 2025. Paid subscribers, your Zoom link are below.

If you’re not a paid subscriber, sign up and get your monthly session with me while slots are available. (Right now I have two. )

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Hey everyone! If you’re a paid subscriber, this is a quick reminder that our one-on-ones are tomorrow. Looking forward to seeing your progress.

If you’re not a paid subscriber, sign up and get your monthly session with me while slots are available. (Right now I have two. )

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Hey everyone! If you’re a paid subscriber, this is a quick reminder that our one-on-ones are tomorrow. Looking forward to seeing your progress.

If you’re not a paid subscriber, sign up and get your monthly session with me while slots are available. (Right now I have two. )

Thank you for being patient. This month, paid subscribers will get a 1-on-1 session. Availability is below.

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Hi! This Sunday is the 2nd Sunday of the month, but I’m going to have to postpone Support Sunday.

I live in Los Angeles, and although the fire burning closest to our house is luckily burning in the opposite direction, we’ve been without power for two days.

They can’t tell us when it’ll be back on. (I’m at a cafe typing this.)

Stay tuned for details. Special one-on-one sessions for all paid subscribers as soon as I get power again.

Thank you!

Wow! This month’s meeting is coming up fast since December kicked off on a Sunday.

Last month we talked about closing out 2024. We’ll continue with that theme and then cast our thoughts and intentions for years to come.

The Zoom Link for this Sunday below

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Think of the task that you need to do regularly that you always put off.

It could be an errand, a project, a workout routine, or a Substack newsletter. (Oh look! The inspiration for this post.)

How do you feel when you think about getting started on this task?

When you see it on your “To do” list or it pops into your head, do you immediately think, “I’ll do it later?”

Or worse … 

Do you get what I call “The Dread?” 

You know the one. Your brain is avoiding doing the task, but you can’t enjoy goofing off because the task is there. Hovering in the nebulous future … going undone … gaining more dread.

What’s the problem?

The problem is you don’t have a single task. You’ve got a project, and you’re treating it like a single task.

And how do you solve this problem?

Whenever you have trouble, to paraphrase Nike, “Just doing it,” you need to separate planning from execution. And if you’ve got a recurring task that keeps going undone and is late, then it’s time to ….

Pilots! Before You Start Your Engines

Yup! I’m talking about a checklist.

And they are so powerful they save lives. You can read more about it, in Atul Gawande’s book, The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right.

I’ve found that this handy little tool not only helps me to not forget vital steps in a project, but it also helps me complete the project. It’s hard to leave that last box or two unchecked.

Breaking down a task into smaller, doable parts allows you to focus on just one small thing and not worry about what’s next. You save the brain power needed to think of each step that you can use for executing on the task at hand.

Larger projects, can be divided into multiple parts, which can be done in smaller chunks of time making it easier to schedule.

Plus, there’s the bonus of having it all written down, which allows for easier outsourcing and delegation.

When to use and create a checklist

1. If you’re staring at a giant nebulous item on your “To Do” list and needing to block off a “bunch” of time to cross it off leads to procrastination.

2. Recurring chores

3. Self-care tasks

I’ll give you an example of one of my checklists.

The podcast I host with my friend, Briana, comes out on the first Monday of the month. To keep me from procrastinating, I created a checklist in my Things3 app that automatically shows up the last week of the month.

I also have other forms of checklists such as my self-care checklist.

This list drops into my calendar daily, but I have the option of doing just one, some, or all of the things on the list.

Of course, you can kick it old school with a printed piece of paper, use a spreadsheet or use an app of your choice.

Can you checklist your whole life? 

Yes!

I’ve been revising and re-working my spreadsheet to help me keep up with all my tasks. It allows me to make one big habit of all my habits, and I don’t expect to get 100% of it done. But it calculates the percentage of stuff I’ve done, which gives me an opportunity to troubleshoot and streamline.

Naturally, it’s the overview of what I do daily, and I have my individual project lists elsewhere. It’s a bit large, but here’s a screenshot. (Look at all those substack posts that don’t have checkmarks. Yikes! )

Every other week, I go over it with my mental health nurse practitioner that assists me with managing my ADHD. It amazes me how something so simple coupled with regular accountability has changed my life.

It’s one of the key tools that’s helped me

• Lose 20 lbs, complete my first half marathon

• Reconnect with old friends, prioritize visiting my family

• Get my blood sugar into normal range

• Meditate daily

• Journal daily

• and way more.

That looks cool, but it looks like a lot of work to setup

If you’re a spreadsheet whiz, you can probably set one up pretty easily. I’m not, but because I did it in stages with my NP, it wasn’t as hard as I though it would be.

Plus, you don’t need a complicated checklist for your whole life to start. You can do shorter ones in Word, Google docs, or even write one freehand and copy it.

While it did take some time to put together at first, now it only takes a few minutes a day to use. Each month I take about a half an hour to revise my list for the next month.

If you’d like to create a customized master spreadsheet like mine and want to avoid the hard work of creating it on your own, book a 1-on-1 session with me.

Paid subscribers get $25 off (see code below).

Annual subscribers get a free half-hour session.

I’m working on next year’s goals and spreadsheet now.

But first, I need to put together a checklist for writing this newsletter. 

P.S. As promised, here’s the $25 OFF discount code for Paid Subscribers

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I can’t believe it’s been a month since our last meeting.

There’s a little over 7 weeks left in this year. This month’s meeting we’ll follow up on our tasks from last month and talk about ending the year strong.

Here’s the meeting registration info:

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Don’t forget this Sunday is the Second Sunday of the month so it’s Support Group Sunday for all of my paid subscribers.

There are 8 weeks left in the year! Do you have a plan for 2025?

Watch this quick 4-minute video to get started.

Edited transcript:

In this video, I'm going to tell you the biggest mistake people make while planning, give you some tips to put together your plan, and give you a little trick that I use that keeps me from getting stuck in research and planning mode and pushes me to action.

Avoid this big mistake …

Whether or not it's a business plan, financial plan, exercise plan, diet plan, even a novel, the biggest mistake people make is they don't know the ending.

They have what I call a phantom goal. What is a phantom goal? A phantom goal looks like a regular goal, but it has not been thought all the way through.

Let me give you an example. A friend of mine hated his job, so he

quit his job, got a bunch of clients, and then he hated his business.

It turns out, he hated his job because he hated his boss. And the clients he got were just as demanding as his former boss.

Knowing the real reason why he wanted to be his own boss, he could have went to a job with a better boss or made sure to select his clients with more care.

And so I would posit to you that before you put together this plan, here are some things to consider:

• What do I want my life to look like?

• How do I want to feel when I've done the hard work?

Because it can be very easy to get caught up in the techniques and the culture of you're environment and the influences of other people, and start to veer off your real goal.

And what makes it so hard to have a true goal is so many times we don't know what we truly want.

If that is the case for you, your goal needs to be to figure out what you want first.

Then your plan becomes more about, how can I test what I like? How can I figure out what I like? Should I get an internship here? Should I try this sport? That is what your plan should be.

Here comes the fun part …

You have your goal. Now comes the fun part. David Allen once said, "Your mind is made for having ideas, not for storing them."

That is why this next step is so important in figuring out your plan. I want you to grab a notebook or open a document on your computer, or even grab your phone and just start recording. You are now going to do a brain dump.

What is a brain dump?

It is just a freestyle brainstorming of absolutely everything that you want to do for this plan, everything you need to learn, everything you already know, all the resources you have at your disposal, all the people you know that can help you, etc.

Just list it all, no rhyme or reason, and jdrop it into this document.

This is where it's important to know yourself.

If you're the kind of person who overthinks, set a time limit. If you're the kind of person who under thinks, set a time limit. It's just your time limit is going to be longer if you're a person who jumps in before thinking things through, and if you're a person who overthinks things, you're going to set a time limit that's going to create stopgap before you go into analysis paralysis.

Once you finish your brain dump, I want you to think of a milestone.

This is going to be your first post, your first chapter, or an outline.

Maybe you want to run a marathon, so it's going to be a 5K.

Whatever it is, you're going to set a milestone and you're going to set a deadline from there. You're going to go through that brain dump, and you're going to pick out all the things that you absolutely have to do to hit that milestone and things you would like to do to hit that milestone.

And then everything else is in the later pile. And this is where my trick comes in for people who have a tendency to get stuck in planning and research mode ...

Don’t get stuck in research mode

I call this my CIA super spy mission method, which is you. Only start to research things on a need to know basis. You officially have your first mission, and it is to get to milestone one.

Why do this? Because a lot of people make this elaborate plan, and then it turns out once you start the plan and you find you have new information that makes most of the plan obsolete.

To quote Joey from Friends, "It's all a moo point."

That's why before you do the entire plan, it's important to have a mini goal, hit that first milestone, celebrate that milestone, and then take that information to decide what the second milestone and the third and the fourth will be.

You may find after milestone one or two that you might not even want the goal. And uh, so it's even better that you didn't spend all of that time trying to figure out your plan.

This Sunday, October 5, 2024 at 3pm PST

Don’t forget this Sunday is the Second Sunday of the month so it’s Support Group Sunday for all of my paid subscribers. Please register in advance.

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Edited transcript:

You have a goal. You have a dream, but you're not taking action. You just don't feel like it. What do you do in this moment? I suggest you create a little bit of magic.

I'm talking about the book, the Magic of Momentum by Stephen Guise. And the whole book can be summed up in one sentence, and it is: You are likely to do what you just did.

I know that doesn't sound as magical as it truly is, but...

This book made it possible for me--A lifetime mathlete, not athlete--who was using a walker in her thirties after a car accident, sick in her forties, and now, finally exercising regularly in my fifties.

I've lost 20 pounds. I finished my first half marathon, and I'm training for the La Marathon--even though I've got 30 to 40 to 50 pounds more to lose.

I feel the best that I've ever been. I've done things in my fifties that I couldn't do in my twenties. And I am so excited about this magic. So what does it mean you're likely to do what you just did?

The concept about the magic of momentum is that people overestimate the power of long term momentum and underestimate the power of short term momentum.

If you've read Tiny Habits by BJ Fogg or Atomic Habits by James Clear, you're aware of the concept of doing, a little tiny habit every single day, right? And then you build that habit.

The problem for me was I didn't recognize that when I wasn't doing those small things, that I wasn't just not building a healthy habit, I was actually creating and building an unhealthy habit.

Every time I didn't work out, every time I didn't eat the way I intended to, I was creating momentum for the opposite.

I was building atomically bad habits.

You're likely to do what you just did.

So if you overeat, go on your diet right now.

One, you're already full, so it's easy. And two, you're likely to do what you just did. The quicker you get back on the horse, the quicker you get back on plan, the more magic you make. And what I'd like to advise you in that moment where the plan isn't going as planned, I would like you to look at the plan.

The ART of Motivation is Assess, Realign, and Team up with the right tools and people.

The assessment would be, look at the plan. Where did it go awry.

I used to think if I couldn't do the plan, then I was wrong. No, the plan's wrong. You get to change the plan. And every time you build the habit for realigning with what you just did and working through your problems, you're creating momentum for being the person that you dreamed of being.

And when you do that, you build your own sense of self trust. It becomes easier to do the things that you intend to do, whether or not you want to do them. You have magic. So whatever it is you're putting off right now, I want you to write one sentence.

I want you to make one phone call. I want you to drink a glass of water or start your diet anew or do one push up or one jumping jack. Absolutely anything.

Take one small action and make yourself some magic.