or How a Sunday Routine Sets You Up For Success

I have a dream Sunday.  What I call a Super Sunday, a day filled with joy, family and prep so that I can start the week rested, excited and all set for success.

For me it looks like this:
I wake up around 7ish (I do have 2 young kids!) and have a leisurely morning of coffee followed by breakfast. 

Around 9ish we are getting ready to head outdoors to hit the trails with a family hike.  We have a nice lunch together and a little siesta time (watch TV, or read a book).

Then I move into Action Mode.  I do some meal prep, put away laundry and look at my schedule for the week.  2-3 hours of all of us getting the house and ourselves ready for the week.
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We have a nice family dinner, a relaxing evening and an early bedtime to make sure we are each getting the amount of sleep we need.

Not every Sunday looks like this though.  And I can tell.  Those weeks when I don’t have my Super Sunday, I’m a little bit more stressed and a little less rested.  Which means it takes me longer to do things and I often feel like I’m a chicken with my head cut off!

But those weeks after a Super Sunday, I’m in a groove.  I get into my flow and life and work and all the in between feels easy.  I’m much happier, more creative and more likely to hit my goals.

I’m sure if you create a Super Sunday routine that it will make your next week go smoothly and you will see amazing results.  You never know it could even change your life.

But your Sunday may not look like my Sunday, so here are some ideas that you can combine to create your own Super Sunday.
 
Food

We all need to eat right?  Eating a healthy diet filled with whole foods is actually a key part of being successful.  But it isn’t easy to make happen, so here are some ideas of what you can incorporate into your Sunday to make it a breeze.

1. Make a Meal Plan
What are you going to eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner?  Plan only for the work week and double up!  Eat the same breakfast every day, and make enough at dinner for lunch the next day.  That makes it less overwhelming.

2. Go Grocery Shopping
Get this done on Sundays (or Saturdays) when you aren’t tired or stressed.  That ensures you shop for your meal plan.

3. Meal Prep
You don’t have to premake meals, although you can if that works for you.  I mostly prep my vegetables and some components of meals and snacks to make throwing everything together much easier. 

4. Eat with Friends or Family
During hectic weeks we may eat more meals alone or in a rushed state.  Try and eat your meals on Sunday with family or friends and rejoice in your time spent together.

Organize
When the spaces we live in are a mess, we tend to feel like we are a mess.  Taking some time, 15 minutes is better than nothing, to organize our lives will leave us feeling more relaxed.

1. Clean Up
Do a quick clean around your space.  Putting things away, maybe dusting and vacuuming, just getting that outer order so that your inner calm comes out.

2. DeClutter
Organize something, like a closet or a drawer.  It will make you feel AMAZING that you accomplished this and that feeling will roll right into the rest of your week!

3. Do Laundry
Make that morning rush easier by doing your laundry AND putting it away (always the hardest part, right!?).  Maybe even pick out your outfits for the week.  That leaves you more time in the morning to relax or sleep in!
 
Plan

A plan makes sure that what needs to get done gets done while also ensuring that we are going after our goals.

1. Check In
Revisit your goals.  Look at your vision board (or post-it note) to remind yourself of why you are going after this goal.  Look at where you are in accomplishing it so you can pat yourself on the back and see what needs to get done next.

2. Create a To Do List
Start off with what you need to do next week to get closer to achieving your goal by setting some mini-goals and creating a To Do List.  Also take a look at what else you need to do and add those to the list.

3. Check Your In-Box
Whenever we look at our emails we immediately enter “urgency mode” and we only focus on the tasks and things to do associated with our emails.  Prevent starting the week off in urgency mode by checking your emails on Sunday, that way you can begin your week focusing on what moves you closer to achieving those goals.

4. Plan your Week
You know what you need to do, but WHEN are you actually going to do those things?  Look at your week ahead and slot your mini-goals and other items on your to do list into openings.

Self-Care

Relaxing is just as important (if not more so) then everything else and Sunday is the PERFECT day to get some good relaxation and self-care in.

1. Read a Book
Not a business one, but one that you WANT to read.  A good juicy fiction, a thrilling crime novel or an intriguing Non-Fiction book.  Carve out 30 minutes and enjoy losing yourself with a book.  For me, I read 30 minutes every morning with my coffee and then 30 minutes every night before I go to bed. 

2. Enjoy Nature
Movement is amazing in how it can propel us forward, but especially movement outdoors in nature.  Nature is restorative, there is science to back that up.  So doing something outside is a great Super Sunday activity.

3. Relax
Enjoy the day relaxing the way YOU want to relax, whether it is a nice long bubble bath, bingeing Netflix or shopping with friends.  Enjoy the day off.

4. Go to Bed Early
As adults, we need 7-9 hours of sleep a night.  I’ve written before about how important a good sleep routine is for your success and there is no better way to start your week and to end your Super Sunday by going to bed 7.5-9.5 hours before you need to wake up on Monday.

Here is a sneak peak into my recent #supersunday:

1. Make sure they know what you want. 
There are 2 people that MUST know that you want a promotion.  The first is obvious, your manager.  Discuss with them your career goals and work together to discuss a professional development plan with a focus on skill development and experience.  Talk about professional training, job shadowing, projects or increased responsibility.
 
The second is less obvious, but set up a meeting with your HR partner (or partners) to tell them about your career goals!  HR are typically one of the first groups of people within an organization that knows about staffing as they are heavily involved in working with management on the staffing strategy.  By having them invested in your future success within the organization they can advocate for you, help facilitate key introductions, training or job shadowing.  I know many individuals who had HR on their side (even with their bosses weren’t) who were able to secure them that promotion or move into another department that they wanted!
 
2. Do a SWOT analysis.
All strategic plans start with a SWOT analysis, so let’s be strategic in our goal of a promotion.

First, yourself:

STRENGTHS:
Do some self-reflection – maybe some assessments, reviewing your performance reviews, talking with colleagues, etc. 
What makes you different from the rest? 
And how can you capitalize on these?

WEAKNESSES    
What are your shortcomings (keeping them relevant to your current and future roles). 
How can you mitigate them and especially what is your plan to improve them?

Next, your competition:

OPPORTUNITIES:
Look at some internal competition (peers) and also recent hires into the roles you want, where are they lacking?  Focus on the areas that they are lacking but where you bring something to the table.

THREATS:
Where are you lacking in comparison to them?  Is there a way to close that gap?
 
3. Find a Mentor
An internal mentor, especially a key decision maker for your future role, is an amazing way to build relationships, gain knowledge and skills and increase your visibility without feeling too awkward.

Taking a look at your SWOT, getting some advice from HR (they could even help facilitate a meeting!) and use that while you look at the org chart. 

Once you’ve narrowed down your choices, ask to buy them a cup of coffee and simply ask.  It will look good on you to take the initiative and many executives love to mentor.
 
4. Take Initiative
Speaking of taking initiative.  Do it!  Put your hand up for projects, join a committee, recognize a problem and present a solution, make a process more efficient.  Show your worth and potential with your work.  A great way to sell yourself and NOT feel awkward or smarmy. 

You landed an interview for the job of your dreams.  You spent hours preparing and show up nice and early.

You are nervous, which is to be expected because this is the job you having been going after for ages.

The interviews start off great, you are nailing it. 

Then it happens.

They ask you a question.  And you don’t know how to answer it.  You panic and mumble, “um I don’t know” or ramble through some long winded story hoping that it distracts them or maybe just somehow answers the question.

The rest of the interview isn’t much better, you can’t stop thinking about how you’ve blown it and so the rest of your answers are just as bad.
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Has this ever happened to you?

I’m sure it has because most of us have an interview story of when we just couldn’t think of an answer.

Mine is really silly.  I was interviewing for a recruiter job right out of school and the question was actually a really easy one:

“If I were to call your references what would they say?”

It really caught me off guard and I wasn’t too sure what to say. 

So I immediately starting speaking and saying all the wrong things like “I’m friends with all my references so they’ll say good things” to “well I’m not sure what my father would say, it isn’t easy working for your dad, chuckle chuckle”. 

By the look on her face I knew I screwed up.  Which totally derailed the rest of the interview.

Needless to say, I didn’t get the job!

Prepare yourself for this to happen, that way if it does then you can handle it calmly and confidently, meaning you can leave the interview knowing you gave it your all and still in contention for the role.

So what should you do?

Remain Calm
Take a deep breath.  Remind yourself that you’ve got this.  Stay calm and confident. 

Be Open
Tough questions are a part of the game, so be open with the interviewer that you are having a tough time.  Maybe with a:

“Great question, let me think about that for a moment” Or if you are really struggling “would it be okay to come back to this question?”

Get Out of Your Head
Don’t be afraid to verbalize your thought processes as you try to come up with an answer.  This especially works for process oriented or technical questions.

“I don’t have experience with that exact {fill in blank}, but this is how I would approach it” and share your thoughts aloud.

Showcase Your Abilities
If you are asked a knowledge or technical question and you don’t know the answer or even how you would go about answering the question. Pivot and showcase your abilities.

“I don’t have experience with that exact {fill in blank}, but that hasn’t stopped me in the past” and share a story about a time at work where you were thrown into something new and how you quickly picked it up, maybe you even became the team expert!

Ask for Clarification
This is especially helpful with a behavioural based question.  The interviewer will repeat the question, maybe even ask it in a different way making it easier for you to come up with an answer.  And even if it doesn’t help, it will buy you more time to collect yourself and think of something!

Be Persistent
So you couldn’t answer it, or your answer wasn’t what you hoped it could be.  That doesn’t mean all is lost.

Once you come to the end of your lackluster story, go into how you would go about finding out the right answer.  Show them you are not the type who sits back and expects things to come to you, you will go out there and find the solution.

Maybe during the interview a better answer comes to you, before you ask your questions ask if it is okay to revisit that question and share your new stronger answer with them.

After the interview you’ll send your thank you email, talk them through what you now know.  If it was a technical question – tell them how you researched and discovered the answer.  If it was a behavioural question, go through a quick 3 sentence story about it.

Bad answers happen.  And people who give bad answers still get hired.  Because the perfect interview is rare, so what matters most is how you handle it.  Don't let it ruin the rest of the interview.  

Having trouble with interviews in general?  I can help with that!  I help clients figure out what has been going wrong and we turn things around.  Invest in your success.