It’s not you. Your goals weren’t built for real life.
You did what you were told would work. You set the goals. You made the plan, followed the formula. And yet, that big achievement, the life-changing goal, still eludes you. It’s probably not you, it’s the wildly unrealistic, impractical way you’ve been taught to pursue goals that doesn’t survive contact with the real world.
In this episode, Jonathan explores a radically different, practical approach to achieving big, meaningful goals that honors the life you’re actually living, and comes from a mindset of wholeness and abundance, rather than lack, shame, or pain.
This conversation offers a humane, sustainable reframe for ambition called Success Scaffolding, that allows you to keep growing without tying your worth, happiness, or nervous system to the next win.
In this episode, discover:
- The Happiness Delay Trap: Why achievement so often fails to deliver lasting fulfillment, and how the “I’ll be happy when…” mindset keeps moving the finish line.
• Why Goals Collapse After Motivation Fades: How real life, not lack of discipline, is usually what derails even the most meaningful intentions.
• Success Scaffolding: A practical, science-informed framework for building goals that can actually survive a human life.
• The Seven Elements That Make Growth Sustainable: How to design goals with structure, support, flexibility, and compassion, without pressure or self-criticism.
• Enough as the Fuel for Growth: Why grounding your goals in worthiness, not scarcity, leads to more resilience, creativity, and follow-through.
• A Kinder Way Forward: Simple practices to help you stay in relationship with what matters, especially when you wobble.
This episode is an invitation to stop blaming yourself for not feeling satisfied by success, and to start building goals that support who you already are, rather than asking you to become someone else first.
You don’t need to earn your okay-ness.
You need a structure that can hold your life.
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Episode Transcript:
Jonathan Fields: [00:00:00] So it’s mid-January. The confetti is gone. The new year, new you. Adrenaline has metabolized. The inbox is full again. The kids are back in school, or work is back in whatever normal means now, and the calendar is just once again doing that thing where it looks like someone played Tetris with your time and won. And somewhere in the background, there’s a familiar question starting to surface. Am I doing this right? Should I be further along by now? Did I already kind of miss my window? And if that’s you, I want to start by offering something deeply unsexy but incredibly useful. Nothing has gone wrong. In fact, this moment right here, right now is exactly where meaningful change either becomes real or quietly slips back into maybe next year. Because most big goals, they don’t fall apart on January 1st. They fall apart right around now. When early enthusiasm fades and real life steps back in and says, cool. Love the new routine. Anyway, I brought snacks and chaos. Not because you lack discipline or desire, but because the goal is being asked to carry more weight than it ever should. Over the last three episodes in this New Year series, we have dismantled some powerful myths that you need a clean slate to begin again, that you need rigid resolutions to change, that you need more achievement to finally feel like enough. So today we’re doing something a little different, adding in a special fourth bonus episode where we’re taking all of that grounding and compassion and clarity and using it to build something real. I’m going to walk you through a framework that I’ve developed and refined over many years that I call success scaffolding. It’s kind of a way to make big, meaningful goals, not just inspiring, but also sustainable and humane. Not through pressure, not through self-critique, but through a structure that can actually hold a human life. Your human life. So excited to share this episode with you. I’m Jonathan Fields and this is Good Life Project.
Jonathan Fields: [00:02:18] Hey, so welcome back. So over the last three episodes, we have been laying a bit of a foundation for the year that is honestly a little countercultural. We started with the myth of the Clean slate, this idea that in order to really begin again, you have to erase who you were. We talked about doing the opposite, bringing your whole self forward, using the last year as data, not a verdict. And then we explored what I call the UN resolution, a different way to approach change direction instead of dictate experiments instead of edicts and review instead of judgment. And in the last episode, we talked about the year of enough stepping off the I’ll be happy when treadmill and letting enough be the fuel instead of lack. So if you’ve been with me through this whole series, we have already asked and answered three really important questions. One. Who am I bringing into this new year? And the answer is all of me.
Jonathan Fields: [00:03:19] Not just the shiny parts, not just the fake parts that we pretend are perfect and they really aren’t. The second one is how am I relating to change? And the short answer here is as a living process, not a pass fail test. And finally, what am I using as fuel? And the answer here is not shame, not scarcity, not the belief that I’ll be worthy. Quote someday. Which brings us to today. Because once you’ve done that grounding work, you still might be holding a question that sounds kind of something like, okay, that all sounds great, Jonathan, but I still want to actually, quote, do something. I still want to move the needle on something that matters. I still have a dream or a longing or a goal that feels important to me. Yes, exactly. And just to be clear, I love big goals. I’m a fan. I am also a person who has a long and intimate history with setting big goals and then occasionally face planting into reality, sometimes with grace, sometimes less so. And over time I started to notice something. When goals fail, we almost always blame the person. I wasn’t disciplined enough. I wasn’t motivated enough, I. I didn’t want it badly enough. But if you step back, what you see is that most of the time people aren’t failing. They’re trying to build something meaningful with no structure, like attempting to construct a second story deck with positive thinking and a Pinterest board.
Jonathan Fields: [00:05:03] You know which? Look, I respect the optimism here. But also, please don’t do that. Don’t do it with your deck, and don’t do it with your life. That’s why I developed Success Scaffolding. It’s a framework for building the structure and support that makes meaningful goals achievable in a real life. And I’ve shared it in January for a number of years now. I still believe in it deeply. I still use it. I still update it. I still refine it as I learn. So what’s different this year is not that we’re suddenly throwing goals out the window, it’s that we’re preparing goals. With everything we’ve talked about in the first three episodes of this series. And by the way, if you haven’t listened to those, you’re more than welcome to just keep listening to this Success Scaffolding episode. You get everything you need right here. And then, by all means, I invite you to go back and listen to those because they’ll give you a really beautiful grounding in how to enter something like a big goal with just so much more humanity and self-compassion. And one more point that I’ll share here. And this goes for all of these four, uh, New Year’s episodes. Um, we will be providing a one page sheet, a PDF that you can download. There’s a link in the show notes. It’s completely free. So if you want to download that, it’ll have all the key ideas and prompts where you can kind of do the work, do the exercises, or if you want, you can hit pause and just kind of do them in real time throughout this episode.
Jonathan Fields: [00:06:33] Your choice. So if you want to just listen along and then when you’re done, just click on that link in the show notes and you can grab your one page PDF to go through this at your time wherever you want. So what we’re doing here is we’re not building scaffolding on top of self-rejection or perfectionism, or scarcity, or the fantasy that you need to become someone else. We’re building this scaffolding on top of integration, experimentation and this assumption of enoughness, and that changes everything. So here’s what we’re going to do today. We’re going to choose one meaningful goal, one big, bold goal for the year. And then we’re going to build a scaffold around it using what I call the seven P’s the essence of success scaffolding. And now as we do it, I’ll guide you with examples. I’ll give you prompts, I’ll give you ways to make it real. And if you’ve heard this framework before, you’ll still get value here because we’re placing it inside a kind of a different container, one that is kinder, more human, and more sustainable. Cool. Okay, so let’s build. So before we dive directly into success scaffolding, though, we need something to build it around. And that is one singular goal.
Jonathan Fields: [00:07:56] And I know some of you right now are thinking, Jonathan, I have somewhere between 4 and 17 goals minimum and I know I get it. That is my default to my brain is like, why have one dream when you can have nine dreams and then feel vaguely guilty about eight of them? So we’re not going to do that today. We’re choosing one big, bold goal. Now, bold is not code for impossible or grandiose or a complete personality transplant. Bolt simply means it matters. It stretches you. It would create a ripple effect if it moved forward. Simple as that. A good way to start, I found is with actually your good life buckets, your vitality bucket. Now this is all about your body, your health, your energy, your nervous system, your relationship with movement, rest and nourishment. So that’s one of the three good life buckets, your connection bucket. And this is all about relationships community, belonging, intimacy, repair, play, friendship, love. And then finally the third good life bucket is what we call the contribution bucket. And this is often about your work, your service, your creativity, your craft, your voice, your impact, your contribution. So the three good buckets can be incredibly helpful in figuring out what one big, bold goal you want to center. So take a moment and ask in vitality what would genuinely change my lived experience this year or in connection what would deepen my sense of belonging and connectedness and aliveness? Or in contribution? What is calling to be created or offered? And if it helps, you don’t have to start with a quote goal here.
Jonathan Fields: [00:10:00] Just start with a curiosity or a longing. And longings often sound like I want to feel stronger. I want to feel less anxious. I want to feel closer to someone. I want to stop living like all my days, or a holding pattern, or I want to make a thing I keep thinking about making. I want to step into the next chapter of my work. Now, once you have a few candidates here, when you’re sort of like, start on the level of longings, we’re going to run them through three filters, filters that really integrate everything from the first three episodes. Filter number one, the clean slate. Ask yourself, what did the last year. Teach me about what I actually need. I’ll share it again. What did the last year teach me about what I actually need? So maybe last year taught you you need more rest and less grind. Or you need to treat your body with care instead of punishment. Or you need to stop pretending that a relationship is fine when it isn’t. Maybe it taught you you need to stop burying your creative work under someday, or you need more boundaries or more community. Right? Let last year inform this year not as shame, but as intelligence. So let’s talk about filter number two. And this is the UN resolution filter.
Jonathan Fields: [00:11:24] So ask yourself can I imagine getting there through experiments and iteration. Not rigid perfection. I’ll share it again. Can I imagine getting there through experiments and iteration, not rigid perfection. Because if your goal requires you to be perfect for 365 days straight, it’s not a goal. It’s a fantasy and a trap. If your goal can be approached through small experiments, weekly check ins, course corrections, then you’re in the right territory. And finally, filter number three. And again, these are all coming from the last three episodes. And it’s the Enoughness filter. So the question you want to ask is this goal rooted in love, meeting and alignment, or is it secretly a bid for worthiness? Again, is this goal rooted in love, meeting and alignment, or is it secretly a bid for worthiness? This is a big one because goals that are fueled by, you know, something like, oh, I’ll finally be enough when I achieve dot dot, dot. They actually tend to create anxiety and brittleness and self-attack goals fueled by this matters to me. It makes me feel more alive. It aligns with who I am. Those goals are more sustainable and they tend to just feel better along the way, not just at the finish line. Okay, now practice if you’re able. Pause and write down one goal. One line. And if you want examples to prompt you, here are a few. We’ll break it up by the buckets to make it easier for you.
Jonathan Fields: [00:13:16] So here are some Vitality bucket focused examples. By October I want to run a 10-K. Um, another one this year I want to build consistent strength. Two short sessions a week. Here’s another one. Um, I want to reclaim sleep as a non-negotiable foundation. Or maybe I want to reduce my baseline anxiety by building nervous system regulation into my days. That was something that I focused on myself last year. Here is some potential connection bucket examples for you. Maybe it’s I want to repair or deepen one key relationship, or I want to build one new meaningful relationship or friendship, or I want to feel less alone. So I’m joining a community where I see the same people regularly, or I want to bring more play and presence into my family life. Let’s talk about potential contribution bucket examples here. So some of these might be things like I want to write the first draft of my book by December. By the way, that happens to be a personal one for me. Um, another might be I want to launch a small, meaningful project or offer, and you can fill in the details of what that is. Or I want to shift my work so it’s more aligned with my values or my Sparketype. Or I want to create consistently music, art writing without needing it to be perfect. So choose one. Run it through those filters and then write it down.
Jonathan Fields: [00:14:48] And again, you can kind of just listen along. Now if something just immediately pops out at you, by all means write it down. Now if you want to just listen and join in this while I’m sharing ideas, that’s fine too. And you can just click on that link in the show notes to grab your PDF afterwards, and take your time and write it all down. The prompts will all be in there too. So choose one, write it down, and then take one simple breath because this is where we begin building. This is where the heartbeat of success scaffolding really kicks in. And we’ll be right back after a word from our sponsors. So let’s talk more about this success. Scaffolding is the structure that supports your goal when life gets real. I call it the seven P’s, like the letter P, and what I want to keep in mind is you don’t need to build a perfect scaffold, you need to build a functional one. So think sturdy enough, not some architectural masterpiece where everything has to be in place. So let’s take a little bit of time now to walk through the elements of success, scaffolding the seven P’s. And we’ll start with p number one. And that’s a shorthand for picture. And it’s all about what success looks and feels like. So the picture element is about creating a clear embodied vision of success, not just the outcome, but the lived experience, because your brain doesn’t get inspired by a spreadsheet.
Jonathan Fields: [00:16:26] Maybe some of yours do get inspired by that? Mine does not. And from what I’ve experienced, most people do not. Our brains get inspired by a felt sense of what this would mean to us. So let’s make it concrete. So, for example, if your goal is a 10-K, your picture might include the morning of the race, pinning the bib to your shirt, the sound of your shoes on pavement the moment you realize, oh, I’m doing it. Crossing the finish line and feeling strong and proud. And also the quieter win. Being the kind of person who trained, who showed up, who followed through. Another example if your goal is, say, maybe strength training, your picture might include being able to carry groceries without feeling like you’ve entered a CrossFit competition you did not consent to or feeling stable in your body. Maybe your back just hurts less. Maybe you stand taller. Maybe you feel more capable. If your goal is, say, writing a book, the picture element here might include a steady rhythm. Two writing blocks a week. The feeling of flow. Watching chapters accumulate. Literally picturing that in your mind’s eye the moment you type those letters E and D on a draft. By the way, I’m thinking about every book I’ve ever written, and I’ve never actually typed those on the end. But maybe I should do that just to consummate the manuscript. And also the real life version, right? Writing that fits into your actual life.
Jonathan Fields: [00:17:58] Not writing that requires you to live like a monk with no email. So maybe if your goal is repairing a relationship, your picture might include something like one on this conversation that that doesn’t end in defensiveness or a felt sense of warmth. Laughing again. Feeling safe enough to say what’s true or even clarity. Knowing what’s possible and what isn’t. You want to see and feel and taste and smell and sense all of these things. Right. We’re making this multisensory, this picture here. It’s like more of a movie than a photograph even. And if your goal is career shift, your picture might include waking up without dread. And that feeling, feeling like your values and your work aren’t at war. Having more energy left at the end of the day. Being excited. Not just busy. Right. A practice cue for all of this. If you’re able, write one sentence starting with its fill in the date. I did it and my life feels like. And then fill that in. Now add one more line. And the best part is dot dot dot fill that in. That second line often reveals what you really want. So pause, write, or just imagine it, or think about it a little bit and you can always go back, grab that PDF and fill this in in your own time. We’re going to move on to the second P and success scaffolding here.
Jonathan Fields: [00:19:24] So we’ve painted a really clear, multi-sensory picture of the thing and the way that it makes us feel, both when we achieve it and along the way. The second P is purpose. Purpose is it’s the why that survives friction. Because friction will show up. That’s not pessimism, that’s Tuesday. Purpose is what keeps you moving when motivation fades. And that can be anywhere from a few seconds to a few days to a few months. Let’s distinguish between surface purpose here and a deeper purpose. So surface purpose often sounds like I should. It’s time I’m behind. Everyone else is doing it. Deep purpose sounds like I want to feel more alive. I want to show up for the people I love. I want to reclaim my self. I want to create something that feels true. So examples might include something like if your goal is let’s say running or fitness. Deep purpose might be some version of I want to feel strong in my body again, or I want energy that lasts past 2 p.m., or I want to be able to do life without my body feeling like a fragile negotiation. If your goal is maybe connection oriented, deep purpose might be, I’m tired of feeling alone in a room full of people, or I just want to stop performing and start relating. Or, uh, I want one relationship that just feels like home. Or maybe if you’re one big goal is more contribution oriented, a deep purpose might be something like, I want to stop deferring my creative work to some mythical future.
Jonathan Fields: [00:21:12] Or maybe something like, I want to offer what I know in a way that genuinely helps, or I want my days to feel like they really matter to me. Here’s the year of enough tie in here. If your purpose is something like so, I can finally be enough or some very. If it boils down to that cause. Because what that does is it turns your goal into a treadmill instead. Shift purpose towards aliveness values meaning contribution. So a practice cue here. Finish this sentence. This goal matters because it helps me become more. Fill in the blank in my life, right? This goal matters because it helps me become more. Fill in the blank in my life and then ask once more, why does that matter? And then go until it lands in your body. So keep asking yourself, why does that matter? Why does that matter? Why does that matter until it becomes an embodied dance, until you feel it viscerally in your bones. For me, I have a very physical reaction when I know that I’ve gotten to the truest version of why it matters to me. So I’ll keep asking the question. And why does this matter? Or why is that important? Why is that important? Until I get to a place where I answer something that is so true and so deep and so real, that I literally feel it in my body, I get a physical reaction to it.
Jonathan Fields: [00:22:44] So go until it lands in your body. Now that brings us to the third P here. And that’s a plan. This is about making it human and not heroic. And this is where a lot of goals quietly go to die. Not because people don’t plan, but because they plan. Like they’re not going to have a bad week or minute or month or day. A good plan is it’s realistic, it’s chunked, and it’s adaptable. So here’s the simplest way to do it. Step one if you can find a baseline plan. So if it’s something that’s been done many times by other people, see if you can avoid reinventing the wheel. Borrow the wheel instead. So if it’s running there are literally thousands of couch to ten K plans or even marathon plans, things like that. If it’s writing their plans like write 500 words a day or two deep work sessions a week. If it’s relationship repair, there are frameworks like weekly check ins, therapy, or coaching support, structured conversation practices. If it’s a career shift, plans might include informational interviews, portfolio building, skill development, applying in ways weekly networking targets. Right? So if we can start out with a pre-developed vetted and tested sort of model of a plan that we know has worked for a wide range of people, That’s a great way to begin. But don’t stop there. And this is where a lot of people fail because they just take that plan and accept it as this is the plan I’m going to follow.
Jonathan Fields: [00:24:23] And they don’t realize that every plan, even if it’s been vetted and proven to work with a lot of other people, needs to be customized and tailored to your unique life. So step two here is to customize the plan, whether it’s something that has been handed to you or you’ve kind of come up with yourself, customize it to your life. So ask yourself, when do I actually have time? When do I have energy and what will I realistically protect? So example here. Fantasy plan I will write every morning at 5 a.m.. Here’s the real plan. I’ll write Tuesday and Thursday from 730 to 815 and Saturday morning for 60 minutes because that actually fits my life. Here’s a fantasy plan version I’ll work out six days a week. Here’s the real plan for most people. I’m going to do two strength sessions, plus one walk that I already do. Fantasy plan version. Here I’ll have deep, meaningful conversations spontaneously. Real plan version of it. Sunday night check in 30 minutes. Phones away. Right. So we want to take that model. Plan. Whether we developed it ourselves or we found something that had been developed that feels sensible. And we want to adapt it to the realities of our own life, our lived experience. Great. Now, once we make it much more adaptable, step three is to chunk it into milestones.
Jonathan Fields: [00:26:03] The milestones. They they keep you from feeling like you’re always at the bottom of the mountain. So if you’re writing a book milestone, one might be to build an outline. Milestone two to write the first three chapters. Milestone three the first draft complete. If you’re training for a 10-K, maybe milestone one is just consistent movement three times a week. Milestone two running three miles. Milestone three run five miles. If it’s a career shift, let’s say maybe milestone one is something like clarify direction. Milestone two might be to build proof of a skill. Milestone three might be to have conversations and submit applications. Right. So it’s all about saying I’m taking the bigger thing and I’m chunking it down into doable micro steps that I know I can focus on one step and then the next and the next, rather than just focusing on the big end state, which often shuts people down. That brings us to step number four. And this is about identifying obstacles and workarounds. And this is so important. I want you to ask yourself in advance what will potentially or even likely get in the way. And then equally, if not more important, what will I do if and when that happens? Pre-planning. Not just to expect obstacles to arrive, but then pre-planning how you will respond in advance makes it so much more likely that you will actually get through those moments of adversity and challenge and obstacles, because you already know what to do when they happen.
Jonathan Fields: [00:27:52] Examples of this. If the weather is bad, I do an indoor option. Um, if I miss a session, I don’t double punish. I return next scheduled time. If I’m just exhausted, I do the smallest possible version? Now here’s the UN resolution integration from our earlier episode. Your plan is a set of experiments. Functionally, it’s a set of small experiments, right? Every little step that you take is an experiment to see. Will this move me closer to the goal and how does it make me feel? And you’re gathering data. So you build in review and adjustment here. So rather than planning the whole year right now you might answer this question. What are 2 to 3 actions that I can realistically experiment with over the next two weeks? What are 2 to 3 actions I can realistically experiment with over the next two weeks? Write them down. Two weeks. For a lot of people, it feels approachable. It builds momentum and it creates data. And then you do the next two weeks and then the next two weeks. If a longer window feels good and doable and motivating to you, you can extend it longer. If you want to make a little bit shorter, that’s fine. The goal here is it’s all about adaptability, right? Chunking to change the psychology, to make it feel like everything is doable in small steps, and adaptability to make sure that whatever plan you say yes to actually fits the life that you’re living, anticipates potential internal and external obstacles and tells you what to do if and when they happen.
Jonathan Fields: [00:29:40] And that brings us to the fourth P, and this is possibility. This is about cultivating belief. So you don’t need to believe that you can do this for the whole year. You need enough belief to take the next step. Possibility is about building a case for this is doable. And here’s where the whole clean slate concept matters too. Your past isn’t just a list of mistakes, it’s also a list of survivals and a list of Thrival possibility can come from evidence from your own life, evidence from others, and evidence from proven paths. So examples here. If you’re thinking, I can’t do this. Ask yourself, have I ever done something genuinely hard? It feels like a similar level of hard before, even if it’s not the same domain. Doesn’t matter. Maybe you’ve raised kids, moved across the country, built a career, recovered from heartbreak, gotten through illness, rebuilt after loss, created something from nothing. That all counts. And you can also borrow belief from others like you. So ask yourself, you know, like or tell yourself, well, people with my schedule and my sort of similar level of resources and skill have done this too, or people with similar constraints to me have done this too. So practice. Q here, write three lines one A hard thing I’ve done is and then fill in that blank.
Jonathan Fields: [00:31:28] Two A strength that I have that helps is fill in that blank. And then three a resource I can access. And by the way resource. It can be an external resource like actual like like money or whatever it may be. It can mean internal resource. Right? A resource I can access is fill in that blank. That is your possibility file. The more that we actually think about these things, the more we acknowledge that have done hard things in the past, or things that are equal levels of challenge in the past, even if it’s completely unrelated. It shows that you’re capable of doing these things. If you can look at other people who’ve done similar things, this can also be incredibly helpful in showing you somebody else with a similar life to me. Similar resources, similar constraints, similar skills has done something very similar to the thing I want to do that tells you, well, then maybe I can do it too, right? So then you can really dive into this and say, all right, I have enough belief and possibility to just crack the door open. And then what happens is over time, over time, as you start to take your own action, your own micro wins. Serve as proof. Your own small, small bits of progress serve as proof that you, in fact, are capable of making this big, bold thing happen, and that becomes its own driver of belief that builds and builds and builds as you move closer to the thing.
Jonathan Fields: [00:33:02] And that brings us to P number five. And this is people. This is about building your quote success team. And we’ll be right back after a word from our sponsors. So most big goals they aren’t actually individual achievements. Even if you feel like it’s related just to you. They’re social achievements. Even the goal that looks solo writing, training, creating goes better with support because you sometimes you don’t need advice. You need someone to say, yep, that was really hard and you’re still in this. So there are key roles that I found to be incredibly helpful to have supporting you along the way. So let’s name those roles with examples. The first one is what I call co-drivers, and this is someone who’s doing something similar. So a writing buddy, a walking partner. Um, a friend who’s also job searching. Right. So they’re not necessarily working on the same goal with you, but they’re working on their own version of it. They’re striving for their own version of it alongside you and knowing that you have them sort of like walking there with you. It can be incredibly powerful, and you can also end up supporting them by doing this. So the second role is what I call champions. And these are generally they’re your cheerleaders, the people who encourage you. This can be a partner, a friend, a sibling.
Jonathan Fields: [00:34:28] It’s not necessarily about giving strategy. It’s really more about cheering you on. So when you hit an obstacle when you’re tired or low energy, one day, they’re the people that say you shared what what you want to do here. You shared why it matters to me. I understand why it’s important, and I believe that you can do this. You can do this right. These are your champions, your cheerleaders. The third role that can be incredibly helpful and important is what I call accountants. And these are not people who do your books or do your taxes. At the end of the year. I’m talking about people where they’re there for accountability and they’re there for regular, often scheduled check ins where they’ll say some version of, hey, you shared what you wanted to do, you shared why it mattered to you and what your plan was, and asked me to basically show up for you on a regular basis and check in with you to help. Just make sure that you’re actually doing the things that you said you’re doing. So I’m going to ask you, hey, did you do the thing you said you do? It’s a gentle form of accountability, which is not judgment or shame based. It’s coming from somebody who genuinely wants you to rise and wants to see you flourish and do the thing that matters so deeply to you. Right? So you want people who are generally bought in on that level, not people who secretly are looking for you to maybe stumble or fail.
Jonathan Fields: [00:35:48] Um, schadenfreude is real. So that brings us to the next rule and that is mentors, somebody who has been there genuinely. This could be a coach, it could be a teacher, it could be a colleague ahead of you. Oftentimes it is somebody who has achieved some version of the thing that you’re looking to achieve or accomplish that thing, but it doesn’t always have to be. Sometimes it’s just people who have played a meaningful role in helping enough other people and studying enough other people through a similar process, that they have a lot of wisdom to share along the way. So these are people who have great wisdom about how to help get you to this place. Um, and they can share that wisdom along the way with you. And that brings us to community. And this is generally groups of people. And it can be as small as 2 or 3 people, or it can be as large as, like a larger running club with 50 or 100 people. Right? A running club, a writing group, a a professional community, a volunteer cohort. And the idea here is that they provide a sense of belonging. We’re all in this together as you’re doing it. And that brings us to the final of the six roles. That can be incredibly helpful. And that is challengers. And this is this is actually a role that I first heard about from Adam Grant a number of years ago, who’s telling me about how, when he was writing books, he would take a small number of people who at I believe I think he was telling me it was oftentimes colleagues or post-docs, sort of like in his program, and he would give them pieces of manuscripts and tell them to just have at it, like, what did I get right? What did I get wrong? Basically, challenge the ideas that I’m presenting, challenge the plan that I’m presenting, challenge the assumptions that I’m making or the conclusions that I’m coming to.
Jonathan Fields: [00:37:38] Not because you want to tear them down and show them how wrong I am or how how impossible this is, but because you want to refine them, you want to optimize them, you want to improve them and make them better so that everyone benefits. And this thing actually really does become possible and helps the greatest amount of people possible, starting with you. So challenges are people who raise the bar. They say, I know you can do this, and they also challenge what you’re sharing with them, not in the name of shooting you down, but in the name of helping you refine and optimize to increase the chance of you actually succeeding at a higher level. So practice cue here might be pick one role that you feel like you most need right now, right of those six roles.
Jonathan Fields: [00:38:24] So remember the six roles are co-drivers, right? People who are doing something similar alongside you. The energy there is often, believe it or not, commiseration, which can be incredibly bonding, weirdly champions the energy. There is cheerleaders, accountants, the energy. There is accountability. Mentors the energy. There is wisdom community. The energy. There is belonging challengers. The energy there is refinement and optimization. So pick one role that you feel like you’re kind of most need right now. Maybe it’s the thing that of those six different roles you least feel. And then see if you can pick one person. Craft a simple ask something like, hey, I’m working on something that really matters to me this year. Would you be willing to support me by and then kind of insert whatever the behavior is for that role and then just say it would mean a lot, right? Again, I’m working on something that really matters to me this year. If you want, you can be more detailed and say, here’s what it is, here’s my plan, and here’s what I’m committing to doing on a regular basis. Would you be willing to support me by and then whatever the role or the behavior appropriate to the role is insert that there? It would mean a lot. And yes, this is the part where many of us would just rather reorganize a kitchen drawer. Then send the text or the email, or have the quick call or conversation.
Jonathan Fields: [00:39:48] Because this is where it gets really real and other people get invited into this and they know what you’re actually doing. If that’s you welcome. You’re among friends. It is uncomfortable. It’s vulnerable. But this one message is one outreach can create a huge shift in the way that you feel and the support that you feel, and in your likelihood of making this thing that really matters to you happen. And that brings us to the sixth of seven P’s. And this is what I call practices. And these are just simple daily practices that keep you steady. Right. These are the daily or weekly rituals, the kind of stabilize you along the way. They’re not, quote extra. They are foundational. And they’re also where the first three episodes quietly live. Because when you wobble, practices help you come back without shame. Right? The clean slate concept. Adjust without quitting the UN resolution concept. And remember, you’re already enough. The year of enough concept. So here are a few practices that maybe you can choose from just to get you started. You can pick one up whatever feels good to you. Practice number one a weekly review ritual. Same time each week. Take ten minutes and some questions that you might ask. What worked? What didn’t? What did I learn? What do I adjust? What? When will I acknowledge? Again? These are all in the PDF that you can download for free, so you can think about them now, or just take your time and really review them later.
Jonathan Fields: [00:41:25] Practice number two to think about the two minute return when you’re about to blow off the habit or the exercise that you said that you wanted to do because it would lead you towards a goal. Do two minutes, two minutes of writing, two minutes of walking, two minutes of stretching. This keeps identity alive. I’m the kind of person who returns, right? We used to call this years ago. I owned a yoga studio in Hell’s Kitchen in New York, and we trained a lot of teachers. And what we found was very early on in training teachers, they would be so into the educational process that they would actually start to lose their own personal yoga practice. So we instituted what we called the minimum daily requirements. We said, look, we get that you are in an immersive educational experience right now. Um, and it’s really easy to start focusing outward on everything else while you’re learning your own practice and then teaching and doing other things. You’ve got to keep your own practice. So the MDR was basically say, okay, here are our three minutes or three poses that you commit to doing every single day, because you’ve got to help keep the practice of your own life alive. It’s central to your success in doing the bigger thing that you want to do. Um, another practice you might explore. One good moment. This is from the year of enough, right? What was one moment today that felt like enough? This cleans the fuel line so that you’re not doing the goal from a place of lack.
Jonathan Fields: [00:42:58] And it’s super helpful. Now, you might also expand this into a set of daily practices. Things like for me, meditation and breathwork. Critically important. I start every morning with those two things. And I have for many, many, many years now, and they keep me incredibly grounded, especially when things get challenging. Life gets challenging when I start questioning myself. These practices bring me back to a place of foundational ease and steadiness and equanimity, so I find them to be just incredibly, incredibly valuable to me. So think about practices like that. Maybe yours is literally two minutes of meditation or two minutes of breathwork, or a two minute walk down the block and back. Here’s a practice cue. Choose one practice that you can commit to for two weeks. And now write it down. And that brings us to the final P here. P number seven in our success scaffolding. And that is the idea of a pledge. It’s committing to a relationship not perfection pledges. The moment you say I’m in not I will never falter. But when I falter, which I always will, I’ll return. A pledge is just. It’s a statement of commitment that is both firm and kind. So here’s a bit of a template for your pledge for your big, bold goal.
Jonathan Fields: [00:44:18] For this year, I pledge to move in the direction of insert whatever the thing is for you by experimenting with insert whatever behaviors you’re going to say yes to for the next, and then insert whatever the time frame is. I’m doing this because. And then insert the answer to your purpose question. Share here why it matters. And then say I’ll review weekly without judgment on and just insert the date. So you have specificity here. And when I wobble I will return with kindness and compassion. Right. Let me give you some filled in examples of this just so it really lands for you. Here’s an example of a vitality based pledge. I pledge to move in the direction of strength and energy by experimenting with two 20 minute strength sessions a week for the next two weeks. I’m doing this because I want to feel more capable in my body and more present in my life. I’ll review weekly without judgment on Sunday evenings, and when I wobble, I will return with kindness and compassion. Here’s an example of a contribution based pledge. I pledge to move in the direction of finishing my first draft by experimenting with writing two times a week for the next two weeks. I’m doing this because I want to express what’s been just living inside me and creating something meaningful. I’ll review weekly on Friday mornings, and when I wobble, I will return with kindness and compassion. Here is an example of a connection based pledge.
Jonathan Fields: [00:45:58] I pledge to move in the direction of deeper connection by experimenting with a weekly Sunday night check in conversation for the next two weeks. I’m doing this because I want my relationships to feel like home, not a performance. I will review weekly on Monday mornings, and when I wobble, I’ll return with kindness and compassion. And your final practice cue here. Write your pledge. One paragraph doesn’t have to be poetic. It just has to be real. The question sometimes comes up here Should I keep my pledge private? Should I share it? Should I post it online? The answer is I would write it initially just for you, thinking to yourself, I’m going to keep this private because that helps us really be as honest as we can when we’re doing the thing, when we’re actually writing the pledge, when we start to think we’re writing this, and immediately we say, I’m going to write this to share with others, it can tend to start to get performative. So really, when you’re writing it, think that I’m just doing this for me. Nobody will ever see this. That helps you stay true and honest. Now, once you’ve written it, if you feel like, you know, I think it would actually be helpful for me if I shared this with somebody who knows me closely or with a dear friend, or I just put it up on the fridge in the apartment or the house, and you feel like that would genuinely be helpful.
Jonathan Fields: [00:47:21] And not just performative or not be so vulnerable that would shut you down or subject you to judgment or attack. Then by all means, do that. Be really careful about how widely you share something like this. Some people feel great posting it on social media. Other people. It’ll be incredibly destructive to do that because remember, um, as soon as you post it somewhere where a lot of people who you have no relationship with, who have no genuine interest in supporting you and a positive life, um, we’ll see it and be fully enabled to respond to it sometimes in ways that are destructive or negative to you. So think about that seriously, and think about what feels most true and most right to you. So that brings us to our final integration here. Before we close, I want to name something that’s important. At some point, life will happen. You will get sick, uh, travel, have an unexpectedly hard week. Have a child or parent need you, um, hit a work crunch, feel discouraged, lose motivation, question everything. That is not failure. That’s called being alive. This is where the scaffolding success scaffolding matters most. And here’s how the first three episodes protect you when you wobble. The clean slate says don’t exile yourself. Harvest the data. Get curious. Instead of I blew it, you say, what happened here? What do I need? What do I adjust? The UN resolution says adjust the experiment instead of the plan is broken.
Jonathan Fields: [00:48:57] You say, what’s a smaller version that fits this week? And the reality of my life in this moment and the year Ivanov says your worth is not on the line. Instead of I fail, therefore I am a failure or I’m not great. You say, look, I’m still enough and I’m still in relationship with this goal. It’s just challenging right now. This is the difference between a goal that collapses And a goal that evolves. And if you take nothing else from today, take this. Your weekly review is the keystone because it keeps you in the conversation. So here’s a simple weekly review you can do in ten minutes. Same day, same time. Ask these five questions. One. What worked? Two. What didn’t? Three. What did I learn? Four. What do I adjust? And finally five. What? When am I willing to acknowledge? And yes, I said acknowledge. Not minimize, not dismiss, not immediately. Raise the bar. Just acknowledge. Because that’s how you build a year that feels not only good and yummy and nourishing and soulful, but also sustainable. Okay, so here’s your one next step. Not everything. Just one. Notice how we keep bringing it down to small, doable things before you leave this episode, or if you want to download that PDF and then fill it out on your own time. Do one of these things. Write your pledge. Put a ten minute weekly review on your calendar, or send one message to one person inviting them into your success.
Jonathan Fields: [00:50:39] Scaffolding one. Because this isn’t about a dramatic overhaul. It’s about building a simple, doable structure that makes meaningful change livable. You don’t need a clean slate. You don’t need perfect resolutions. You don’t need to earn your worth. You just need a structure that supports what matters. Built by the person you already are. This isn’t about becoming someone else. It’s about making it possible to keep showing up as you are. So thanks for walking through this four-part journey with me. I am so glad you are here and I will see you in our next episode. This episode of Good Life Project was produced by executive producers Lindsey Fox and me, Jonathan Fields. Editing help by Alejandro Ramirez and Troy Young. Kristoffer Carter crafted our theme music and of course, if you haven’t already done so, please go ahead and follow Good Life Project in your favorite listening app or on YouTube too. If you found this conversation interesting or valuable and inspiring, chances are you did because you’re still listening here, do me a personal favor, a seven-second favor, and share it with just one person. I mean, if you want to share it with more, that’s awesome too. But just one person even then, invite them to talk with you about what you’ve both discovered to reconnect and explore ideas that really matter, because that’s how we all come alive together. Until next time, I’m Jonathan Fields signing off for Good Life Project.