Midyear Wake-Up Call | Part 2

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So all too often a plan is really just a
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really organized way of not starting anything. Yet we treat
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the plan as proof that we're serious. Most of the time,
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it's the thing standing between us and the only part
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that was ever going to matter, which is just starting.
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We are almost all of us far better at planning
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our lives than at living them, and at the halfway
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mark of a year, that gap is about to get
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very visible. So here's where we're going today. I'm going
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to tell you how I finally got something that I
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love back into my life and the deeply unglamorous thing
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that actually made it stick. I'm going to make the
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case for why a move beats a plan every single time,
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and why the middle of the year, of all moments,
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is secretly the best time to make one. And then
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you and I were going to make a move together
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before this episode is even over. Not plan it, actually
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make it, and one quick thing, especially if you're new here.
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This is actually part two of a special two part
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summer Reset series, and last time in part one, we
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explored a very different way to take in an honest
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look to take stock at the halfway mark of the
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year and really name the one part of your life
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that's been running low and it was a very different
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way of thinking about how the first half of the
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year might unfold. And today we do the moving part.
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It's action time. So if you've caught part one, this
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is where the payoff comes. If you didn't, you can
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start right here and lose nothing and maybe circle back
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to part one after this for a little bit of
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full of context. So excited to share this one with you.
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I'm Jonathan Field and this is good life project and
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we'll get right into it right after this short break.
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So I want to start with a little bit of
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a confession and then the slightly embarrassing story of what
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I did about it. If you were here last time,
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you know that somewhere in a genuinely good and ridiculously
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busy year, I'd let something that I love fall just
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right out of my life making things with my hands.
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And I said near the end of that first episode
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that if I wanted it back, I was going to
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have to need structure, not enthusiasm, because I'd already proven
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that enthusiasm does not survive a busy season, at least
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not for me and for most people I know. And
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I was in the middle of an extremely, extremely abundant
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season now here's what I actually did about it. For
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a while, the artist and maker Jones and Me has
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been finding an outlet in something called relief printing, or
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more specifically, the thing called woodblock printing. It's kind of
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like you make a design and then literally hand carve
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it into wood, and then you use that as the
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printing plate to press prints off of it. It's just
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it's so analogue and so physical and so cool. I
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absolutely suck at it right now, but I also absolutely
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love it. And I had this built in rhythm that
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I didn't really have to think about it signed up
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for a class. I've been doing it alongside someone I love,
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and it was honestly one of my favorite things in
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the world. The two of us just kind of making
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a mess on a Wednesday morning together. And when you're
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doing something that you genuinely enjoy, was someone you genuinely
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enjoy being around. The showing up, it just it kind
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of takes care of itself, right. You both just turn
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up because the other one's there, and you get to
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do something kind of cool and you do together. And
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that's what I was doing, and then life happened as
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it does that easy shared rhythm. It was gone, and
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the showing up was suddenly entirely mine to carry alone,
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just me and my good intentions, alone in a room.
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And we have long.
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Established on this very show in some detail that my
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good intentions have roughly this staying power of a gym
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membership purchased on September two. They're sincere, their heart felt,
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and they're gone by the end of the month. It
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just becomes so easy to rationalize, you know, doing a
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thousand other things that seemed to be just much more important,
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at least in the moment. So this time I caught
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myself doing this. And here's what I, a person who
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literally studies spending your time well for a living, instinctively
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reached for first a plan. And I am very very
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good at plans. I could plan the triumphant return of
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make things with my hands so thoroughly, you know, with
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phases and a supply list and a mood board and
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a tentative timeline for becoming the kind of person who
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makes things that I would never not once actually carve
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a single block. The plan would beautiful, The plan would
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be maybe even color coded. The plan would sit there
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fully admired while I made absolutely nothing with my hands.
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So at some point I stopped planning the comeback, and
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instead I did three small, distinctly unglamorous things. First, I
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set up a maker space, and I want to be
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honest about how humble this is. It's a corner table,
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a little room around it. It's actually a pretty broken down,
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old single car garage that's so tiny and slant that
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you can't even park a car in it anymore, a
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place where the work could live. And crucially, I've set
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it up so that so that I never again had
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to spend the first forty minutes just getting ready before
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I could actually begin. What I've learned is that the
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setup tax is where most of my making used to
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go to die. So the second thing I did, I
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bought my own supplies, you know, the tools, the blocks,
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the inks. And then I did the part that actually mattered,
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which was put them out, you know, in reach ready,
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so that the distance between wanting to make something and
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making something went from about forty minutes of digging through
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closets and drawers to about four feet and four seconds.
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And I've actually, interestingly enough, I've I've found the same
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thing with musical instruments. I played guitar really badly. Again,
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I loved to play guitar. I've actually made a guitar,
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But when my guitar is in it case in its closet,
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I will never play guitar. If I hang it on
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the rack on my wall, I'll pick it up all
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the time and just play. Similar concept. So let's talk
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about that third thing that I did, the one that
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really carried it. I re enrolled in class. I signed
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up for a new season of printing class, a standing
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time on the calendar in a specific building with other
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actual humans in the room, and the start date. And
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I had already paid for this, which means somebody would
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notice if I didn't show up, which I'll admit is
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one of the single most reliable productivity systems ever invented,
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and also slightly humiliating. And the humiliation is precisely what
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makes it work. When you don't show up, you're like,
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I made a commitment and I'm not honoring it, and
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you know it, and other people know it. Maybe that's
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just me. Here's what surprised me. Once all of this
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was in place, I didn't have to talk myself into
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it anymore. That was the whole difference right there. There
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was no more nightly debate about whether tonight was finally
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the night I get back to making things with my hands.
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The table was there, the tools were out. You know,
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the day would come and I would go because that
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was just when I went to class, and then I
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would have it available to me. Am I Yeah, sort
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of like run down garage maker space anytime I wanted
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to just open the door and walk into it. The
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decision had been made once in advance, and then it
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stopped being a decision at all. And it turns out
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that when you're not spending all your energy deciding, you
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actually have some leftover for the actual doing. So I
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started looking forward to it. I got a little better
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at it, also, slowly, the way you only ever get
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better at the things that you actually do and not
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the things you quote plan to do. And the part
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of me that had felt kind of flat for you know,
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like a good stretch of that year, it started without
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any announcement really to come back to life. None of
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that came from wanting it more. All of it came
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from building a place for the wanting to land. And
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I'll tell you there's a specific kind of joy in
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pulling a print and seeing the thing that you carved
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show up on the paper, a little bit off a lot, imperfect,
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entirely yours that no amount of crossing things off a
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list and a plan has ever once given me, and
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I've kind of forgotten that feeling existed. I planned for
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a while to someday go looking for it again, and
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what actually brought it back was a designated day, a table,
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and a class that I'd already paid for. And here's
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the thing that I want you to notice, because it's
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the whole episode hiding inside a story about woodblock printing.
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Not one of those three things is a plan. The
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plan is I'm going to make more things this year.
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These are something else that I'm talking about, a place
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where the work actually lives. Tools already out, a standing
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appointment with the start day and witnesses. They aren't intentions,
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their moves, and the making came back genuinely. It's part
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of my life again in a way that hasn't been
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in quite a while. And it didn't come back because
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I finally just wanted it badly enough or planned around it.
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That's the part I really want to land here. I
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had wanted it badly the entire time. I know this
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is so important to me. Wanting It was never the
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missing piece. It came back because I stopped relying on
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the wanting and I built the shape. The making could
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live inside even on the days the wanting didn't show up.
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And what I've been missing it wasn't willpower. It was architecture.
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And it turns out that's the actual secret of the
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second half of a year, the second half of almost anything.
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So let me give you the idea underneath it, because
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once you have it, you'll start seeing it everywhere. There's
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a word for the thing I kept reaching for, a
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word for the thing that actually worked, and getting the
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difference between them is the most useful thing that I
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can hand you today. The thing I kept reaching for
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is a plan. The thing that worked is a move.
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A plan. A plan is a process about the future.
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It lives in your head. It's about later, and it
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depends secretly on a future version of you showing up
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more rested, more motivated, and less busy than you are
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right now. A move, on the other hand, is an
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action in the present. It lives out in the world.
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It's about today, and it needs exactly one thing present
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you once. Here's the trouble with the promise. Every plan
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you have ever made was a promise made by a
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person who doesn't have to keep it. Let me repeat that,
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every plan you have ever made was a promise made
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by a person who doesn't have to keep it. What
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does it even mean? So the you who plans on
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Sunday night is not actually the you who has to
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execute that on a Thursday morning or next week or
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next month. And those two people, if we're really honest,
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have a famously strained working relationship. The you that makes
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the plan now and the future you that actually has
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to implement it. Right Sunday plan making you is an
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idealist with a clean calendar and a glass of wine
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and maybe not not nearly as much stress of complexity
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in your life as you really do have or you
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will have right Thursday you, or next week you, or
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next month. To you, it's the one who actually has
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to live inside Sunday use confident little decisions. You're like.
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The move skips that whole problem. It doesn't ask future
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you for anything. It happens now while you're the one
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in the room. And to be fair, I'm not telling
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you plans are useless. A plan is a perfectly good
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thing to have once you're already moving, the way that
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a map is genuinely a lot more useful once you've
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actually left the house. I have built a lot of plans.
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I built entire processes around how to develop and build plans.
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But they have their place. The trouble is when a
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map becomes a substitute for leaving the house. We draw
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the map, we admire the map. You know, we refine
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00:14:36.840 --> 00:14:39.279
the map, we tell our friends about the map, and
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00:14:39.320 --> 00:14:44.360
we never once put our shoes on. The plan becomes
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a very sophisticated way of standing still while we feel
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like we're getting somewhere. And if you were with me
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00:14:54.159 --> 00:14:56.799
last time, this is exactly where the two halves of
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the year meet. The last episode, the whole job was
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00:14:59.240 --> 00:15:02.879
just to look, get honest and see, okay, where do
250
00:15:02.919 --> 00:15:05.159
we want to focus right now? To put down this
251
00:15:05.320 --> 00:15:08.759
scorecard and take on a stock and name one part
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00:15:08.799 --> 00:15:11.000
of your life that had been running low while you
253
00:15:11.039 --> 00:15:13.080
weren't watching in the first half of the year. That
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00:15:13.240 --> 00:15:14.399
was the looking part.
255
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Right.
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You do not act on what you needed by designing
257
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a strategy for it. You act on it with one move.
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And today today is the moving part. And you know
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I suspect you already know the difference in your own body,
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even if you've never put these two words to it.
261
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Think of something that you've been genuinely kind of meaning
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to do, something that's been sitting on your list for months,
263
00:15:40.559 --> 00:15:44.399
maybe years. Notice that you almost certainly have a plan
264
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for it. I bet you do a pretty good one.
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Even what you don't have very likely is a move.
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You know what you do, you just never specified the
267
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next small physical thing that you do and when and where.
268
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And that gap between the plan that you have and
269
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the move that you don't is where most of our
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00:16:05.840 --> 00:16:10.320
undone lives live. I'm gonna say that one more time.
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The gap between the plan you have and the move
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you don't is where most of our undone lives live.
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A plan is a promise about a future you don't control.
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A move is a thing you do today now, and
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today is the only place anything has ever actually changed.
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So let's maybe sit with why plans fail, because the
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reason is not the one that you've been told, And
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the reason lets you off a hook that you've probably
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been hanging on for years. And we'll be right back
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after a word from our sponsors. Hey, so we'd love
281
00:16:47.759 --> 00:16:50.919
to share more midlife reinvention stories on the podcast, like
282
00:16:51.000 --> 00:16:53.679
the recent one from Saribodden, who, after decades in her
283
00:16:53.720 --> 00:16:56.960
career then being pushed out as she neared sixty, launched
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Old Stor magazine to an incredible reception that even led
285
00:17:00.639 --> 00:17:04.000
to a book deal. We love inspiring stories that show
286
00:17:04.000 --> 00:17:08.039
how changes not only possible but often incredible at any age.
287
00:17:08.400 --> 00:17:12.200
And it's not just about work. It's about relationships, location, health,
288
00:17:12.240 --> 00:17:15.400
and more. So. If you've got a reinvention story you'd
289
00:17:15.400 --> 00:17:17.559
love to share, just tap on the link in the
290
00:17:17.599 --> 00:17:20.400
show notes and give us a quick summary, and who knows,
291
00:17:20.759 --> 00:17:23.519
you might just end up on the podcast excited to
292
00:17:23.559 --> 00:17:24.880
be inspired by your stories.
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00:17:29.000 --> 00:17:33.640
Iconic, hard to define, easy to spot. It usually comes
294
00:17:33.680 --> 00:17:36.759
in a red tk max bag. It's dripping and designer
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00:17:36.799 --> 00:17:40.359
at departures, oversized shades and a linen suit of breakfast
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00:17:40.680 --> 00:17:44.279
posing pool side in high heels, because why not. Every
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00:17:44.359 --> 00:17:47.279
day can be iconic with a tk max deal shop
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00:17:47.279 --> 00:17:48.000
in store today.
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Picture this. You're a rising consultant shaping a company's future.
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00:17:54.720 --> 00:17:59.480
You're an entrepreneur seeing an opportunity and seizing it. Or
301
00:17:59.519 --> 00:18:04.240
you're an advancing the world of finance to get there.
302
00:18:04.319 --> 00:18:07.680
It won't be easy, but you never want it easy.
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00:18:07.759 --> 00:18:12.359
It's not for everyone that you're not everyone invest in
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00:18:12.400 --> 00:18:15.960
your tomorrow, such London Business School graduate masters.
305
00:18:16.440 --> 00:18:24.400
Now you've probably been told that your plans fail because
306
00:18:24.440 --> 00:18:28.559
you lack discipline in some way, shape or form. I
307
00:18:28.599 --> 00:18:32.039
want to retire that idea. Plans fail because of how
308
00:18:32.039 --> 00:18:35.519
they're built. The plan asks future you to be a better, fresher,
309
00:18:36.039 --> 00:18:40.440
less interrupted person than present you. And future you is
310
00:18:40.559 --> 00:18:43.599
not a better person. They're not a less busy person.
311
00:18:43.599 --> 00:18:46.559
They're not a less interrupted, less stressed person. Future you
312
00:18:46.920 --> 00:18:50.240
is just present you on a later day, a day
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00:18:50.240 --> 00:18:52.240
that will have its own flat tire and its own
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00:18:52.720 --> 00:18:55.359
sick kid, and its own three things that caught fire
315
00:18:55.400 --> 00:18:59.000
before lunch. We plan as though the future is a calm,
316
00:18:59.279 --> 00:19:02.519
well lit room that will, like one day, walk into,
317
00:19:02.640 --> 00:19:06.440
rested and ready, with nothing else going on. It is
318
00:19:06.519 --> 00:19:11.640
not that room. The future is just another ordinary, slightly
319
00:19:11.759 --> 00:19:15.960
chaotic day, and we keep mailing it our hardest assignments
320
00:19:15.960 --> 00:19:20.279
as if it'll have more space than today. Does It won't.
321
00:19:20.759 --> 00:19:24.359
It never does. The best day to begin almost anything
322
00:19:24.440 --> 00:19:27.839
was never going to be some pristine future Monday or
323
00:19:27.839 --> 00:19:30.680
Tuesday or Wednesday. It was always going to be a
324
00:19:30.839 --> 00:19:36.480
slightly inconvenient today. So we talked last time about how
325
00:19:36.519 --> 00:19:41.119
badly we predict the future, the way we consistently underestimate
326
00:19:41.160 --> 00:19:43.920
what things will take, even when we have a lifetime
327
00:19:43.960 --> 00:19:48.359
of evidence that we always underestimate. A plan is built
328
00:19:48.559 --> 00:19:52.880
entirely out of those predictions, so it inherits every bit
329
00:19:52.960 --> 00:19:56.240
of their optimism and not one bit of their accuracy.
330
00:19:56.759 --> 00:20:00.000
You're not failing the plan. The plan was a fantasy
331
00:20:00.160 --> 00:20:04.880
in a spreadsheet, and you're a person on any given Monday.
332
00:20:05.720 --> 00:20:09.039
So a move it has none of that fragility because
333
00:20:09.519 --> 00:20:14.640
it doesn't predict anything. It doesn't need tomorrow to cooperate.
334
00:20:15.200 --> 00:20:20.880
It just changes your actual state right now by a
335
00:20:20.920 --> 00:20:24.720
little bit. And it has a second property that genuinely
336
00:20:24.759 --> 00:20:29.279
surprises most people. A move changes who you are faster
337
00:20:29.400 --> 00:20:33.279
than any amount of deciding ever. Will we have this
338
00:20:33.359 --> 00:20:36.240
backwards right? We think that we have to become a maker,
339
00:20:36.400 --> 00:20:39.079
or become a runner, or become a writer, and then
340
00:20:39.160 --> 00:20:43.279
will quote do the thing? It actually runs the other way.
341
00:20:43.680 --> 00:20:46.960
You make one ugly print, you write one bad line,
342
00:20:47.039 --> 00:20:49.880
you walk around your block, and you discover you've become
343
00:20:49.920 --> 00:20:53.799
without ever announcing it to yourself a person who makes
344
00:20:53.839 --> 00:20:57.000
things and does things and starts to inhabit the identity.
345
00:20:58.039 --> 00:21:01.519
The identity, though it doesn't come first and produce the action.
346
00:21:02.000 --> 00:21:07.279
The action comes first and hands you the identity without ceremony,
347
00:21:07.799 --> 00:21:12.599
almost as an afterthought. You cannot you cannot think your
348
00:21:12.640 --> 00:21:15.519
way into a new way of living. You can only
349
00:21:15.680 --> 00:21:18.680
act your way into it, one small move at a time.
350
00:21:19.680 --> 00:21:23.119
You see it everywhere once you start looking. Nobody decides
351
00:21:23.160 --> 00:21:25.079
to become a runner and then becomes one through the
352
00:21:25.119 --> 00:21:30.400
sheer power of decision. They go for one slow, undignified
353
00:21:30.440 --> 00:21:34.559
shuffle around the block, and then another, and another, and
354
00:21:34.680 --> 00:21:38.799
somewhere in there, with no ceremony or celebration at all,
355
00:21:39.400 --> 00:21:43.319
they catch themselves saying the words, you know, when somebody
356
00:21:43.359 --> 00:21:46.319
asks them at a coffee shop, I'm a runner, and
357
00:21:46.640 --> 00:21:50.680
kind of being faintly surprised that it's true. Same with
358
00:21:50.759 --> 00:21:53.200
the person who writes, Same with the person who finally
359
00:21:53.279 --> 00:21:55.920
starts calling their friends back. Same with the parent who
360
00:21:55.960 --> 00:21:59.400
becomes genuinely present in their kids' lives. None of them
361
00:21:59.400 --> 00:22:03.480
decided their way there. Every one of them moved their
362
00:22:03.519 --> 00:22:07.200
way there, one unremarkable rep.
363
00:22:07.319 --> 00:22:07.880
At a time.
364
00:22:08.920 --> 00:22:14.720
And I like a plan, a move compounds. A plan
365
00:22:14.839 --> 00:22:17.400
just sits there as a static promise, kind of losing
366
00:22:17.519 --> 00:22:20.160
value by the day, like a treadmill becoming a place
367
00:22:20.200 --> 00:22:22.200
to hang close. Not that I've ever hung clothes on
368
00:22:22.240 --> 00:22:26.440
a treadmill. Okay, maybe I have a move you actually made.
369
00:22:27.240 --> 00:22:31.680
It changes the conditions for the next move. Right, So
370
00:22:31.720 --> 00:22:36.000
my worktable, now, my maker table is set up so
371
00:22:36.119 --> 00:22:38.319
the second print is easier than the first, and the
372
00:22:38.359 --> 00:22:41.839
tenth is easier than the second. Moves build the ramp,
373
00:22:41.880 --> 00:22:45.920
they roll down, which is why the first rep is
374
00:22:45.960 --> 00:22:50.400
both the hardest one you'll ever do and the most important. Right,
375
00:22:50.440 --> 00:22:54.240
You're not only doing the thing that one time, You're
376
00:22:54.279 --> 00:22:57.640
lowering the price of every single time that you'll do it.
377
00:22:57.680 --> 00:23:01.759
After the first sentence is oft in agony, the two
378
00:23:01.880 --> 00:23:06.960
hardredth is just another sentence, but the only road to
379
00:23:07.039 --> 00:23:10.839
the two hundredth It runs straight through the first. And
380
00:23:10.920 --> 00:23:13.640
there is no plan clever enough to skip that step
381
00:23:13.880 --> 00:23:17.240
on your own behalf. Somebody still has to write the
382
00:23:17.279 --> 00:23:22.119
bad first sentence, and that somebody is always not future
383
00:23:22.240 --> 00:23:27.400
you on a perfect day, but present you today, in
384
00:23:27.440 --> 00:23:30.759
the here and now. And here's why the middle of
385
00:23:30.799 --> 00:23:34.200
the year of all the onnglamorous moments is actually a
386
00:23:34.240 --> 00:23:37.599
great time to make a move. There's a body of
387
00:23:37.599 --> 00:23:40.200
research from Kitty Milkman, who's actually been a guest on
388
00:23:40.240 --> 00:23:43.960
this show, along with her colleagues Hankshon Jai and Jason Rees,
389
00:23:44.559 --> 00:23:47.480
on something they call the fresh start effect. What they
390
00:23:47.519 --> 00:23:50.359
found is that we are measurably more willing to begin
391
00:23:50.480 --> 00:23:55.039
something at what they call a temporal landmark, a new month, birthday,
392
00:23:55.119 --> 00:23:57.599
the start of the season, the first of a year.
393
00:23:58.160 --> 00:23:59.160
These moments draw.
394
00:23:59.000 --> 00:24:02.440
A clean line between the old self who didn't and
395
00:24:02.720 --> 00:24:05.480
a new self who just might, and we get a
396
00:24:05.519 --> 00:24:09.799
real usable burst of motivation from standing on that line. Now,
397
00:24:09.880 --> 00:24:13.839
here's the trap that we've built around that though. We've
398
00:24:13.839 --> 00:24:19.880
been trained to treat exactly one of those landmarks, January first,
399
00:24:20.480 --> 00:24:23.599
as the quote official starting line for our lives and
400
00:24:24.559 --> 00:24:27.359
all that we want to change and to happen our lives,
401
00:24:27.359 --> 00:24:29.519
and to treat the entire rest of the year as
402
00:24:29.599 --> 00:24:37.079
the long sidhe between resolutions. And if you're only allowed
403
00:24:37.119 --> 00:24:38.920
to begin in the first week of January and you
404
00:24:38.960 --> 00:24:41.519
miss it, you kind of just wait, you know, like, oh,
405
00:24:41.720 --> 00:24:44.720
I guess I missed my window. They'll be next year's thing.
406
00:24:45.519 --> 00:24:47.640
But the midpoint of a year is one of the
407
00:24:47.640 --> 00:24:51.480
most powerful fresh start landmarks there is, and almost nobody
408
00:24:51.680 --> 00:24:55.839
uses it. So you are not behind. Let me say
409
00:24:55.839 --> 00:24:59.440
that again. You are not behind. You're standing on a
410
00:24:59.440 --> 00:25:02.400
starting line that most people just walk straight past because
411
00:25:02.759 --> 00:25:06.359
they're saving themselves for a January that is six months
412
00:25:06.400 --> 00:25:10.680
away and honestly just way overrated. Figure out how weird
413
00:25:10.759 --> 00:25:13.839
that is. We let one arbitrary day on the calendar
414
00:25:14.000 --> 00:25:17.559
hold the entire monopoly on beginning, and then we spend
415
00:25:17.599 --> 00:25:20.920
the other three hundred and sixty four days feeling either
416
00:25:20.960 --> 00:25:23.359
ahead of it or behind it. But there's nothing magic
417
00:25:23.400 --> 00:25:26.400
about January first, except that we all agree to treat
418
00:25:26.400 --> 00:25:30.400
it as magic. You know, any given day in July
419
00:25:31.119 --> 00:25:36.240
works exactly as well, especially because the midpoint of a
420
00:25:36.279 --> 00:25:39.559
year actually does mark something important, and the start of
421
00:25:39.680 --> 00:25:44.200
next month works. Your next birthday works this episode, if
422
00:25:44.240 --> 00:25:48.640
you want it to, it works. The line is whenever
423
00:25:48.720 --> 00:25:52.799
you decide to draw it, and you can draw it today, right.
424
00:25:52.880 --> 00:25:57.240
You don't need more discipline, you need a smaller starting line,
425
00:25:57.400 --> 00:26:02.240
and you happen right now to be standing on one. Okay,
426
00:26:02.319 --> 00:26:05.720
so this is the part you can actually use. Let's
427
00:26:05.759 --> 00:26:09.279
get practical, right, let's get concrete and maybe a little
428
00:26:09.279 --> 00:26:13.240
bit bossy about it's what makes a move an actual movie?
429
00:26:13.240 --> 00:26:15.119
You want to understand, like, what is this move thing?
430
00:26:15.279 --> 00:26:15.480
Right?
431
00:26:15.839 --> 00:26:18.039
So what makes a move a move and just not
432
00:26:18.119 --> 00:26:22.079
a plan wearing a move's clothes? In my experience and
433
00:26:22.279 --> 00:26:25.799
some interesting compelling research, the good ones share a handful
434
00:26:25.920 --> 00:26:30.480
of traits. So here are those traits. You won't need
435
00:26:30.519 --> 00:26:33.519
everyone for every move, but the more of them that
436
00:26:33.599 --> 00:26:35.920
you have for any given move, I found, the more
437
00:26:36.000 --> 00:26:38.960
it tends to survive a bad week. And the bad
438
00:26:38.960 --> 00:26:43.559
weeks are often the whole test. So first element of
439
00:26:43.599 --> 00:26:47.759
a move, it's small enough to be unskippable. The single
440
00:26:47.839 --> 00:26:50.640
most common reason a move dies is that it was
441
00:26:50.640 --> 00:26:53.759
secretly too big from the start. So the fix is
442
00:26:54.039 --> 00:26:58.079
to make it almost insultingly small. So not work out,
443
00:26:58.240 --> 00:27:01.960
but just what aren't your workouts shoes? Not write the book,
444
00:27:02.519 --> 00:27:06.519
open the document and write one bad sentence. Not rebuild
445
00:27:06.559 --> 00:27:10.960
my social life, but send a single text. The test
446
00:27:11.039 --> 00:27:17.160
is simple. It has to be so small that the
447
00:27:17.319 --> 00:27:20.920
I'm too tired or too busy or too stressed excuse
448
00:27:21.200 --> 00:27:24.079
does not apply, because you could do it on your
449
00:27:24.079 --> 00:27:27.160
worst day. Make cold low on sleep with a toddler,
450
00:27:27.200 --> 00:27:29.960
attach your leg if you couldn't do it on your
451
00:27:29.960 --> 00:27:33.039
worst day. It isn't a move yet, it's a plan
452
00:27:33.799 --> 00:27:36.039
kind of in smaller font and I know how that
453
00:27:36.119 --> 00:27:39.680
lands insultingly small, feels kind of like cheating, right, like
454
00:27:40.039 --> 00:27:43.920
it couldn't possibly count for anything. But the small move
455
00:27:44.079 --> 00:27:48.519
was never meant to be the final destination. It's the doorway.
456
00:27:49.000 --> 00:27:51.640
Almost nobody puts on the shoes and then just stands there.
457
00:27:51.720 --> 00:27:53.839
You put on the shoes, and most days you find
458
00:27:53.839 --> 00:27:56.880
yourself going for the walk, and the days you don't, well,
459
00:27:57.160 --> 00:27:59.759
you still put on the shoes, and that counts because
460
00:28:00.640 --> 00:28:05.039
you stayed a person who shows up. The small version's
461
00:28:05.279 --> 00:28:10.920
only job is to be impossible to skip. Impressive is
462
00:28:11.000 --> 00:28:14.640
not on its job description. So a second element of
463
00:28:14.640 --> 00:28:18.480
a move, it's concrete, a when aware, and a what.
464
00:28:19.559 --> 00:28:22.920
This is where the research really earns its key. Peter Golwitzer,
465
00:28:22.960 --> 00:28:26.440
a psychologists who studied followed through for decades, found that
466
00:28:26.480 --> 00:28:29.400
the biggest predictor of whether people actually do the thing
467
00:28:29.440 --> 00:28:32.680
it isn't how motivated they feel. It's whether they decided
468
00:28:32.839 --> 00:28:35.440
in advance exactly when and where they do it. He
469
00:28:35.559 --> 00:28:39.240
calls it implementation and tension, which is kind of a
470
00:28:39.319 --> 00:28:42.440
very serious, fancy name for a very simple sentence. When
471
00:28:42.440 --> 00:28:46.839
this happens, I will do that. There after I pull
472
00:28:46.880 --> 00:28:49.160
them in morning coffee, I will write one sentence at
473
00:28:49.160 --> 00:28:53.960
the kitchen table, the vague version I'll write more. It
474
00:28:54.079 --> 00:28:58.279
just loses the specific version every single time, and by
475
00:28:58.319 --> 00:29:01.279
a margin that would embarrass theon if it ever bother
476
00:29:01.400 --> 00:29:04.640
to show up and find out. So my woodblock printing
477
00:29:04.640 --> 00:29:09.480
class is an implementation intension with a parking lot outside,
478
00:29:09.519 --> 00:29:13.880
which also helps you know. So every Monday now at
479
00:29:14.079 --> 00:29:18.400
five thirty in the evening in that building, that is
480
00:29:18.440 --> 00:29:21.799
how I frame it. I never have to decide. The
481
00:29:21.880 --> 00:29:24.759
deciding is already done, which means there's nothing left to
482
00:29:24.839 --> 00:29:28.759
talk myself out of. And notice what spares you, because
483
00:29:28.920 --> 00:29:33.440
it's bigger than it sounds. Every time the move is vague,
484
00:29:33.640 --> 00:29:37.960
you have to decide fresh every single day whether and
485
00:29:38.000 --> 00:29:42.759
when to do it, and deciding is expensive. It burns
486
00:29:42.759 --> 00:29:44.920
the very energy that you needed for the thing itself.
487
00:29:45.519 --> 00:29:49.599
A move with a fixed when and where is predecided.
488
00:29:50.039 --> 00:29:52.359
So you show up with your whole tank still full.
489
00:29:52.680 --> 00:29:56.079
You're not spending your willpower getting to the desk. You're
490
00:29:56.119 --> 00:30:00.359
spending it on the work once you're sitting there. Element
491
00:30:00.559 --> 00:30:06.680
of a move. It's repeatable and pretty much in the
492
00:30:06.759 --> 00:30:09.920
same form and shape. A move that you have to
493
00:30:09.920 --> 00:30:12.880
reinvent every time often isn't really a move. It's a
494
00:30:12.920 --> 00:30:17.839
fresh negotiation with yourself. And you'll probably lose about half
495
00:30:17.880 --> 00:30:22.319
of those negotiations, at least I do. Usually the important ones, especially,
496
00:30:22.759 --> 00:30:27.440
the power is often in the sameness, the repeatability, same
497
00:30:27.480 --> 00:30:32.279
small thing, same time, same place. Boring is not a
498
00:30:32.279 --> 00:30:36.720
bug here. Boring is the entire point. Boring is what
499
00:30:36.759 --> 00:30:39.720
survives a bad week. That brings us to the fourth
500
00:30:39.720 --> 00:30:43.480
element of a move. It's anchored. So you hang the
501
00:30:43.519 --> 00:30:46.920
move on something that you already do, that's that's already
502
00:30:47.079 --> 00:30:50.720
solid in your day, an existing routine, or a fixed point,
503
00:30:50.839 --> 00:30:55.400
so it borrows that thing's kind of repeatability and stability
504
00:30:55.440 --> 00:30:59.200
instead of needing its own. After the coffee, you do
505
00:30:59.240 --> 00:31:01.319
the thing. Before the school run, you do the thing
506
00:31:01.880 --> 00:31:05.559
you know, like Wednesday morning at four, you do the thing.
507
00:31:06.200 --> 00:31:08.599
You're not trying to erect a new pillar in your life.
508
00:31:08.640 --> 00:31:12.359
You're hanging one small hook on a wall that's already standing.
509
00:31:12.400 --> 00:31:16.119
And the best anchors are the things that you already
510
00:31:16.160 --> 00:31:19.880
do without fail you already pour the coffee. You already
511
00:31:19.920 --> 00:31:22.440
brush your teeth. I hope you already brush your teeth.
512
00:31:23.400 --> 00:31:26.680
You already drop into the car seat and sigh. You know,
513
00:31:26.759 --> 00:31:29.759
like bought the new small thing to one of those
514
00:31:29.880 --> 00:31:34.440
and it gets to ride on a routine that's already unbreakable,
515
00:31:34.519 --> 00:31:38.000
instead of trying to build a brand new one from
516
00:31:38.160 --> 00:31:43.599
nothing in the middle of an already full, hectic, stressed out, busy,
517
00:31:43.759 --> 00:31:49.160
complicated life. Fifth potential element of a move. It's aimed
518
00:31:49.200 --> 00:31:51.759
at the bucket that you named right if you were
519
00:31:51.799 --> 00:31:54.839
here in our last episode, one of the things I
520
00:31:54.880 --> 00:31:56.640
asked you to do was name the part of your
521
00:31:56.640 --> 00:31:58.720
life that's actually running low. And again, you can go
522
00:31:58.799 --> 00:32:00.720
back after this and do that. You don't have to
523
00:32:00.720 --> 00:32:04.119
have done it before listening or watching. It's right we
524
00:32:04.240 --> 00:32:08.000
point the move straight at that gap. If it's your
525
00:32:08.000 --> 00:32:12.279
connection bucket, the move is a standing text to one
526
00:32:12.319 --> 00:32:15.480
specific person, not a fuzzy intention to be a quote
527
00:32:15.640 --> 00:32:19.720
better friend. If it's your mind and body and your
528
00:32:19.799 --> 00:32:23.160
vitality bucket, it's the shoes on the door, you know,
529
00:32:23.279 --> 00:32:25.720
or shoes by the door tonight, not a twelve month
530
00:32:25.799 --> 00:32:28.119
gym contract that you'll be funding out of guilt by
531
00:32:28.599 --> 00:32:33.160
two months in. Don't aim the move at the bucket
532
00:32:33.160 --> 00:32:36.039
that's already full. Aim it at the leakiest one or
533
00:32:36.079 --> 00:32:38.759
the lowest one. And if you miss last time, here's
534
00:32:38.799 --> 00:32:42.000
a thirty second version, no homework required. There are three
535
00:32:42.039 --> 00:32:45.720
parts of a life that a scorecard tends to miss completely.
536
00:32:45.880 --> 00:32:48.519
Your mind and body we call that your vitality bucket.
537
00:32:48.920 --> 00:32:54.519
Your relationships and we call that your connection bucket. And
538
00:32:54.599 --> 00:32:56.559
the sense that what you do actually matters, we call
539
00:32:56.599 --> 00:32:59.359
it your contribution bucket. One of the three is usually
540
00:32:59.400 --> 00:33:02.599
running lower than the others. And here's the cool part.
541
00:33:02.680 --> 00:33:04.920
It's usually not the one that you've been pouring all
542
00:33:04.960 --> 00:33:08.039
your attention into. That low one. The one you've been
543
00:33:08.039 --> 00:33:12.759
ignoring is exactly where the move belongs. And that brings
544
00:33:12.839 --> 00:33:16.759
us to the sixth potential element of a move. This
545
00:33:16.839 --> 00:33:19.319
one's a little bit of a bonus worth hunting for.
546
00:33:19.880 --> 00:33:23.599
The best moves. Often they pay into two good life
547
00:33:23.640 --> 00:33:27.039
buckets at once, not just one. So my woodblock printing
548
00:33:27.720 --> 00:33:30.960
fills my vitality bucket. My mind and body clears my
549
00:33:31.000 --> 00:33:33.599
head like almost nothing else, and it fills my sense
550
00:33:33.640 --> 00:33:36.480
of contribution my contribution bucket because I'm making a real
551
00:33:36.559 --> 00:33:38.400
thing that matters to me, that I can touch and
552
00:33:38.440 --> 00:33:41.640
feel and share and maybe even at some point inspire
553
00:33:41.720 --> 00:33:45.119
joy in others when they interact with it. Right, So
554
00:33:45.200 --> 00:33:48.400
I call those moves sort of like a two bucket refill.
555
00:33:48.880 --> 00:33:51.319
If you can find a single move that pays into
556
00:33:51.319 --> 00:33:53.960
two parts of your life at the same time, especially
557
00:33:54.000 --> 00:33:56.960
ones that are running kind of low, it's worth twice
558
00:33:56.960 --> 00:34:00.400
the effort to protect because you're getting too re fills
559
00:34:00.440 --> 00:34:03.480
two repairs for one rep A walk with a friend
560
00:34:03.640 --> 00:34:06.559
is often two buckets. Your vitality bucket. You're moving your
561
00:34:06.559 --> 00:34:09.440
mind and body and your connection bucket in a single outing.
562
00:34:10.159 --> 00:34:13.360
Cooking a real dinner with someone you love probably two
563
00:34:13.360 --> 00:34:17.320
buckets too. Connection and contribution and creativity, coaching your kid's
564
00:34:17.400 --> 00:34:24.440
team on a good day, all three at once potentially right. Connection, contribution, vitality.
565
00:34:25.079 --> 00:34:27.280
You don't have to find one of these. The plain
566
00:34:27.840 --> 00:34:31.079
single bucket moves are more than good enough. But if
567
00:34:31.400 --> 00:34:34.480
a two for one happens to be sitting there available,
568
00:34:34.920 --> 00:34:38.079
take it. It's the most efficient way to refill that
569
00:34:38.119 --> 00:34:42.679
you'll ever make. And now seven seventh element of a
570
00:34:42.719 --> 00:34:45.960
strong move scaffold it from the outside. This is the
571
00:34:46.000 --> 00:34:49.199
one that I learned the hard way over the years,
572
00:34:49.239 --> 00:34:51.920
and was reminded of this year. Once that easy kind
573
00:34:51.960 --> 00:34:54.920
of shared rhythm with somebody else was no longer there,
574
00:34:55.039 --> 00:34:58.719
the structure had to come from somewhere, and the somewhere
575
00:34:58.800 --> 00:35:03.119
turned out to be me and a class. So I
576
00:35:03.159 --> 00:35:05.760
built it on purpose. The class is structure that it
577
00:35:05.800 --> 00:35:08.559
can't easily wriggle out of because other people are in
578
00:35:08.599 --> 00:35:11.039
the room. I've committed to it, I've made statements, I
579
00:35:11.079 --> 00:35:13.920
said I'm doing it, and I already paid for it.
580
00:35:14.480 --> 00:35:18.119
So wherever you can put your move somewhere that doesn't
581
00:35:18.199 --> 00:35:21.199
run on your own willpower, A class, a standing data,
582
00:35:21.199 --> 00:35:24.039
a person who's expecting you a small deposit you'd hate
583
00:35:24.039 --> 00:35:28.440
to waste, because willpower is a terrible building material. It's
584
00:35:28.480 --> 00:35:30.880
strong on the afternoon you buy, and it is gone
585
00:35:30.960 --> 00:35:34.119
by the next morning. So outsource the structure to almost
586
00:35:34.159 --> 00:35:37.639
anything more reliable than your own good intentions, which is
587
00:35:37.679 --> 00:35:42.480
to say almost anything at all. Tell a friend you'll
588
00:35:42.519 --> 00:35:46.159
text them the second it's done, so that somebody's expecting
589
00:35:46.239 --> 00:35:49.239
the text. You know, put real money down on the class,
590
00:35:49.320 --> 00:35:52.199
kind of money you be annoyed to waste. Schedule the
591
00:35:52.280 --> 00:35:56.440
standing call so that bailing means letting someone down, actually
592
00:35:56.480 --> 00:35:58.719
human being, and not just yourself, because let's be honest
593
00:35:58.760 --> 00:36:02.840
with each other, ourselves down constantly, and I've gotten very
594
00:36:03.360 --> 00:36:06.599
unfortunately comfortable with it. And I'm raising my own hand here.
595
00:36:07.400 --> 00:36:09.880
The more of the move that you can move out
596
00:36:09.960 --> 00:36:12.239
of your own head and into the world where other
597
00:36:12.280 --> 00:36:15.159
people and your own calendar can hold it for you,
598
00:36:15.880 --> 00:36:18.960
the more of it survives the week that tries to
599
00:36:19.000 --> 00:36:23.480
take it from you. So a plan ask you who
600
00:36:23.559 --> 00:36:27.679
you're going to be next year, A move asks what
601
00:36:27.719 --> 00:36:31.320
you'll do in the next few minutes. Only one of
602
00:36:31.360 --> 00:36:37.800
those questions has ever actually changed a life. Now, before
603
00:36:37.800 --> 00:36:39.800
we wrap this, I think I also need to talk
604
00:36:39.840 --> 00:36:44.920
about the traps, and we'll be right back after a
605
00:36:44.960 --> 00:36:46.800
word from our sponsors.
606
00:36:49.760 --> 00:36:52.519
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607
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608
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609
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Sure did dougs in other countries speak different languages? Yeah?
610
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611
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got to fix the car first.
612
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613
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To help us.
614
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a Viva. Oh bear's the van. Now for car insurance
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with breakdown Rescue it takes a Viva visit a Viva
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618
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619
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620
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621
00:37:24.960 --> 00:37:27.639
insurance is underwritten by a Viva Insurance Ireland DOC. Aviva
622
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Direct Arland Limited is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland.
623
00:37:31.280 --> 00:37:35.920
Iconic, hard to define, easy to spot. It usually comes
624
00:37:35.960 --> 00:37:39.079
in a red tk Max bag. It's dripping in designer
625
00:37:39.079 --> 00:37:42.639
at departures, oversized shades and a linen suit of breakfast
626
00:37:42.960 --> 00:37:46.840
posing poolside in high heels, because why not. Every day
627
00:37:46.840 --> 00:37:50.280
can be iconic with a tk Max deal shopping store today.
628
00:37:51.039 --> 00:37:56.360
Picture this. You're a rising consultant shaping a company's future.
629
00:37:57.039 --> 00:38:01.800
You're an entrepreneur seeing an opportunity and seizing it. Or
630
00:38:01.800 --> 00:38:06.079
you're an investment banker advancing the world of finance to
631
00:38:06.119 --> 00:38:08.760
get there. It won't be easy, but you never want
632
00:38:08.800 --> 00:38:13.039
it easy. It's not for everyone that you're not. Everyone
633
00:38:13.880 --> 00:38:18.239
invest in your tomorrow. Such London Business School graduate masters.
634
00:38:18.719 --> 00:38:25.679
Now we got to name the traps because a move
635
00:38:25.719 --> 00:38:28.960
can revert into a plan the moment that you stop watching,
636
00:38:29.519 --> 00:38:32.599
and there tend to be these four ways that it happens,
637
00:38:33.039 --> 00:38:36.360
and knowing them is most of the defense. To be honest,
638
00:38:37.199 --> 00:38:39.320
The first trap is that it's secretly too big. We
639
00:38:39.480 --> 00:38:42.760
covered the fix, but the trap is sneaky because a
640
00:38:42.840 --> 00:38:46.320
too big move feels kind of more virtuous, more real,
641
00:38:46.400 --> 00:38:50.760
more legitimate. One bad sentence, it feels insultingly small. An
642
00:38:50.800 --> 00:38:55.400
hour of focused writing every morning feels serious and admirable
643
00:38:55.480 --> 00:38:57.599
and like, you know, the sort of thing a quote
644
00:38:57.599 --> 00:39:02.159
real writer would commit to. And the series admirable one
645
00:39:02.320 --> 00:39:08.320
is precisely the one you'll have abandoned by the next week,
646
00:39:08.440 --> 00:39:10.480
or the next day, or even today, at which point
647
00:39:10.519 --> 00:39:14.239
you'll conclude you're not a real writer anymore. Choosing the
648
00:39:14.320 --> 00:39:19.679
insultingly small one. The insulting one is it's the one
649
00:39:19.719 --> 00:39:24.840
that it still stands next week, next month, maybe even
650
00:39:24.920 --> 00:39:25.400
next year.
651
00:39:26.039 --> 00:39:26.239
Right.
652
00:39:26.840 --> 00:39:28.559
I have a bit of a private rule for this now.
653
00:39:28.599 --> 00:39:32.239
Whenever a move feels appropriately ambitious, the kind of thing
654
00:39:32.280 --> 00:39:35.519
I'd be a little proud to tell someone about, I
655
00:39:35.559 --> 00:39:38.079
ask myself, what would it look like if I cut
656
00:39:38.119 --> 00:39:40.440
it in half? And then usually I cut it in
657
00:39:40.519 --> 00:39:44.599
half again. The version of that finally feels almost too
658
00:39:44.639 --> 00:39:48.360
easy to bother with. That's the one with a real
659
00:39:48.480 --> 00:39:52.679
chance of surviving. Pride is a terrible guide here. Pride
660
00:39:52.719 --> 00:39:56.159
wants the impressive plan. Pride is never the one who
661
00:39:56.199 --> 00:40:00.199
has to get up on the dark, cold Wednesday morning
662
00:40:00.239 --> 00:40:03.880
and actually do the thing. The second trap that we
663
00:40:03.920 --> 00:40:07.320
can fall into in allowing a move to become something
664
00:40:07.320 --> 00:40:11.599
else is waiting for motivation. It's this belief that you'll
665
00:40:11.639 --> 00:40:13.519
make the move once you feel like it. Here's the
666
00:40:13.519 --> 00:40:16.760
hard truth, you will rarely ever feel like it. And
667
00:40:17.039 --> 00:40:19.880
that's not a judgment call. It's just human nature. You
668
00:40:19.920 --> 00:40:23.719
don't need to. Motivation is not the fuel that gets
669
00:40:23.719 --> 00:40:27.159
you up off the couch. Motivation is the thing that
670
00:40:27.199 --> 00:40:30.840
ambles in a few minutes after you've already started kind
671
00:40:30.880 --> 00:40:34.519
of slightly at wreath, having completely missed the beginning. Action
672
00:40:34.679 --> 00:40:39.400
comes first, The feeling follows the action. We have the
673
00:40:39.480 --> 00:40:45.639
order backwards, and the backwardness has cost most of us years,
674
00:40:45.679 --> 00:40:48.760
to be honest, so stop waiting to feel. Ready. Ready
675
00:40:48.880 --> 00:40:50.880
is not the thing that arives on its own and
676
00:40:50.920 --> 00:40:55.320
taps you on the shoulder. Ready shows up after you've
677
00:40:55.360 --> 00:40:58.000
already begun slightly out of breath to take the credit.
678
00:40:58.079 --> 00:41:01.800
The move is built so that you don't have to
679
00:41:01.840 --> 00:41:06.360
feel like it. You just do the small thing, the shoes,
680
00:41:06.360 --> 00:41:10.400
a sentence, the one text, and you let the feeling
681
00:41:10.559 --> 00:41:14.519
come find you at its own, full, hazy piece. The
682
00:41:14.519 --> 00:41:18.880
third potential trap here is the trap of feeling like
683
00:41:18.960 --> 00:41:22.400
you need a system first. This is the most sophisticated
684
00:41:22.440 --> 00:41:25.800
form of procrastination available to intelligent people. And I say
685
00:41:25.840 --> 00:41:32.280
that as a deeply experienced practitioner of this trap, you
686
00:41:32.400 --> 00:41:34.760
do not need the app, the planner, or the perfect
687
00:41:34.800 --> 00:41:37.840
morning routine or the right notebook. I have personally bought
688
00:41:38.159 --> 00:41:41.920
the right notebook on at least four, honestly probably closer
689
00:41:41.960 --> 00:41:46.360
to ten separate occasions, each time genuinely convinced that this
690
00:41:46.599 --> 00:41:50.880
finally was the missing piece. The notebook are gorgeous, I
691
00:41:50.920 --> 00:41:55.159
had them from different countries. They're also every single one
692
00:41:55.199 --> 00:42:01.239
of them completely blank. The system is not the move buying.
693
00:42:01.239 --> 00:42:04.960
The system is just planning now with the receipt. And
694
00:42:05.000 --> 00:42:09.760
the genuinely dangerous part is that it feels exactly like progress,
695
00:42:09.880 --> 00:42:13.360
like action. You research, you compared, you optimize, you spent
696
00:42:13.639 --> 00:42:16.639
real money and real care, and you can feel the
697
00:42:16.719 --> 00:42:20.280
productivity just kind of humming in your veins, and you
698
00:42:20.360 --> 00:42:26.320
have of course made and done nothing because getting ready
699
00:42:26.360 --> 00:42:29.599
to do the thing is not the thing, and your
700
00:42:29.639 --> 00:42:33.199
beautiful new system or tool knows it, and it is
701
00:42:33.239 --> 00:42:36.400
probably judging you a little from the shelf. And the
702
00:42:36.440 --> 00:42:39.920
fourth trap here is kind of the most lethal of all,
703
00:42:40.000 --> 00:42:44.519
which is all or nothing thinking or repeated again, all
704
00:42:44.559 --> 00:42:48.679
are nothing thinking. You make the move four days running,
705
00:42:49.039 --> 00:42:54.360
you miss day five, and some all deep judge voice,
706
00:42:54.480 --> 00:42:56.599
probably not your voice, it might be from when you
707
00:42:56.599 --> 00:43:00.760
were a kid. Right, It declares that you have failed,
708
00:43:01.360 --> 00:43:03.960
You've broken it. This streak is dead, so you may
709
00:43:03.960 --> 00:43:09.519
as well just quit. But miss rep is not a failure.
710
00:43:09.840 --> 00:43:13.000
Missed rep is just another day. The only thing that
711
00:43:13.039 --> 00:43:15.840
turns one missed rep into a broken streak and then
712
00:43:16.000 --> 00:43:19.440
total inaction is the story you tell yourself about it.
713
00:43:20.000 --> 00:43:22.320
So here's the whole rule, and it's kind of a
714
00:43:22.320 --> 00:43:27.599
pretty important one. Miss once, Just make the next one
715
00:43:27.880 --> 00:43:31.199
and do everything you can to never miss twice. Right,
716
00:43:31.280 --> 00:43:34.519
You will miss days. Everyone misses days. The people who
717
00:43:34.679 --> 00:43:38.199
keep the move are not the ones who never ever
718
00:43:38.320 --> 00:43:41.800
miss You know, I've been meditating for over fifteen years
719
00:43:41.880 --> 00:43:44.039
right now, pretty much every day, but I gotta tell
720
00:43:44.079 --> 00:43:47.440
you one or two days a year does not happen
721
00:43:47.440 --> 00:43:49.360
I wake up at two am to catch a flight,
722
00:43:49.440 --> 00:43:52.760
or I'm like sick as a dog. And if I
723
00:43:52.840 --> 00:43:55.039
basically said after that, uh, I guess I'm not a
724
00:43:55.079 --> 00:43:58.159
meditator anymore. The whole thing's over. I wouldn't have the
725
00:43:58.199 --> 00:44:01.119
stunning benefit of having this practice in my life. So
726
00:44:01.159 --> 00:44:03.880
I do my best to just do the slightest, smallest
727
00:44:03.960 --> 00:44:05.719
version of it that day, and if I can, and
728
00:44:05.760 --> 00:44:08.239
the next day whatever the slightest smallest version of it,
729
00:44:08.320 --> 00:44:11.440
to slowly just say, well, that is still my identity.
730
00:44:11.480 --> 00:44:14.840
This is still the thing that I do right. So
731
00:44:14.960 --> 00:44:17.880
the people who keep the move are not the ones
732
00:44:17.920 --> 00:44:20.280
who never miss. They're the ones who refuse to miss
733
00:44:20.360 --> 00:44:24.000
twice in a row. And let me see something kind
734
00:44:24.039 --> 00:44:26.280
of gentle here. Because this trap is usually built out
735
00:44:26.320 --> 00:44:29.320
of an old, hard story that we tell ourselves, the
736
00:44:29.320 --> 00:44:32.440
one that whispers, if I can't do it perfectly, I failed,
737
00:44:32.960 --> 00:44:35.639
so I may as well not bother at all. That
738
00:44:35.960 --> 00:44:41.199
story has robbed you of more good things in your life,
739
00:44:41.239 --> 00:44:46.039
more relationships, more activities, more experiences than any shortage of
740
00:44:46.119 --> 00:44:50.320
time ever has. The move is the antidote to it,
741
00:44:50.559 --> 00:44:52.800
because a move is too small to fail at, and
742
00:44:53.199 --> 00:44:57.320
one miss move is far too small to mean anything
743
00:44:57.440 --> 00:45:00.760
about who you are. You missed a walk, you are not.
744
00:45:00.920 --> 00:45:05.000
It turns out a disappointment to the entire concept of walking.
745
00:45:05.559 --> 00:45:09.880
He just walked tomorrow. Missing once is an accident. Missing
746
00:45:10.000 --> 00:45:13.239
twice can be the beginning of a new pattern. So
747
00:45:13.840 --> 00:45:17.000
guard the rep after the missed one even more fiercely
748
00:45:17.039 --> 00:45:22.039
than any other one. All right, So this is the
749
00:45:22.079 --> 00:45:24.960
part that I promise you at the top. We are
750
00:45:25.000 --> 00:45:30.400
going to make one move together right right now, not
751
00:45:30.480 --> 00:45:35.880
a plan. One move right if you're driving, or walking
752
00:45:36.000 --> 00:45:38.880
or holding a sleeping baby, just maybe think it through
753
00:45:38.920 --> 00:45:41.760
with me, and then we can lock down the actual
754
00:45:41.800 --> 00:45:44.480
move the second that you're able to. If you're somewhere,
755
00:45:44.480 --> 00:45:47.039
you can actually pause and do something even better. So
756
00:45:47.159 --> 00:45:51.519
here we go, five simple steps. Step one, the bucket.
757
00:45:51.800 --> 00:45:53.639
Bring back the part of your life that's been running
758
00:45:53.719 --> 00:45:55.800
kind of low. If you were here last time, you
759
00:45:55.840 --> 00:45:58.400
already named it. If you weren't, just quickly answer it
760
00:45:58.440 --> 00:46:02.480
now intuitively. Vitality connection or contribution, Just do it quickly.
761
00:46:03.280 --> 00:46:06.519
Is your mind and body, your energy and health and aliveness?
762
00:46:06.559 --> 00:46:08.000
Is that where you feel like you're taking the head?
763
00:46:08.039 --> 00:46:10.920
Is it your relationship, your sense of being genuinely known,
764
00:46:11.159 --> 00:46:13.440
or is it the feeling that what you do with
765
00:46:13.559 --> 00:46:17.039
your days actually isn't really giving you a whole lot
766
00:46:17.039 --> 00:46:19.599
of meaning or purpose. Which one is lowest right now?
767
00:46:19.719 --> 00:46:22.639
Don't agonize over. Just the first one that jumped to
768
00:46:22.639 --> 00:46:24.880
mind is almost always the honest answer, and you can
769
00:46:24.960 --> 00:46:27.239
always like redo this with different moves in the future.
770
00:46:27.320 --> 00:46:30.760
Just pick one for right now, go with it, and
771
00:46:31.519 --> 00:46:33.840
if more than one bucket feels low, that's completely normal.
772
00:46:33.880 --> 00:46:35.920
Most of us are actually running a deficit in at
773
00:46:36.000 --> 00:46:38.719
least two of them at any given time. But we
774
00:46:39.039 --> 00:46:41.159
just want it to keep it simple. We just want
775
00:46:41.199 --> 00:46:45.039
to pick exactly one today, just one. The entire power
776
00:46:45.079 --> 00:46:48.440
of this is in its narrowness, its focus. You can
777
00:46:48.480 --> 00:46:52.360
come back to others today we move on one. Okay,
778
00:46:52.519 --> 00:46:58.480
got it, great? Step two? Shrink it. Now we find
779
00:46:58.519 --> 00:47:01.079
the move, and the only rule is that it has
780
00:47:01.119 --> 00:47:05.360
to be almost too small, like embarrassingly small, not the
781
00:47:05.360 --> 00:47:08.360
impressive version, the version you could do on your worst day.
782
00:47:08.440 --> 00:47:11.880
If your bucket is mind and body, it's not exercise
783
00:47:11.960 --> 00:47:14.920
four times this week. It's maybe a ten minute walk
784
00:47:14.960 --> 00:47:18.079
after lunch or stroll or the running shoes set by
785
00:47:18.079 --> 00:47:22.000
the door tonight before I go to bed. If it's relationships,
786
00:47:22.000 --> 00:47:25.800
it's not see my friends more. It's one text to
787
00:47:25.840 --> 00:47:29.920
one specific person today that says something realer than we
788
00:47:30.000 --> 00:47:33.840
should catch up. You know. Maybe if it's the work
789
00:47:33.920 --> 00:47:36.199
or contribution bucket that it feels like it really needs
790
00:47:36.199 --> 00:47:40.800
some love, it's not fine my purpose. It's five minutes,
791
00:47:40.840 --> 00:47:43.760
ten minutes, fifteen minutes on the thing that's actually yours,
792
00:47:43.840 --> 00:47:46.400
where you know it gives you energy and it gives
793
00:47:46.440 --> 00:47:50.079
you a sense of curiosity. Right before the inbox gets
794
00:47:50.079 --> 00:47:53.800
in your hands in the morning, pick the smallest real thing,
795
00:47:54.719 --> 00:48:00.360
smaller than feels in a weird way respectable. I mean
796
00:48:00.400 --> 00:48:03.000
it about too small whatever just occurred to you. It's
797
00:48:03.039 --> 00:48:06.559
probably still a little too big because we can't help ourselves.
798
00:48:06.679 --> 00:48:09.519
So cut it down until a small voice in your
799
00:48:09.519 --> 00:48:13.360
head says that's hardly even worth doing. That voice is wrong,
800
00:48:13.760 --> 00:48:19.519
and that is exactly the right size. Good Now, Step three,
801
00:48:20.280 --> 00:48:22.920
give it a when and aware this is the goal
802
00:48:22.960 --> 00:48:26.880
wh's apart right the implementation intentions, and it's not optional
803
00:48:26.880 --> 00:48:29.039
because this is the step that does the heavy lifting.
804
00:48:29.440 --> 00:48:32.679
Say it as a sentence when this, I will that
805
00:48:33.599 --> 00:48:37.480
there after I drop the kids at school, I will
806
00:48:37.480 --> 00:48:40.679
walk for ten minutes around the block Tuesday at seven,
807
00:48:40.920 --> 00:48:43.880
I will say at the kitchen table and write one sentence.
808
00:48:44.679 --> 00:48:47.159
Say it out loud if you can. After you write it,
809
00:48:47.199 --> 00:48:49.480
because saying it out loud it makes it suddenly feel
810
00:48:49.519 --> 00:48:54.039
real and a little bit more binding. And tie the
811
00:48:54.079 --> 00:48:57.400
went to something that already happens, so you're not trying
812
00:48:57.400 --> 00:48:59.559
to summon it out of thin air. So it's like
813
00:49:00.119 --> 00:49:03.039
after the coffee, after the school drop off, after the
814
00:49:03.079 --> 00:49:05.280
moment you sit down in your desk, hang it on
815
00:49:05.360 --> 00:49:08.880
a part of the day that's going to arrive, whether
816
00:49:08.920 --> 00:49:12.400
you think about it or not. And a move with
817
00:49:12.480 --> 00:49:16.280
a when and a ware is a move. A move
818
00:49:16.320 --> 00:49:21.599
without one is a wish. Step four scaffolded. If there's
819
00:49:21.679 --> 00:49:24.559
any way to do this, ask yourself, how do I
820
00:49:24.599 --> 00:49:26.920
make this not depend on my own willpower, which we
821
00:49:27.000 --> 00:49:32.039
have agreed is unreliable by the next moment you try
822
00:49:32.079 --> 00:49:35.119
and access it. Can you tell one person you're doing
823
00:49:35.159 --> 00:49:37.239
it so someone's watching. Can you put it in the
824
00:49:37.320 --> 00:49:40.119
calendar right now with an alert that goes off at
825
00:49:40.119 --> 00:49:43.760
the actual time. Can you set the thing out tonight
826
00:49:43.840 --> 00:49:46.960
so tomorrow you physically trip over it on the way
827
00:49:47.000 --> 00:49:51.400
to coffee, borrow a structure from anywhere that you possibly can.
828
00:49:51.559 --> 00:49:55.960
You are not cheating, you're building a wall that holds,
829
00:49:56.480 --> 00:50:00.760
and you don't need all of these right them roughly,
830
00:50:00.960 --> 00:50:04.199
I'd say, probably doubles your odds of the move actually happening.
831
00:50:04.239 --> 00:50:07.440
So pick whichever ones you could set up in the
832
00:50:07.480 --> 00:50:10.559
next sixty seconds and set it up. And step five,
833
00:50:11.400 --> 00:50:14.519
which is where you actually seal this, and got two
834
00:50:14.519 --> 00:50:17.360
ways to do it. Either one counts completely. Option one
835
00:50:18.360 --> 00:50:23.039
if you can make the first step right now, literally
836
00:50:23.280 --> 00:50:28.559
put me on pause, okay, genuinely pause, Then go ahead,
837
00:50:28.599 --> 00:50:30.960
send the text, put on the shoes, stand outside for
838
00:50:31.079 --> 00:50:34.559
two minutes, write the one ugly sentence. Do the smallest
839
00:50:34.559 --> 00:50:38.039
possible version of the thing this second. Because the moment
840
00:50:38.079 --> 00:50:40.920
you've done at once, it's no longer a plan, it's
841
00:50:41.000 --> 00:50:44.440
a thing you do, and you will have cross the
842
00:50:44.480 --> 00:50:48.079
only line that actually matters, the one between thinking about
843
00:50:48.119 --> 00:50:51.480
it and actually having begun. And I want to gently
844
00:50:51.519 --> 00:50:54.199
push you towards that option one, the doing it now
845
00:50:54.280 --> 00:50:57.840
if there is any way at all, because there's a
846
00:50:57.920 --> 00:51:00.199
version of this where you not along agree it's all
847
00:51:00.320 --> 00:51:03.599
very sensible. Feel a warm little glow of intention, and
848
00:51:03.639 --> 00:51:06.360
then drive home and let the day close over it
849
00:51:06.440 --> 00:51:10.960
like water. Right, I have been that person a hundred times,
850
00:51:11.000 --> 00:51:13.519
and I will be again. The glow of having understood
851
00:51:13.559 --> 00:51:17.039
something is not the same as having done it, and
852
00:51:17.079 --> 00:51:20.159
it fades a great deal faster. So if the move
853
00:51:20.199 --> 00:51:24.400
is something you can actually begin in the next sixty
854
00:51:24.480 --> 00:51:28.360
or one hundred and twenty seconds, begin it right. Let
855
00:51:28.400 --> 00:51:30.599
the rest of the episode be the soundtrack to your
856
00:51:30.639 --> 00:51:35.159
first rep. Here's option two. If right now genuinely just
857
00:51:35.239 --> 00:51:38.639
isn't the moment, and sometimes it isn't right, schedule it
858
00:51:39.039 --> 00:51:42.800
concretely before you do anything else, before you let this
859
00:51:42.880 --> 00:51:46.519
episode end and the days swallow it open the calendar,
860
00:51:47.360 --> 00:51:50.320
put in the when and the where we just built
861
00:51:50.679 --> 00:51:54.119
set the alert, not soon, not this week, a day
862
00:51:54.159 --> 00:51:57.679
and a time. Both of these count. The only thing
863
00:51:57.960 --> 00:52:01.440
that does not count. The only thing is I'll remember.
864
00:52:02.079 --> 00:52:04.920
You will not remember. None of us remembers. That's not
865
00:52:04.960 --> 00:52:08.519
a character flaw. It's just how the machinery works in
866
00:52:08.559 --> 00:52:11.079
a busy life, which is exactly why we put it
867
00:52:11.119 --> 00:52:14.159
somewhere other than just in our heads. So that's it.
868
00:52:14.880 --> 00:52:19.960
That's the move. Notice what it didn't require. It didn't
869
00:52:20.000 --> 00:52:23.679
require a plan, It didn't require you to become a
870
00:52:23.760 --> 00:52:28.199
different person first, or live in a different life. It
871
00:52:28.239 --> 00:52:31.320
required about ninety seconds and a decision to stop circling
872
00:52:31.360 --> 00:52:34.400
the runway and actually finally land the thing.
873
00:52:34.800 --> 00:52:35.400
Do the thing.
874
00:52:35.960 --> 00:52:39.519
And if some part of you is whispering that this
875
00:52:39.639 --> 00:52:41.679
is just too small to matter, that a ten minute
876
00:52:41.719 --> 00:52:45.199
walk or one sentence or one text cannot possibly add
877
00:52:45.280 --> 00:52:48.519
up to a different life, I understand the doubt. I
878
00:52:48.559 --> 00:52:53.119
have felt it, and I'm telling you plainly that is wrong.
879
00:52:54.000 --> 00:52:55.960
It is not the size of the move that does
880
00:52:56.000 --> 00:52:59.920
the work. It's the fact that it repeats small and repeat,
881
00:53:00.599 --> 00:53:06.719
beats big and abandoned every single time anyone has ever
882
00:53:06.800 --> 00:53:09.679
measured it right, the walk you actually take is worth
883
00:53:09.800 --> 00:53:15.000
infinitely more than the marathon your forever planning. You are
884
00:53:15.000 --> 00:53:18.840
now one rep, one move into the second half of
885
00:53:18.880 --> 00:53:22.400
your year. That is further than most people will get
886
00:53:22.440 --> 00:53:26.280
all summer, if not all year. So here's where I'll
887
00:53:26.320 --> 00:53:30.000
leave you, with both halves of this series now in
888
00:53:30.039 --> 00:53:33.320
your hands. Last time we looked, we put down the scorecard.
889
00:53:33.360 --> 00:53:36.000
We took an honest stock and kind of named the
890
00:53:36.039 --> 00:53:39.079
part of life that had been running low while we
891
00:53:39.079 --> 00:53:43.119
weren't watching. That was the honest, often invisible work of
892
00:53:43.280 --> 00:53:48.960
seeing more clearly. This time we moved right. We took
893
00:53:49.000 --> 00:53:51.480
that one honest thing and turned it into something small
894
00:53:51.519 --> 00:53:55.800
and repeatable that you can actually do starting today, And
895
00:53:55.840 --> 00:53:58.480
the thread running through both the thing that I most
896
00:53:58.519 --> 00:54:02.760
want you to keep, is this a good life in
897
00:54:02.840 --> 00:54:04.960
the second half of a year or the second half
898
00:54:05.000 --> 00:54:07.960
of anything. Is not built out of planets. It's built
899
00:54:08.000 --> 00:54:12.760
out of moves, small ones, repeated ones, pointed at the
900
00:54:12.760 --> 00:54:15.280
parts of your life that actually matter to you. The
901
00:54:15.320 --> 00:54:18.840
plan was never the thing. The plan was the procrastination
902
00:54:18.920 --> 00:54:23.280
we dressed up to look responsible. You were never short
903
00:54:23.360 --> 00:54:27.519
on ambition, and you weren't short on insight either. What
904
00:54:27.760 --> 00:54:30.559
was missing was permission to begin from exactly where you
905
00:54:30.599 --> 00:54:34.039
are in the middle of the year, a little tired,
906
00:54:34.360 --> 00:54:37.679
a little behind on the bright January version of yourself
907
00:54:37.800 --> 00:54:41.639
you'd half forgotten you promised, and to start anyway small
908
00:54:41.719 --> 00:54:46.599
today from here. Because here's the truth about the middle,
909
00:54:46.920 --> 00:54:48.519
and it's the thing I most want you to carry
910
00:54:48.519 --> 00:54:50.920
out of these two episodes. The middle is not a
911
00:54:50.960 --> 00:54:54.320
waiting room for some cleaner, better rested version of your
912
00:54:54.360 --> 00:54:59.280
life that begins in January. The middle is the life.
913
00:54:59.559 --> 00:55:03.440
It's where nearly all of it actually happens, and the
914
00:55:03.440 --> 00:55:06.880
only way through it that doesn't end in yet another
915
00:55:07.400 --> 00:55:12.239
year of sincere heartfelt completely unkept intentions is to stop
916
00:55:12.280 --> 00:55:15.679
planning the life that you'll live later and make one
917
00:55:15.719 --> 00:55:21.159
small move inside the life you're already living now. And
918
00:55:21.199 --> 00:55:24.320
if the last time you looked honestly and decided with
919
00:55:24.440 --> 00:55:26.920
open eyes that you carry a particular cost for this
920
00:55:27.000 --> 00:55:31.239
season because it genuinely matters to you, that still holds right.
921
00:55:31.280 --> 00:55:34.079
A move isn't a betrayal of that choice. A move
922
00:55:34.159 --> 00:55:38.280
is just one small refill that kind of keeps a chosen,
923
00:55:38.360 --> 00:55:43.239
hard season survivable even then, especially then you get to
924
00:55:43.239 --> 00:55:46.159
make one. So there is no part three to the
925
00:55:46.280 --> 00:55:48.800
series that are just you and a move, and the
926
00:55:48.880 --> 00:55:51.480
day you choose to make it, which I hope, I
927
00:55:51.639 --> 00:55:55.639
really hope is today, So ahead and make the move,
928
00:55:55.760 --> 00:55:59.079
and then make it again, miss one, and make the
929
00:55:59.119 --> 00:56:03.760
next one, if possible, never missed twice. That isn't a plan.
930
00:56:04.079 --> 00:56:08.679
That is a life kitting fuller and more live one
931
00:56:08.719 --> 00:56:13.960
small rep one small move at a time. So thanks
932
00:56:14.000 --> 00:56:15.719
so much for joining me in this two part summer
933
00:56:15.760 --> 00:56:19.599
reboot series. And if this series has a weakened something
934
00:56:19.639 --> 00:56:21.519
in you, it'd mean the world to me if you
935
00:56:21.599 --> 00:56:23.480
take just a few seconds to share it with a
936
00:56:23.519 --> 00:56:26.599
friend who could maybe use a gentle mediear reset too,
937
00:56:26.679 --> 00:56:29.480
or maybe give us a thumbs up or a review
938
00:56:29.719 --> 00:56:32.880
wherever you're engaging with this podcast, and he before you go.
939
00:56:33.039 --> 00:56:35.679
Next week, I am sitting down with an old friend,
940
00:56:35.800 --> 00:56:39.480
Jessica Ortner, to explore something that most people have never tried,
941
00:56:39.480 --> 00:56:42.679
that looks a little bit ridiculous at first to me,
942
00:56:43.519 --> 00:56:46.400
and that turns out to have a surprisingly serious body
943
00:56:46.440 --> 00:56:49.679
of research behind it. It's called tapping, and we're not
944
00:56:49.719 --> 00:56:51.559
going to sell it and we're not going to dismiss it.
945
00:56:51.599 --> 00:56:53.920
We're going to give it a genuinely honest look what
946
00:56:54.000 --> 00:56:56.519
the science does and doesn't support who it's actually is.
947
00:56:56.599 --> 00:56:59.480
Four and then Jessica is going to actually guide me
948
00:56:59.760 --> 00:57:03.239
and you through a real session live on the episode
949
00:57:03.480 --> 00:57:05.559
that you can follow along with in real time. So
950
00:57:05.639 --> 00:57:08.760
be sure to follow Good Life Project wherever you get
951
00:57:08.800 --> 00:57:11.280
your podcasts so you don't miss it. This episode of
952
00:57:11.280 --> 00:57:14.599
Good Light Project was produced by executive producers Lindsay Fox
953
00:57:14.599 --> 00:57:17.800
and me Jonathan Fields, editing help by Troy Young. Chris
954
00:57:17.880 --> 00:57:21.119
Carter crafted our theme music, and if you haven't already,
955
00:57:21.519 --> 00:57:23.599
go ahead and follow us wherever you get your podcasts,
956
00:57:23.599 --> 00:57:26.639
so you never miss a conversation. Until next time, I'm
957
00:57:26.719 --> 00:57:29.039
Jonathan Field signing off for good Light Project.