Build your Good Life Roadmap | New Beginnings Pt 1

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Episode Transcript:

Jonathan Fields: [00:00:02] So here’s my question for you. What would it take to make this year amazing? Even if you think that is totally impossible, a number of years ago, I found myself sitting at my desk. It was January 1st, and in front of me was a blank journal page. Actually, to be honest, it was a blank page in my notes app and in my heart a mix of excitement. And also, if I’m really being honest, overwhelm started to flood in. I just wanted this year to be, quote, the year. You know, the year I felt more alive, more connected, more aligned. Big things happening. But as I stared at that empty notes page, I had no idea where to start, even though I had a lot of things happening and in the mix. I didn’t know where to begin. I had been here before, setting lofty goals that oftentimes faded by March, or letting time slip by without direction, and having multiple projects that just kept compounding and compounding and overlapping. And all of a sudden, nothing that I really wanted to happen was happening, at least in the way and in the time that I wanted it to happen. So maybe that sounds familiar to you. That was the moment I realized I didn’t need to figure everything out all at once. I just needed a basic framework to guide me, and today I want to share that framework with you. So welcome to this January series.

Jonathan Fields: [00:01:35] It’s a special series on Good Life Project that we’re calling New Beginnings Redesigning Your Life in 2025. And each week this month, we’re going to explore together how to create a fresh, meaningful start, one step at a time. Today, we’re focusing on designing what I would call your personal roadmap for the year ahead based on a model. Really simple model, but a really cool and powerful model that we call the good life buckets. And this isn’t about overhauling your life overnight or chasing perfection. It’s about creating clarity. It’s about filling your buckets, your vitality bucket, your connection bucket, your contribution bucket. We’ll get into what those are, by the way. And it’s about making small, intentional choices, along with some bigger visions that really just align with the life you want to live. And by the end of this episode, and then the five-part series, you’ll have a clear, actionable plan to guide you through 2025. So if you’re ready, I am so excited to dive in and share this with you. I’m Jonathan Fields and this is Good Life Project.. So before we start looking forward. Let’s take a few moments to reflect on the year that we have just lived. It has been quite a year for so many of us, and reflection is so powerful because it reveals patterns, what fills our buckets, what drains them, and what really matters to us. Now, in a moment, I’m going to ask you to grab a notebook or open a notes app on your phone.

Jonathan Fields: [00:03:18] Whatever is really the easiest way for you to just jot down some thoughts. And I’m going to guide you through a short reflection exercise, and you’ll have time to do this fully after this episode. But for now, just listen and let these prompts kind of sink in. But before we get there, let’s take a few minutes to talk about a simple yet powerful model for a good life that I call the good Life buckets. So think of your life as being made up of three different buckets your vitality bucket, your connection bucket, and your contribution bucket. Now your vitality bucket. That’s all about the state of your mind and body. It’s about optimizing them, not around perfection, by the way, but just as good as they can be, as good as they can get, as high as they can be filled. Giving your unique life circumstances, your history and possibilities. Now your connection bucket. This is all about the depth and quality of your relationships. And we know through research that this is maybe the single most important factor in a life well lived. It’s about deep and meaningful connection with friends, with family, with chosen family. But it doesn’t stop there. It could also be about lovers or romantic partners, but it’s also important to note that the lack of these does not exclude you from feeling your connection bucket.

Jonathan Fields: [00:04:49] It’s also about connection to any and all beings. Now that could include dogs, cats, llamas, horses, bugs. Really, anything that makes you feel connected in a way that nourishes you. It can also mean your sense of connection to environments, to nature, to trees, earth, wind, water, fire. And if it’s a part of your belief system, a connection to something larger than you. Whether you call that the field, universe, God, or any other identifier, that’s less the issue. It’s more about just that felt sense of being connected to something bigger. And finally, filling your connection bucket is about being connected to yourself, something that so many of us have forgotten along the way. Knowing who you are, knowing what matters to you, knowing what is true for you and to you. And then finally, that brings us to your contribution bucket. Now many people equate this bucket with work. They kind of call it the work bucket. And when they say that, they often mean, well, it’s the thing I get paid to do my job. But it’s really bigger than that. It’s about how to contribute to the world, to those people, to those communities, cultures, environments and experiences all around you and within you. So sure, you may spend much of your time doing this through the vehicle of your job, or your own practice, or your own endeavor or business, if that’s your bent.

Jonathan Fields: [00:06:26] But it could also be a devotion, like being a primary caretaker, a companion or a volunteer, or anything else. Bigger picture. It’s about investing effort in a way that makes you feel truly alive and filling this bucket. It’s about doing things that give you a sense of meaning and purpose, a sense of energy and Excitement, ease and flow and that feeling like you’re you’re leveraging all that you have to offer your full potential. There’s nothing being left off to the side. And now here’s the deal. When all three buckets are full, your life is good. Like really good. When those buckets are topped off, your life is pretty amazing. When any one of your three good life buckets runs low, you start to feel the pain, maybe even start to suffer. When any two of your good life buckets run low, the pain worsens, the suffering broadens and deepens. And when all three run low, life in general just feels stunningly hard. And if all three entirely run out, then honestly, so do you. Now, this is important to know because all three buckets, they actually leak. It’s just the way it is not a good thing or a bad thing. It’s the nature of your good life. Buckets. They leak. So over time, if you don’t keep doing a little something to fill them on a regular basis, the natural process is for them to run dry.

Jonathan Fields: [00:08:01] They don’t just automatically refill themselves. And one other thing to know all three good luck buckets. They kind of speak to each other, they influence each other. And in fact, on any given moment, the height of your least full bucket will limit the capacity of your other two buckets. And this makes a lot of sense. I’ll give you an example. If your vitality bucket, let’s say, is a five out of ten, it’s half full or half empty, depending on whether you’re an optimist or a pessimist, you probably won’t have the energy or the focus or the mindset to be able to effectively then turn around and really fill your contribution bucket. You just won’t have the wellspring of vitality to draw upon. So it will always be capped and just never feel like you can contribute at the level that you want. Not because there’s something wrong with what you’re doing, but because you don’t have the vitality to make it happen. Similarly, it’ll make it harder, probably to show it fully in your relationships and keep you from feeling your connection bucket too. So the moral here is that you can’t ignore any one bucket for too long, or let it get too low because it’ll take down all of the buckets, not just that one. And along with them, the very life you want to live. So it’s not about saying, I’m just going to pour myself into work for the next decade of my life, or for this year, I’m going to make 2025 the big contribution year, and I’ll deal with the other two with vitality and relationships and connections.

Jonathan Fields: [00:09:41] You know, like, I can take care of that later. It doesn’t work that way. You can’t just let the other buckets go. It’s a practice of filling them all regularly, so the practice is to regularly check in with each bucket. I often do this once a week, assess where it is, how full or empty you can give it a score if you want. I often literally give it a score from 1 to 10 and then based on what you’re seeing, do a little something to keep topping off the buckets that are lower than you’d like. So those are the good life buckets. Now let’s drop back into that reflection exercise for 2024. So we can wrap up that year and start focusing on the new beginnings and build that roadmap for 2025 to be as effective and honest as possible. So take a moment now, and I want you to consider a few prompts. And again, you can just listen to this for now. And what we’ll do also with each episode in this series is we will include a little downloadable cheat sheet. You can find a link to be able to just download that for free in the show notes, so you can listen along, and then know that you’ll have kind of like a little mini cheat for this episode, so you don’t have to write all the stuff down that you can reflect on after we’re done for all the prompts.

Jonathan Fields: [00:11:10] So here we start at this moment. What is the level of each of your three good life buckets? Give them a score from one which is basically empty to ten, which is totally full, brimming over. No shame. By the way, no matter what your scores are, just remember we can change them. This is just a snapshot. It’s a moment in time and we can change it dramatically, often in a relatively short amount of time. When you really start caring about it, It’s just about being honest about where we’re beginning so we can see change over time. Great. Now let’s move on to some of the other prompts. So starting with your vitality bucket. What were the biggest wins in your vitality bucket and your physical and mental wellbeing in 2024 and the year that we’ve just closed the books on? Take a moment and just close your eyes and kind of reflect back. You can literally go month by month, if that helps. Kind of flipping through your calendar. Or you can go season by season, or just things immediately jump out to you and pop out and say, oh, I know right away. That’s totally cool too. Let’s move on to the next prompt.

Jonathan Fields: [00:12:23] What about your connection bucket? What about the relationships that brought you joy or growth? So note those. What were those? What were the biggest wins in the context of the relationships, the connections that brought you joy or growth and filled that connection bucket the most in the year behind us. And finally, the last prompt here, your contribution bucket work or activities that made you feel alive, purposeful and aligned. Right. Think about what were the big ones? What were the big bucket fillers in the year behind you for your contribution bucket? Now it’s all fun and games to kind of think about. Like what were the big wins here? The big bucket fillers are things that just fill them and made me feel just so alive and connected and vital. That’s important to note, but we also want to address the other side of this, you know, the drainers. Now think about where you felt drained or unfulfilled in each one of these three buckets too. What were the significant things that maybe led a little bit out of your vitality bucket, and then do the same thing for your connection bucket, same thing for your contribution bucket. Maybe in your vitality bucket, there was something going on with your state of mind or something happening in your health. It doesn’t matter whether this was in your control or not. Right now we just want to kind of identify it.

Jonathan Fields: [00:13:52] Maybe in your connection bucket, there’s a friendship that kind of just fell away. It wasn’t intentional, but you notice that if you’re really thinking about it, this friendship really mattered to you. When it’s being fed it, it truly does help fill your connection bucket. And you just didn’t pay as much attention to it. Or maybe just kind of organically fell away. Maybe in your contribution, you found yourself drifting from the type of work that truly nourishes you. So think about this in the context. What were the things, the significant things that drained each one of these buckets in the year behind us? And then one final question here as we just reflect on that year, what do you wish had been different? What do you wish had been different? What would you have made different had you been intentional and had the agency to do so in the moment. So take a moment to absorb what’s coming up for you. This reflection. It’s not about judging yourself, it’s just about learning. Once you’ve identified what’s worked and what didn’t, you can start making intentional changes. And that lets us turn the page now and step into our new beginnings road mapping process for this year to come. And we want to start out by setting intentions for 2025. So now that we’ve reflected, let’s set an intention for the year ahead. Now intentions are kind of like a compass. They guide your actions and help you stay aligned with what truly matters.

Jonathan Fields: [00:15:22] And there are a lot of different ways to set intentions or explore them. But here’s how we’re going to do this for each of your three good life buckets. Now you see why I wanted to lay out the buckets right up front, because we’re going to use these as a powerful model for everything that we’re doing here today. For each of your good life buckets, write one simple sentence that captures what you want to prioritize in the context of that bucket. In 2025. So I’ll give you some examples here. For example, in your vitality bucket, your intention might be I will nurture my energy and resilience by prioritizing rest and regular movement. Or maybe just one of those for your connection bucket. Maybe your intention is I will reconnect to my closest friend by spending more meaningful time with them. Maybe for your contribution bucket, I will focus on work that truly fuels my creativity and joy. So don’t overthink it too much. You know, we tend to to default to the analytical when we think about things like these. Like, let me make a list of pros and cons and let me make sure so literally let me really let me, let me think my way through this, let me rationalize my way through this. And it’s helpful. But honestly, once we start doing that, we tend to drift into, you know, like the domain of what we think our intentions should be, what is socially appropriate, what are we supposed to actually have as intentions for our connections, for our vitality and our contribution, rather than just taking a breath, getting a little bit quiet, pausing, forgetting about what anyone else wants for you, or you think you should be intending for the year to come.

Jonathan Fields: [00:17:14] Closing your eyes if you want, so you can tune up everyone else. And just sitting with and seeing what comes up for you in the context of my vitality bucket. What is my intention? What is my intention in the context of my connection bucket. What is my intention? Intuitively? What is coming up for me? What do I really, really want? And for my contribution bucket. Same thing. Right? This isn’t about anybody else. If you make this about expectations that are anyone’s but yours, the entire process falls apart. Because then again, we are spending the next year living into the expectations of somebody other than ourselves. And so many of us have spent so much of our lives already doing that. Isn’t it time to just leave that behind and step into the domain of you living into your own expectations and intentions? So take a beat if you want. You can literally hit pause and do this right now, or you can just circle back to it. You can download that little cheat sheet and walk through this after this particular episode.

Jonathan Fields: [00:18:29] So when you’re ready, we’ll move on to then building on this to start thinking about building your roadmap. And we’re going to break it down by each of the three buckets. We’ll take them one at a time. So now that you have a clear sense of what you want to prioritize intention wise, let’s take this one bucket at a time, starting with vitality. Because if your mind and body aren’t functioning in an optimal way, everything else becomes harder. And I think we have all experienced that. I know I have, especially probably over the last five years or so, there have been significant moments where my mind and my body and sometimes both together. And we know by the way, now that there is no separate mind and body. It’s a seamless feedback mechanism that there have been times where they’ve gone a little bit off the rails and it has really taken a hit on me. Um, so we’re going to start there with your vitality bucket. Now, remember your vitality bucket. It’s all about how you care for your physical and mental self, your energy, if you want. Imagine what it would feel like to just wake up every morning with a sense of strength and calm, a sense of ease, a sense of peace of mind, of being able to actually energetically, physically, psychologically, emotionally, spiritually. If that’s part of your belief system, move into your days feeling completely dialed in, ready to take on the day.

Jonathan Fields: [00:20:10] This is what your vitality bucket is about. So here’s what I want you to do. Pick one small habit to build in the first quarter of 2025. Maybe it’s going for a ten-minute walk after lunch or drinking a glass of water when you wake up. Turning off your devices 30 minutes before bed really can be simple. And by the way, in part four of this five-part series, we’re going to talk in detail about creating life-changing habits and how to actually do this. So be sure you followed Good Life Project., so you’re not going to miss any of those key episodes in this five-part series. Right? Maybe you’re going to schedule a weekly renewal time for activities that recharge you like yoga or reading or a nature walk. Protect this time as sacred. So we want to just think about this, you know, and really consider what would it be for me if I think about the first quarter of 2025, and we’re not even going to plan out the whole year right now, because oftentimes I think that feels so intangible and impossible. And in a world where it feels like things are changing so rapidly, it feels like a year can be a timeline that almost nobody can actually effectively anticipate or make happen. So we’re going to focus on quarters here, at least for now.

Jonathan Fields: [00:21:34] And the rest of the series, by the way, we’ve got really cool insights on goal achievement, on habits, on confidence, and not forsaking the moments and the days as we move into and make this roadmap happen. So another example, let’s say when we’re focusing on the vitality bucket here, I remember someone once telling me about how they started their mornings with five minutes of stretching and deep breathing and that tiny habit, tiny little habit, literally five minutes. You think to yourself, how could five minutes make a difference? That tiny habit transformed the energy, and it led them to build more positive habits over time, which called often habit stacking. Because once you do one little thing, then over time you start to see yourself as I’m the type of person who does X right? And it starts to shift, Not your your behavior, but your sense of identity. And once that identity starts to shift, then all these other habits start to become much more native to us. And we’ll talk about that a lot more in our habits episode. Small shifts create big changes. So for me, one of the things this year was, or last year actually, I wanted to spend more time in nature hiking. I am just stunningly fortunate to, for the last four years now live in Boulder, Colorado, um, where I have incredible access to nature to trails literally minutes out my front door.

Jonathan Fields: [00:22:59] Interestingly enough, in the early days, especially here, I wasn’t taking advantage of it nearly as much as I could have. And you would think. But it’s literally right there. Dude, what is wrong with you? I mean, you live in a place where it’s stunningly beautiful. You have incredible access to nature. People literally travel from around the world to come and do nature where you are, and you’re sitting at your desk in your studio, just kind of like jamming. And I started asking myself the exact same question. I was like, this is a little bit nutty. So and especially because I love nature, but I had to remind myself of that and how important it was and how it made me feel. So last year, one of my intentions and one of my sort of like Q one things that became something that continued through the whole year was to simply spend more time in nature last year. And that showed up as a commitment to hiking. Um, and the commitment was to hiking at least three days a week. Now, for me, that ended up when I, I, um, tracked this on some of my various apps. Um, I ended up hiking and almost doubling my steps in nature across not just the first quarter. And by the way, the first quarter of the year is winter here in the mountains. So there’s a little, you know, often a lot of snow.

Jonathan Fields: [00:24:18] Um, but I was still getting out there and just loving it and enjoying it. So again, we’ll talk a lot more about how to actually create these changes in different ways throughout the month, large and small, over the course of this series. So be sure you’re following Good Life Project. so you don’t miss any of those episodes in the series. But this is really just about we’re doing the road mapping exercise here. We’re thinking about the first quarter of 2025 and breaking it down in terms of the buckets and simple behaviors that we want to make happen. And we’ll be right back after a word from our sponsors. So let’s move on then to the second bucket, your connection bucket. This is all about nurturing your relationships. Our relationships are literally the heart of a good life. We have had so many folks on the podcast over the last. I can’t believe this is going on 14 years now that we have been doing this good life project thing and researchers, scientists who have gone deep into the science of flourishing and living a good life. And so many of them have shown that the data tells us that relationships, um, and it doesn’t have to be tons of relationships, but genuine, deep, honest relationships are such a critical part of a life well lived. So how can you either begin new ones or deepen the ones that matter most in 2025? That’s what we’re going to look at in terms of starting to do things in the first quarter of 2025 that fill your connection bucket.

Jonathan Fields: [00:25:55] So create a little bit of a connection calendar for Q1, Q1 being, you know, like BizTalk for the first quarter of 2025, right? So January to March and here’s what I would invite you to do. Schedule one action each week to nurture one relationship. Maybe it’s a phone call. Maybe it’s a handwritten note or a coffee date. Maybe it’s literally just a text saying, hey, I was thinking about you. How are you? When you’re with folks, focus on active listening. Choose one person you want to show up for more fully in the first quarter of this year to come. When you’re with them, practice asking open ended questions and reflecting back what they say, right? So it’s a matter of first. Every week, schedule one way to connect with somebody that you care about. It can be reconnecting with somebody who is already in your orbit, or maybe attending a dinner to meet somebody new. Um, but it’s basically one simple connection practice on a weekly basis. So that’s over a three-month period we’re talking about just 12 times, literally 12 moments of connection over three months. You can do that. I can do that. We can all do that, right? There’s kind of no excuse not to be able to do that.

Jonathan Fields: [00:27:19] And when you do it, don’t just tag them and say, okay, connected. Got my like, check that box. I got one out of 12 and now two out of 12 and now three out of 12. Actually set aside the time and your attention, what we call exquisite attention, to be deeply present for that other person during the time that you’re with them. Then that may just be ten minutes and that’s fine. But make that ten minutes, ten minutes where you’re truly there, you’re invested in the in the conversation, in the interaction, in the person. Listen, ask questions and be there for them. So I remember somebody once sharing how they created a family game night as, as a way to actually do this. And it was really fun tradition. And literally like once a week, um, they started just having their families sit down. It was after dinner. Um, and oftentimes dinner doesn’t happen as a family these days for so many people because life is just, like, crazy busy. Um, but they did it in a way where they said, okay, so literally one night a week, this is our commitment. We’re going to do this. Um, and they had a family game night. And, and, you know, different people could pick the game. And it was transformative. You know, that simple act became a pillar of joy and togetherness. Um, for me, over the last year, we have instituted a couple of different mechanisms for this.

Jonathan Fields: [00:28:42] I’ll give you some more examples to just kind of seed some ideas for you as you’re thinking about. Okay, so what are some of the things I might do for my connection bucket. Um, we started doing Sunday morning check ins with my wife Stephanie and I, where we would literally use the Good Life buckets as a check in mechanism for each of us, where we basically sit there, um, and we have a cup of coffee with us and we say, okay, so, you know, like, tell me about your vitality bucket. How has it been this week? And then we’d each share and then tell me about your connection bucket. Has it been this week? And we do share and your contribution about how we need to share. There was a beautiful moment of connection. Sometimes it would end up going hours because we had a lot to talk about, and it was so incredible to be able to actually create that time to do it. Sometimes it was just a few minutes to just, you know, there wasn’t a whole lot going on and things were really pretty okay. But it was the regular mechanism knowing that we were going to do this once a week. Um, that has become so powerful for both of us. So I also have my own thing that I’ve been doing pretty regularly, which is, um, committing to just seeing a friend in person on a weekly basis.

Jonathan Fields: [00:29:50] I find that being in person with people, it’s just a very different experience. I’d love to be physically present with my good friends, my chosen family. Right? Um, it makes a real difference for me. And I find that, um, it makes a much bigger difference than being in contact by, you know, like video call or by phone. I still do that on a regular basis. And I love it, especially she gives. A lot of my friends are all over the world these days, but being physically present with somebody and where I am, it’s often over coffee. More often it’s actually hiking in the mountains. So literally being physically present with a good friend in nature, as we’re moving our bodies for anywhere from an hour and a half to a couple of hours, is just a beautiful way to both fill our vitality buckets and connection buckets simultaneously. And that brings us to the contribution bucket, right? So remember, what we’re doing here is we set just really, really basic core intentions for each of the three buckets. And now we’re going bucket by bucket. And we’re thinking about okay. So for the first quarter of 2025 what are some simple things that we can do on a repeated basis to fill this bucket. Right. And we’re talking about pretty simple straightforward things right here in upcoming episodes in this series.

Jonathan Fields: [00:31:08] By the way. We’re going to talk about some really cool big things that are potentially going to take the better part of a year also, and build a different aspect of this roadmap. But here we’re just kind of keeping it simple to get you going, because I don’t want this to feel overwhelming to you in any way. We’re talking about things that anybody can do using this simple model of the good life buckets, because it just kind of helps create clarity around where we’re investing our energy. Okay. So the contribution bucket, this is about aligning your work with your purpose and work defined really broadly. Contribution is about doing work or activities or investing yourself in your energy in a way that lights you up. So what would it look like to end the first quarter of this year and eventually the entire year? Feeling proud of what you built or how you’ve showed up more fully, how you’ve said yes to more activities that let the real you take the lead or contribute to the lives of people or communities environments that you genuinely care about. So we found over time that one of the single most powerful ways to do this is through the vehicle of what we call the Sparketypes. This is a different body of work that we’ve been developing for about 6 or 7 years now, where we’ve identified a set of fundamental impulses that exist for all people, where when you invest effort or energy in alignment with these impulses, it gives you the feeling of meaningfulness and purpose and energy and excitement and losing time to flow and feeling like you’re being fully expressed.

Jonathan Fields: [00:32:51] And in 2018, we actually developed and released an assessment called the Sparketype assessment that you can take. We’ll drop a link to that if you want to take it in the show notes. That will tell you what your Sparketype is or your Sparketype profile, you get three different elements of your Sparketype, and it can be incredibly helpful in understanding how to fill your contribution bucket because it helps you understand how do I invest myself? How do I exert energy and effort in a way that doesn’t just make a difference for others, but gives me that feeling that I so deeply want to feel meaning, purpose, mattering, joy, possibility, energy, excitement, all those things, right? So if you haven’t taken the assessment yet, by the way, go ahead and click the link. You don’t have to do it right now, but at least at the end of this episode, please go do that. It’s available online. Anybody can do it. And you will discover your Sparketype assessment. And, um, for a lot of people, the response is it’s somewhere between profound validation and a revelation. And I think it’ll be incredibly helpful for you in understanding what actions to take to fill your contribution bucket, not just for the first quarter of 2025, but the second and third and then literally your entire life after that.

Jonathan Fields: [00:34:10] So let’s talk about some action steps, some prompts here. What I’d love you to do. Um, again, opening move here. Take the Sparketype assessment. Discover your Sparketype profile if you haven’t yet done that. After that, take a couple of moments and see if you can identify one meaningful project for the first quarter or the first half of the year. If that’s more realistic for you, something that aligns with your Sparketype, um, and lets you center that type of work in what you’re doing. Then take a little bit more time and see if you can map out the skills or resources that you’ll need to create a plan to access these, whether it’s taking a class or connecting with a mentor. Or maybe these are skills that you already have. We actually have a name for this when you actually have a certain set of skills that are well aligned with your Sparketype that sort of like you’re really good at something that also makes you come alive. We call these your SPARKED super skills. So see if you can tease those out. And if you feel like you actually don’t have a ton of skills in domains that would be well aligned with your Sparketype, that may be an incredible sign to or an invitation for you to say huh? Like, I wonder what it would be like to explore acquiring some of these skills to actually start to do some work, to get good at the type of thing that makes me come alive.

Jonathan Fields: [00:35:42] Because maybe your job isn’t actually that thing, or it’s not giving it to you, but you’d like to find yourself transitioning into something that is much more enlivening, and you want to feel confident and competent and good at it. So explore these ideas along the way as you’re doing this, as you’re exploring, right? Identifying something that might be, um, you know, a, a meaningful project for the first half of the year that aligns well with your Sparketypes, that lets you center them and invest yourself that way, and maybe build skills and competence around it. Also, don’t forget celebrate the small wins. So what I want you to do is, is think about what is a a really simple reward system for hitting milestones, like finishing a project or learning a new skill. By the way, in next week’s, um, New Beginnings episode, it will be the second episode in this series. We’re going to give you an astonishingly powerful framework to do just that for goal achievement, large and small. That’s pretty unique and really designed to fit, um, real life. So I remember somebody actually coming to me not too long ago who felt really stuck in their corporate job, started carving out literally just 20 minutes a day to write Because they felt like their, um, their Sparketype actually was the maker, which is all about making ideas manifest, which happens to be my primary Sparketype as well.

Jonathan Fields: [00:37:10] And they had a real bent in doing that through the vehicle of writing, but it just wasn’t a meaningful part of their, quote, day job. But they wanted to actually make it a meaningful part of their lives, whether it ever was the thing they got paid to do or not. They just knew that. It gave them a feeling that was so good that they wanted to be doing it on a regular basis. So they literally just decided to carve out 20 minutes a day to write. By the end of the year, they’d actually launched, um, an entire website. Um, that eventually became something much more substantial, you know, and it deeply aligned with who they were. For me, last year was a really interesting year in this context, in the contribution bucket context, you know, I started something that I call my two by 20. So I hit 58 the year before actually. And, you know, spitting distance from 60. And I had this sense that, um, that when I had that big milestone birthday a couple years in the future that I was going to want to transition into a next season of contribution. And I started looking at what I was doing, and I started saying to myself, really assessing and saying, okay, some of this, I love some of it.

Jonathan Fields: [00:38:27] It’s fine, but not so much. And I started asking myself, what do I want to bring forward? What do I want to leave behind? But maybe also what do I want to keep but change in some meaningful way? And what might I want to start or build that is entirely new, that might help define this next substantial season of contribution, which I kind of look at as my 20, my, my, you know, 20-year window between like 60 plus, however long I’m fortunate enough to keep contributing in a meaningful way. So I asked this critical question what can I learn, do, or build over the next two years that would allow me to center significance, simplicity, and joy in the next 20 years of contribution and also of life. Now, for me, the two by 22 years of experimentation to set up the next 20 that worked for me. It made sense for me. For you, it might be one year and three years, or one year and five years or ten years. Whatever feels good to you. But the framework has been incredibly powerful because it allowed me to start running experiments. In fact, I did an entire podcast a few months back about the two by 20 framework, how I choose and evaluate experiments, how I structure it, how I think about it.

Jonathan Fields: [00:39:46] So we’ll include a link to that in the show notes if you want to listen in. And if you’re moving into a window that feels like a window of meaningful transition, especially in the contribution bucket or your work. I absolutely implore you. I think it will be incredibly eye-opening and give you some structure around how to do this in a bigger-picture way. So these are just some examples of ideas of how to potentially explore filling your contribution bucket. Right. So let’s let’s kind of zoom the lens out a little bit here and and and bring it all together, um, into a bit more of a coherent, clear roadmap and vision for your year. And this is where you know, you’re going to do some thinking, some feeling and some writing. And the exercise here, the invitation is to start to write out your roadmap, and we’ll be right back after a word from our sponsors. So think about this on a single page. Now if you have if you’re doing this online or if you’re using a notes app, I’m not entirely sure what the definition of a single page is going to be there. But, um, it shouldn’t be mad long. It should be detailed, but also not, you know, this should not be a short story that is 20 pages, a couple pages at the most. So think about it as a single page, a couple pages at the most.

Jonathan Fields: [00:41:11] And you can start out by writing your one-sentence intention for each bucket. Remember we started out this conversation by doing that, right? So you start out with that simple sentence, what is my single intention for the year to come for this bucket? Then we’re going to move into for each one of your three buckets, vitality connection contribution. What is your Q1 or first quarter focus. Right. And we just walk through how to think about the focus on a sort of a quarterly basis for each one of these. Again, it’s a small enough chunk of time so that it feels doable, but it’s big enough so that you can experience real change. You can really you can move the needle in each one of these buckets. You can meaningfully fill each one of them by committing to doing something, to taking action. Um, now, here’s what I want you to add to this. When we’re doing this writing exercise. Right, I want you to then think about quarters 2 to 4. Right. So we kind of started out with the January to March. Now go March to June and then go through the third quarter and then go through the fourth quarter, all four seasons, if that’s easier for you, more poetic. Right? Less business y, less Q1 to Q4 and more poetic. Think about the seasons of the year.

Jonathan Fields: [00:42:33] Right? So for each season, think about okay, so what is my simple intention? What is my first season or Q1 focus? That thing where it’s just for the next three months and now if I can imagine out, you know, even farther, you know, I’m going out through the next three seasons or, you know, Q2 to four. Um, what would be the the focuses of those? When I think about each one of the three buckets, if I think about the context of a whole year, still, I want you to keep it simple and actionable, because if you start to make it really complex, it’s just not going to happen. This we know from tons of research. So now we’re going to take this writing, and we’re going to turn it into some guided visioning for 2025. So here’s what I want you to do. Once you’ve done this exercise and again you can circle back to this. And then you can replay this part of this episode if you want. Now take a nice big breath in and exhale. Settle in, settle into your seat and take a few breaths and just let your body settle. Let your mind settle. Close your eyes. And now I want you to imagine. It’s December 31st, 2025. Your vitality bucket is just brimming over. It is fuller than full. Your connection bucket is overflowing. It is just completely rich with abundance. Your contribution bucket is absolutely topped off, right? You feel alive.

Jonathan Fields: [00:44:28] You feel centered. You feel at peace. You feel strong. You feel resilient. You feel flexible and fluid. You feel deeply connected to people, to cultures, to environments, to beings that genuinely matter to you. You feel like you’re investing your own energy yourself in a way that Truly brings you to life. You feel alive and connected and aligned. Picture now the details. Not just the buckets, but the details in each context. Who’s with you? What are you doing? How do you feel? Where are you? The more detail, the better. Bring movement to it. Bring emotion to it. Bring senses to it. What does it smell like? What does it sound like? What does it look like? What does it taste like? What does it feel like? December 31st. Every bucket is just exploding with abundance. Detail it as much as you can, and then just take a moment to savor that vision. Now open your eyes and write down as much of that as you can remember. If it’s easier for you to just take a voice memo and just speak it all, that’s fine too. Whatever mode is accessible to you, access that and record as much of this vision as you can. Now we’re going to get a little bit more granular here. For each bucket, write a short paragraph or speak a short paragraph. Again, whatever is accessible to you describing what full looks like in 2025.

Jonathan Fields: [00:46:35] For example, it can be really simple here in my vitality bucket, right? I wake up each day feeling strong and calm At peace centered, focused, hopeful, filled with possibility, fueled by daily movement emerging in nature and good food and good sleep and my connection bucket. I’m picturing myself with just a deep, rich, strong relationships. Deep and joyful relationships with my wife, with my daughter, with my family, with my chosen family, with my friends, with my environment around me. Build on time. Rich time. Deeply present. Exquisitely attentive time together. Same thing for my connection bucket. I can envision myself just pouring myself into work each day for me, I happen to know that writing is something that I want to take an even bigger place in my life in the year to come and moving into a different type of writing. So I see myself doing that a couple of hours every day, and then making some of those shifts, moving through my two by 20, starting some new things which are starting to bubble up now. And I’m getting so excited about actually breathing life into them in the year to come. And I’m picturing myself, you know, December 31st, 2025, and the state of those things in the context of my contribution bucket and how amazing and gorgeous and rich and full and abundant they feel to me. And that feels good. It feels good.

Jonathan Fields: [00:48:23] So we want to have this now, final word as you’re thinking about this here, you may not have absolute clarity on the details of these visions now. In fact, you almost definitely won’t. And that is 100% okay if you don’t know exactly what you’re going to be working on, who you’re going to be deepening into, or exactly what parts of your vitality you want to feel differently on, simply get a vision around the qualities of those things. I want to feel loved and deeply connected and like there are people where if I’m struggling or if I’m celebrating, I have people that I can pick up the phone that I can hug, that I can reach out to just know the general qualities of what that feels like when that bucket is full. We don’t have to have all the details now. That’s okay, right? But create a vision. Make it as visceral, as sensory as you can, both generally. And then for each individual bucket. And again we’ll have these instructions in a cheat sheet for you. So you can go back to it after this particular episode. So as we wrap up this first episode, remember that your roadmap, this this new beginnings roadmap centered around the good life buckets. It is not about perfection. It’s about direction. It’s about creating a life where your buckets are fuller, your days are more joyful, and your actions align with what matters most to you.

Jonathan Fields: [00:50:02] So take maybe 30 minutes this week if you want to go longer, that’s totally fine. But set aside just a half hour out of your entire week to complete the ideas, the invitations that we’ve shared today. And then, if you’re inclined, if you feel good about it, share it with someone you trust and revisit it regularly to stay aligned and inspired. Now, in the next four parts of this five part New Beginning series, we’re going to dive into a lot more detail on how to actually make these things happen. Big picture, big grand things and little picture. Tiny day to day habit things. We’ll explore a game changing approach to choosing and achieving big, meaningful goals and visions. We’ll talk about building the confidence to take action and make them happen. We’ll talk about how to identify those habits that will actually help you fill each bucket and make both every day feel better and the bigger vision happen. And how to actually make those habits a regular part of your life. And then we’ll wrap this five part New Beginning series with a deep dive on how to be present and intentional in all the tiny moments and the hours and the days, and how to savor them along the way, rather than sacrificing them in the name of something bigger, and forgetting that all the touch points along the way are equally, if not more, important.

Jonathan Fields: [00:51:37] So if you haven’t already followed Good Life Project. in your preferred place to listen or watch, go ahead and do that now so you don’t miss any one of these critical episodes in the five part New Beginnings series. The best version of 2025 is waiting for you, and together we’re going to craft it so that it becomes your reality. Let’s make it extraordinary. One step, one choice. One day at a time. Thanks. This episode of Good Life Project. was produced by executive producers Lindsey Fox and me, Jonathan Fields. Editing help By Alejandro Ramirez. Kristoffer Carter crafted our theme music and special thanks to Shelley Adelle for her research on this episode. And of course, if you haven’t already done so, please go ahead and follow Good Life Project. in your favorite listening app. And if you found this conversation interesting or inspiring or valuable, and chances are you did. Since you’re still listening here, would you do me a personal favor? A seven second favor and share it? Maybe on social or by text or by email? Even just with one person? Just copy the link from the app you’re using and tell those you know, those you love, those you want to help navigate this thing called life a little better so we can all do it better together with more ease and more joy. Tell them to listen, then even invite them to talk about what you’ve both discovered. Because when podcasts become conversations and conversations become action, that’s how we all come alive together. Until next time, I’m Jonathan Fields signing off for Good Life Project..