Good Life Project - How to Make Every Moment Count (Without Changing Your Whole Life!) | New Beginnings Pt 5

Episode Date: January 30, 2025

As part of our New Beginnings series, unlock the secrets to savoring the beauty in every ordinary moment.In this insightful culminating episode, Jonathan shares a powerful roadmap for crafting days overflowing with presence, purpose and joy. Discover transformative yet simple practices like mindful check-ins, designing your day with intention, finding delight in creativity, and starting/ending with gratitude. Learn how establishing these intentional daily rhythms can help you experience the extraordinary in the seemingly mundane - making 2025 your most present, meaningful year yet.Episode TranscriptIf you LOVED this episode:You can find the 1-page worksheet HERE.Find all of the New Beginnings: Redesigning Your Life in 2025 episodes.Check out our offerings & partners: Join My New Writing Project: Awake at the WheelVisit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey, so welcome back to Good Life Project and the fifth and final episode of our January series, New Beginnings Redesigning a Life in 2025. So over the past few weeks, we have been on a journey together, a journey to create a year that just feels meaningful and aligned and alive. And we started by creating a roadmap for 2025 with a focus on the good life buckets, setting intentions, and giving you a kind of big picture vision for the year ahead. Then we zoomed in to focus on bold, inspiring goals and aspirations and tapping the power of what I call success scaffolding as a framework to make incredible things happen, especially things you've

wanted to happen for a long time, but could never figure out how to wrap your head around actually making them real. Then we explored how to build the confidence to pursue your dreams, and we talked about cultivating five specific simple and accessible good life habits. But here's the thing. Life isn't just about the big things, the big goals, the big moments or the inner chatter or things that you do repeatedly every day. They all matter, yes, they all help. But most of life happens in the little everyday moments, the conversations, the routines,

the way we show up for ourselves and others. As Andy Dillard wrote in The Writing Life, how we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour and that one is what we are doing. That is why today's fifth and final episode in our New Beginnings series is so important and also really personal to me. It's about bringing it all home by focusing on how you experience each moment, each day. It's about the power of not foreseeking the gifts of smaller moments in the name of always focusing on the bigger and better and longer term aspirations.

And by the end of this episode, you will have a powerful set of reframes along with a set of tools to design your days with intention and purpose, really helping you savor the small moments, find meaning in the ordinary, and truly make every moment and every day matter. Because when you make your days matter, you make your life matter. So grab a notebook. There's going to be a lot coming your way in this episode. Settle in and let's explore how to create a daily life that feels just rich and joyful and aligned with what truly matters to you.

And remember, just like all four earlier episodes in this series, we'll include a link to download your one-page digest or cheat sheet for this episode in the show notes. And if you haven't listened to the prior four episodes in this series, do yourself a favor. Be sure to scroll down into wherever you're actually engaging with this podcast, whatever your favorite app is, and download those episodes so you can get the full benefit of this month long new beginning series

and redesign your life in 2025. So excited to dive in. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this your life in 2025. So excited to dive in. I'm Jonathan Fields and this is Good Life Project. At Algoma University, your future has no limits. Here, you can go further in the classroom, in the field and well beyond. We provide personalized education, cultural fluency, and training for in-demand careers.

We don't just prepare you for the future. We prepare you to change it. Plus, Algoma has the most affordable tuition in Ontario. Make the most of your university experience. Go further. Apply to Algoma University today. Good Life Project is supported by Audible. So this year, why not let Audible expand your life by listening? You can explore audiobooks and podcasts and exclusive Audible originals that will inspire and motivate you. Just open the app and tap into your wellbeing with advice and insight

from leading influencers and experts and professionals. Whatever your focus or interest, there's a listen for it on Audible. You'll find titles on better health, including personal fitness, nutrition, relationships, and relaxation. Maybe explore new career strategies or reimagine your financial life. I recently listened to No Bad Parts by Richard Schwartz and just learned so much about my different parts and how they affect me. Ultimately, it's all about starting good habits. Making a positive change is the best resolution you can make for yourself and Audible can

help. There is so much opportunity and more to imagine when you listen. Let Audible help you reach the goals you set for yourself. Start listening today when you sign up for a free 30-day trial at audible.ca. Okay, so let's start with the foundation of a meaningful day. Presence. Presence is the ability to be fully here, to be fully engaged and fully alive in the moment. It's about noticing the world around you and the experiences within you rather than just rushing past them or letting your mind wander or get lost in trance elsewhere. So why does presence matter? When we are truly present, life just feels more vivid,

more real, more alive. We notice the way the sunlight dances through the trees, the warmth of a friend's smile, or the satisfaction of just completing a task well. Presence turns ordinary moments into extraordinary ones. Without it, even the most joyful experiences can feel hollow, like we're just going through the moments without really living. I see this all the time. I have lived this so many times. I'm just like you, still trying to figure it out and get through.

Like when you're in a concert or a performance and we're just so caught up in trying to capture and share it that we're not really even enjoying it. Like we just want to get it onto our device so we can share it with others. Or maybe you're outside at sunset and the clouds just look majestic and there's that magical stillness in the air and yet your head is buried in your phone. You might as well be in a closed cell without windows. Or when you're with your kid or partner and your head is just completely somewhere else,

spinning about the past or fretting about the future. We have these amazing opportunities all around us, all the time, to experience beauty and peace and grace and connection. But we miss them or sometimes even actively ignore them all too often in the name of things that don't matter to us at all, like oh, maybe the videos that you might be scrolling through right now as you listen to this rather than just relaxing into the conversation or your breath

or your body or nature or the moment and letting it land. And I am as guilty of this as the next person. Thing is, present isn't easy in today's world. Between phones and notifications, endless to-do lists, constant demands on our attention. It is just so easy to get stuck in autopilot mode, just moving from one task to the next. The good news is that presence is a skill that you can cultivate. Anyone can cultivate it. And the more you practice, the more natural it becomes. It's just the way you are, your default state. So I want to start out by

sharing five simple strategies for cultivating presence. Then we're going to build on this and keep building on this and keep building on this. And you'll see we're going to have a pretty extensive roadmap to presence by the end of this conversation today. So let's start out with those five simple strategies for cultivating presence. Number one, start with mindful check-ins. So take a moment at the start of each day to pause and ask yourself a few things.

How do I want to show up today? Who or what do I want to give my attention to? Two simple questions, right? But setting this intention, especially first thing in the morning, it just helps you approach the day with greater awareness. Example here, before a busy work day, you might decide to focus on being fully present during a particular meeting rather than multitasking or thinking about the next task. We're just devoting our energy to whoever's in front of you rather than switch tasking.

Okay, so that's number one. Number two on the sort of simple strategies for presence, huge grounding practices. So throughout the day, take three deep breaths. Notice the sensations in your body and the environment around you. This seems absurdly simple. How could it do anything? And yet, it does. These three simple breaths affect not only our physiology, but our psychology. It's a simple practice that

can bring you back to the present moment, especially when you're feeling kind of scattered or distracted, which brings us to number three of our simple presence and strategies. Limit distractions. Set boundaries around, oh, for example, technology, since that seems to be the biggest one for most of us. For example, try turning off notifications during meals or designating phone-free times or zones in the evening. This simple practice creates

space for deeper presence and connection. Number four, set awareness or presence triggers. So I love this one. Using your phone, open your alarm or time-wrap. Now for every waking hour or so, set a vibration alert to go off. This is just going to take a couple of minutes even though you may be setting you know 15 or 16 of those. Choose a pattern for the vibration where you know what it's related to when you feel it and then whenever you feel that go off throughout the day here's what you do. Pause for just a beat. Notice your surroundings. Notice who you're with. Notice whether you're

giving them or the moment your full attention. Notice if you're honoring your morning intention about how you wanted to show yourself today and what you wanted to give your attention to. Notice whether your attention is inward and either spinning about the future or fretting about the past or if it's just comfortably present to what's unfolding in the moment. Then, without judging yourself, if you're not here now or honoring where your intention about your presence for today is, take a deep breath in. Then as you exhale, just let go of the distraction and the spin.

Let go of wherever your attention is not that you want it to be and come back into the present moment. This may sound like a lot, but it literally takes about 15 or 20 seconds. And with your automatic alert set, you don't have to remember to do anything. We're pretty much just subverting tech as a tool

to make you more present and help you honor what matters most with your attention. And here's a cool thing. Over time, it'll just start to become a regular part of how you move through each day. And you'll start to become so much more present and engaged with all those tiny moments and possibilities you've been distracted from.

The impact on your work, on your relationships, and your state of mind and well-being can be really profound from this simple little strategy. That brings us to simple strategy number five here. I call it seven days one thing. For the next week, choose a single activity, simple activity, like drinking your morning coffee, walking your dog or cat if you walk your cat, or ocelot or whoever it is, whatever you walk, or brushing your teeth, or whatever it is that you do, a simple thing, and commit to doing it mindfully.

Pay attention to the sights, the sounds, the feelings in that moment. Do not do it with your hand in one device and the rest of your mind doing something else. At the end of the week, reflect on how this practice changed your experience. I remember one morning sitting outside with my coffee. I was on my front porch just kind of watching the sunrise. I was up really early. It was warmer out and normally I would got to be scrolling through emails or planning my day. That morning I just decided to sit and be present and I noticed these gorgeous colors in the sky, this gorgeous ambering orange, the warmth of the mug in my hands, the stillness of the

air. It was such a simple moment, but it filled me with a sense of peace and gratitude and ease. Those little moments are so often where life unfolds. And once we started to tap into these simple strategies to cultivate more moment to moment presence, now we can move to the next step, designing our days with intention. So let's step into that second exploration here. How do we then design our days with intention to be more present? So if presence is about how we experience each moment, intentionality is about how we

shape those moments. Designing your days with intention means creating space for what truly matters. Your priorities, your values, your sparketype, if that's something that you're deep into, obviously that's something that I care about deeply, like the type of work that lights me up. And the things that bring you joy. It's not about filling every second with productivity or having a perfect schedule. It's about aligning your days with the life you want to live. So let's explore three powerful strategies

for designing your days with intention. Clarifying your priorities, creating daily anchors and using time blocking to focus on what matters most. We'll start out with clarifying your priorities, creating daily anchors, and using time blocking to focus on what matters most. We'll start out with clarifying your priorities. So the first step to designing your day with intention is understanding what matters most to you. Without clarity, it's easy for your time to be consumed by distractions, obligations, or just tasks that don't truly align with who you are and what matters to you. Your days are a reflection of your priorities.

Whether they're chosen intentionally or just by default, they are chosen. So when you know your priorities, what matters most to you, you can consciously shape your time around them rather than letting life just happen to you or sometimes at you on blast speed. So here are some questions to explore here. What do I want to experience more of in my days? What activities, relationships, or ways of being bring me the most meaning or joy? What aligns with my values or the vision that I have for my life in this moment or season? So take a moment to reflect on these questions. Write down three priorities for this moment or season of

your life. These could be relationships, personal growth, creative pursuits, health, anything else really that feels meaningful to you. Remember someone once sharing that she felt like her days were slipping away from me. She just consumed by work emails and endless errands. And I know I could relate, and a lot of you probably can too. When she took the time to clarify her priorities,

she realized that spending time with her kids, nurturing her creativity, and taking care of her health mattered most to her. And that clarity became the foundation for reshaping her days in a more intentional way. Now, once you've identified your priorities, the next step is to create daily practices that ground and align you with those priorities.

These are what I call daily anchors. So daily anchors are these intentional practices or rituals that serve as touch points throughout the day. In my book, Uncertainty, actually, refer to them as certainty anchors, where you kind of know what matters and you know what's coming on a regular basis. They're the places where you can count on them

and touch stone. They help you stay connected to your priorities and bring a sense of rhythm and grounding to your life. Think of them as the small meaningful moments that hold your day together. So why do these matter? Because without intentional anchors, it's just so easy for the day to slip away,

to feel chaotic or aimless. You'll feel like you're busy all day, but you won't feel like you had a sense of actually doing anything or accomplishing anything, especially that matter. There's a sense of chaos and aimlessness. Anchors provide structure without rigidity, helping you stay aligned with what matters most, but also giving you the flexibility to respond with things that just come up, which happens because this is life. So examples of daily angers might include a

morning ritual to set your intentions like journaling, meditating, or enjoying a quiet cup of tea or coffee, or an afternoon walk to recharge, to reconnect reconnect with yourself or an evening gratitude practice more on that shortly by the way to reflect on the day and on a positive note. So if one of your priorities is connection for example your anchor might be a device-free dinner with loved ones. If say health is a priority it might be a short yoga session or a nourishing breakfast if creativity is a priority. It might be spending 15 minutes sketching or brainstorming ideas in a notebook. Now for each of your three priorities, go ahead and write down one small daily anchor that aligns with it. Start with something simple and manageable, something you can realistically incorporate into your day.

So for example, I remember a time where I was just feeling completely overwhelmed by work. As an entrepreneur, I move in and out of these windows and I have for the better part of my entire adult life because that has been my mode of being. And I eventually decided one day to create a simple morning anger, 10 minutes of listening to a guided meditation

or visualization before I checked my phone or started my day. It was such a small shift, literally 10 minutes, and I didn't even have to do the work. I was listening to a guided version of it, so I had somebody's voice in my ear. But it gave me the clarity and the focus that carried through the rest of the day. And that 10-minute anchor became one of the most grounding parts of my routine and then my days and my life. It has since expanded to about 25 to 30 minutes every day and led to, I actually recently pulled this up because I've tracked this for years now, more than 4,500 daily sessions and over a

hundred and eighteen thousand minutes of meditation over the years. That was never my initial intention, but the benefit to me has just been so profound and it's come on slowly and so easily that it became one of the things that I couldn't not do because it meant so much to me. Daily anchors are powerful because they're simple, intentional, and tied to what matters most. But to ensure your priorities truly have space in your day, we need to take it one step further with something called time blocking. So time blocking is one of the most effective ways to take control of your schedule and ensure your priorities have room to breathe. It's not about micromanaging every minute or creating this

really brittle loaded up schedule. It's simply about protecting time for the things that matter most. So when you don't block off time for your priorities, they often just get squeezed out by seemingly urgent or emergent, but honestly often way less important tasks. Time blocking helps you create intentional space to hold what truly matters more sacred. So how do we actually use time blocking? How do we do this thing called time blocking? A couple of simple invitations. Start by looking at your calendar for the week ahead. Now, identify times when you're most likely to have energy in focus. Maybe it's mornings, maybe it's afternoons, maybe it's evenings. If you don't know that, it's actually a really fun thing to run experiments to see. Then, block off, say, 15 to 30 minutes

each day for one of your anchors or priorities. Treat this time like a non-negotiable, sacred appointment with yourself. So some examples of time blocking here. Let's say if your priority is health, maybe block off 20 minutes in the morning to move your body. If your priority is connection, maybe block off 30 minutes, 45 minutes, an hour for a coffee date with a friend or a family member. If your priority is, say, creativity, maybe block off 30 minutes in the evening to write or brainstorm or paint or just come up with cool, fun, new ideas instead of just sitting back in the couch

and binging media for hours and hours and hours. And yes, I have done that and will probably do it more again in the future, but the more I can break away from that and time block the stuff, it really matters to me. I'm just so much more content, not just in the moment, but with my life. So let's talk a little bit about overcoming time blocking challenges here too. Now if your schedule just feels too packed, I get that. It happens all the time. Life is full.

So maybe start smaller. We're going to chunk this down then. Block off just five or ten minutes to focus on a priority. We don't have to start with a half an hour or an hour. Start small. What you find is it reminds you how much you value and love the activity and that experience over time just leads it to organically expand. What if interruptions are a challenge? Oftentimes, this is a boundary issue. So think about how you might communicate your block time to others and set more effective boundaries.

So here's the exercise for this. Choose one priority now, block off time for each day, or whatever frequency feels right to you. Maybe it's a two day a week thing or a three day a week thing. But do this for the next week in your next seven day calendar. Write it into or type it into your calendar or planner or however you keep track of these things and treat it as a sacred commitment to yourself.

So I actually block off time for hiking and creative expression. I love moving in nature and I also love writing, even when it doesn't come easily for some reason. Bit of a masochist here, still love it. But running two companies, it often, it just gets way too easy for me to regularly blow both of those things off. And I was doing that. So I had to elevate them to a priority first

and connect them to both my sparketype, which is the kind of work that makes me come alive, and the value of well-being. I also realized that my work output and my creativity and problem solving honestly were just so much better when I spent time doing work that I was innately aligned to do and also moving my body and nature. That I was literally hurting not just my health and wellbeing, but also my business and potential to create impact and wealth and creative expression by not doing these things.

So I began time blocking them into my calendar three to five days a week, depending on the season, and even extending the time, sometimes up to two hours, which eventually I was more okay doing once I realized how powerful the ripple effect was on my work and life. And as a side benefit, it was kind of cool because members of my team who can see this time block

on my calendar could also see me modeling this behavior and elevating its importance, which reminds them to create the space to elevate what matters to them as well. It's not just a lip servicing. And as a leader, if you happen to lead other people, and that includes just being a parent or a caretaker, modeling a behavior that you would love to see

others step into is exponentially powerful than anything you will ever say to try and invite somebody into that same behavior. So when you clarify your priorities, create daily anchors and use time blocks to protect what matters, you start to design your days in a way that aligns with your values and also with what lights you up, what sparks you, and brings you closer to the life that you want to live. But there's another ingredient we need to talk about here, what sparks you, and brings you closer to the life that you wanna live. But there's another ingredient we need to talk about here, the third ingredient, and that is joy.

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So this year, why not let Audible expand your life by listening? You can explore audio books and podcasts and exclusive Audible originals that will inspire and motivate you. Just open the app and tap into your wellbeing-being with advice and insight from leading influencers and experts and professionals. Whatever your focus or interest, there's a listen for it on Audible. You'll find titles on better health,

including personal fitness, nutrition, relationships, and relaxation. Maybe explore new career strategies or reimagine your financial life. I recently listened to No Bad Parts by Richard Schwartz and just learned so much about my different parts and how they affect me. Ultimately, it's all about starting good habits. Making a positive change is the best resolution you can make for yourself and Audible can

help. There is so much opportunity and more to imagine when you listen. Let Audible help you reach the goals you set for yourself. Start listening today when you sign up for a free 30 day trial at audible.ca. At Algoma University, your future has no limits. Here, you can go further in the classroom, in the field and well beyond.

We provide personalized education, cultural fluency, and training for in-demand careers. We don't just prepare you for the future, we prepare you to change it. Plus, Algoma has the most affordable tuition in Ontario. Make the most of your university experience. Go further. Apply to Algoma University today.

Go further. Apply to Algoma University today. So let's drop into this, finding joy in the everyday. Now that we've talked about being present and designing your days with intention, let's explore one of the most powerful yet often overlooked aspects of a meaningful life. Joy, simple joy. Joy isn't just something that happens to us. It's something that we can

intentionally cultivate even in the smallest moments. And yes, okay, sometimes it does just happen to us and that's awesome when it does, but imagine if you had actually more of an ability to bring more of it into your regular experience of life. So many of us feel like, you know, joy has to be tied to something big, something extraordinary, some big event, or maybe it's a vacation or celebration or a milestone. And here's the thing, while those moments are wonderful, the truth is, the deepest joy, it often comes from the tiny everyday experiences

that we take the time to notice and savor. And this can happen even when we're moving through hard moments or seasons like grief or loss, struggle or disconnection. My dear friend Cindy Spiegel actually wrote an entire book about this. She calls these microjoys. So let's explore three practices to help you find joy in your everyday life. Practicing gratitude, and we're going to take a different approach here, by the way. Infusing play and creativity into your routine and celebrating small wins. Let's start out with that first one for practicing joy.

And this is practicing gratitude. Now, gratitude is one of the simplest and most effective and most researched ways to cultivate joy. It shifts your focus from what's missing or difficult to what's present and abundant. And when you focus on what you're grateful for, even the smallest moments can bring a sense of contentment and happiness. Research tells us that practicing gratitude regularly can improve mood, increase resilience, even strengthen your relationships. It's a practice that trains your brain to notice the positive even in challenging times. So examples might

include the way the sunlight streams through your windows in the morning, the taste of your favorite meal, the kindness of a stranger holding a door open for you, the fact that your kid is talking or laughing with another kid when you pick them up from school, a random note of thanks or affection or appreciation you get, or the fact that today you feel pretty good or maybe even just less bad. So I want to share three approaches to unlocking the power of gratitude with you. The first you've likely heard of. The second and third I have a feeling they may be kind of new to you. The first you've likely heard of. The second and third, I have a feeling they may be kind of new to you.

And if not the second, then almost definitely the third. I've talked about it here on Good Life Project over the years, but it's incredibly powerful. So the first of the three gratitude practices is what we call the classic daily gratitude journal. This was popularized by the work of psychology professor at the University of California, Davis, Robert Emmons, who studied the effects of gratitude journaling alongside Michael McCullough.

The instructions are simple. Set aside time in the evening to reflect on your day. You can do this daily, maybe three to four days a week or even weekly. I wouldn't go less frequently than that. The research is kind of mixed on how often you need to do it for it to be really effective, but at least a couple of times a week. If daily works for you, that's awesome. Write down three specific things you're grateful for.

Be detailed. What happened? Why did it matter to you? And what, if any, was your role in helping it unfold? Pretty simple, right? Straightforward. Now, over time, you'll start to notice and appreciate these moments more naturally, even as they're happening. They create this subtle, yet very real, shift in the way that you move through the day. The second approach to practicing gratitude is something called the gratitude visit. This was popularized by leading researcher in the world of positive psychology, Martin

Seligman, and the approach is a bit different here. So step one, choose your recipient. You want to identify someone who's made a significant positive impact in your life but who you never felt like you really properly acknowledged or thanked for that. It could be a mentor, family member, teacher, friend, colleague, whoever it is. Now, second thing, write a gratitude letter. Take a little bit of time and actually write out a heartfelt letter. You know, generally like one page long, expressing your gratitude. You can make it a little bit longer if you want. Think 250 to 500

words or so. Be specific about what the person did for you, how it affected your life, and why it was important to you, why it mattered. Use as much detail, be as vivid as you can, to make your gratitude tangible and personal. Now here's where it gets really powerful. You're going to plan a visit. Arrange to visit the person in person if possible. If geography or circumstance make that not so easy, then a video call can work as a backup. In fact, so much happens over video these days. I think people

are so much more comfortable with it. Then you want to deliver the letter. And during the visit, explain why you wanted to meet. And then here's what you do. You don't just hand them the letter. Read the letter aloud to the person. Reading it out loud is a key part of the exercise because it creates a deeper emotional resonance. And then if you're inclined, discuss and reflect on it. So after reading the letter, just take a short amount of time. I mean, it can expand if you want. You're really enjoying it.

But to have a conversation about what that experience was like and let them respond and share their feelings, this back and forth, this mutual unfolding often strengthens the bond between you. And if you feel like following up later on, you can reflect on how the visit affected you emotionally. So many people report an increase in happiness and just a stronger sense of connectedness afterward. Consider even journaling about it or reinforcing it in

whatever way feels right to you. A couple of quick tips here. Be genuine and vulnerable and when you express gratitude, see if you can avoid distractions during the visit to really ensure that your full attention is on the interaction. You don't want to do this showing up. Reading off of your cell phone and then having notifications pop up all over the place and being distracted by them kind of defeats the entire purpose of it. I would even suggest if you're comfortable doing it, writing by hand and literally reading it from paper. If you can't meet in person or by video and then sending the letter in the mail can still be meaningful though less impactful.

And that brings us to the third way to practice gratitude. This is what we call the virtual gratitude visit. This is a really cool and powerful variation of the gratitude visit. It was created by Dan Tomasulo, who blends the world of psychodrama and psychology because these were part of his background. He's a former stand-up comic who then became a positive psychologist and fascinating guy with deep insights. It blends the basic psychology intervention with tools that bring the whole thing alive. And here's the thing, this version can be incredibly powerful especially when the person you'd like to express gratitude to is no longer or not easily available to you, maybe even no longer

alive. It's been used effectively to express gratitude even towards ethereal or fictional beings. Here's how it works. So similarly in the beginning we identified the person. Choose someone who has positively impacted your life but who you haven't really adequately thanked, maybe even never thanked. This person may be unavailable for direct contact, perhaps due to distance, having passed away, whatever the reason is.

Then, step two, write that gratitude letter. Compose a heartfelt letter detailing specific actions a person will took and how it benefited you and how it affected your life and why you're grateful for their influence. Sounds similar so far. Here's where it gets different. Set up a psychodramatic scene.

Here we're going to arrange two chairs. One for yourself. You're kind of like the protagonist in the story here, right? And then we're also going to arrange an empty chair representing the recipient. Now position the chairs to kind of symbolically reflect the closeness of your relationship. So if you're really close, even if it's been years, if you were really close when this person had the impact, keep the chairs close together. If not so much, then you can kind of spread them farther apart.

Now, here's where everything comes to life. First, sit in your chair, and what you're going to do is take that letter and read it aloud addressing the empty chair as if the recipient were present. You can even imagine them sitting in it if you want. Close your eyes and just imagine them there with you. Now once you're done with that, take a beat, take a breath or two, move to the empty chair and embody the recipient there, like you are them. And then respond as you imagine they might respond upon hearing your letter being read to them.

Close your eyes if you want again, just sort of like let it settle in your body. And then finally return to your original chair and continue the dialogue as you now, expressing any further thoughts or feelings that might arise. It's just stunningly powerful. I've done this a few times, literally I was in tears. And afterwards, if you're comfortable, you can reflect on the experience. So take time to process your emotions and any insights gained. And sometimes this is

even done in a group setting, which is kind of fascinating. I've never done it that way, but I'd be curious to try it. This psychodramatic approach, it allows for the expression of gratitude even when direct communication isn't possible, facilitating sometimes emotional healing and closure beyond just gratitude. But here's the thing, no matter your approach, I want to invite you to experiment with the three different models and see how each feels to you. Either way, bringing a regular gratitude practice into your life can be a powerful tool for both reclaiming a sense of deep presence and also cultivating stillness and grace. Even if it feels a little bit dopey in the beginning. I once met someone who started a gratitude practice during a particularly just challenging

season of life. And at first it felt forced. She could barely come up with one thing to write, but it just seemed so trite, you know? So like every day. But over time, as the days went on, and she felt a little bit goofy doing it in the beginning, also by the way,

she began noticing these tiny little joys that she had overlooked before, because it started to attune her brain to the tiny things that were happening all around her all day that she simply wasn't noticing. And that is part of the power of the gratitude practice. The way her dog greeted her at the door, the sound of rain on her window, the warmth of her favorite tea, that practice didn't change her circumstances, but it completely changed how she experienced them with so much more presence, attentiveness, and gratitude.

Great. So gratitude practice is one of the ways that we can bring more joy into our lives. Let's talk about a second way here, infusing play and creativity. So I got a question for you. When was the last time you did something just for fun? For no other reason than it made you smile or brought you delight. For many of us, play and creativity are some of the first things to go when life gets busy or when we just feel like, oh, we're adults.

That's not what life is about anymore. But they're also some of our greatest sources of joy. So play and creativity, they give us a sense of freedom and lightness. They remind us that life doesn't always have to be so serious or so goal-oriented. Sometimes we can just do things because of the way they make us feel. Play is a way to reconnect with our curiosity and imagination and a sense of lightness of being, which so many of us want to reconnect with now. So some simple examples here. Tootling in a notebook, dancing to your favorite song.

Okay, so I can't believe I'm admitting this, but a million years ago when I was in law school and I was just stressed out and overwhelmed on a regular basis, I used to close my door and I was just stressed out and overwhelmed on a regular basis. I used to close my door and I used to turn on George Michael's Freedom 90. I turned it up to 11 on my stereo and would just dance around the room until I was just covered in sweat and laughing and having an amazing time. Little things like that. Bake cookies with no concern for who they're for, for trying to make them perfect cookies, whatever it is for you. Maybe explore a new hobby like painting or playing an instrument or building something

with your hands, playing a game with friends and family just for the fun of it or just being silly with kids or pets, right? So how do we infuse play and creativity into your day? How do we take these things and actually make it a part of how we live our days? Well, first thing about starting small. Choose one playful or creative activity that you enjoy and make space for it, let's say, just once this week. Let go of the idea that has to be productive or perfect. The goal isn't

to achieve anything. It's just to enjoy the experience. So think back to something that you maybe love doing as a child. Maybe it was coloring or singing or climbing trees. How can you bring a version of that back into your life now? See if you can schedule anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes just once this week to try it. So a friend of mine discovered her love for watercolor painting during a pretty stressful period of work. She started with just a few minutes a day experimenting with colors and shapes and different brushes and palettes and paints and it was never about creating masterpieces or even trying to get better or improving their skill. It's just about letting herself play.

That simple act of creativity became a daily source of joy and comfort for her. And I have experienced my own version of that in so many different ways. And that brings us to number three. And this again is under the cultivating joy, recultivating joy in our Lodge category. Third little way that we can do this,

celebrating small wins. Right? So often we wait for the big accomplishments, the promotions, the finished projects, the major milestones to give ourselves permission to feel proud or happy. Truth is, those big wins are awesome, but they tend to be few and far in between. That's just life. The real joy is in celebrating the tiny little things, the steps along the way. So this matters because every small success

that you acknowledge reinforces your sense of progress and builds momentum. It creates a positive feedback loop that keeps you motivated, keeps you taking action, and reminds you of how far that you have become. We know through research that a sense of simple progress is stunningly empowering and joyful in our lives, not just in work, but in life. So some examples, you know, you might make it through a tough meeting, you know, and yes, that is a small win, especially

when we know so many meetings probably don't need to actually be meetings these days. Maybe it's completing a single workout or maybe even just a set of an exercise during a workout or choosing a healthy meal. Maybe it's helping a friend learn something new or even just getting out of bed on a hard day. That can be a legit small win. So how do we do this? How do we then celebrate this? Not just do the things, but then celebrate it. Because when we celebrate it, we actually get sort of like a double win here, a double burst of joy. At the end of each day, take a moment to just reflect on one thing that you accomplished. One thing that went reflect on one thing that you accomplished,

one thing that went well, one thing that brought you joy, no matter how small. Say it out loud or write it down and give yourself some credit for it. You can also celebrate in fun ways. You don't have to just do that. You can do plenty more if you want, like giving yourself a literal high five, doing a little happiness, treating yourself to something you enjoy, whatever it may be. But give yourself that glow, the gift of not just doing the thing, but then celebrating it.

So an exercise then. Tonight, if it feels available to you, take just five minutes to reflect on your day. What's one thing that you did well? Write it down, take a moment to celebrate it, whether it's with a smile, a kind word to yourself, or just a tiny little reward. For me, of course, for those who have known me over time, there's a pretty safe bet chocolate is going to be involved in this. So I remember working on a big writing project that just felt

completely overwhelming to me and one day I decided, you know, I'm just going to focus on writing one paragraph. And when I finished, I stood up, I literally just clapped my hands and did a little happy dance and I was like, good job, man. It might sound really goofy, but that tiny celebration, it made me feel proud and motivated that I did the thing, and it motivated me to keep going. Sometimes the smallest wins, they deserve the biggest cheers and celebrations. And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors. At Algoma University, your future has no limits. Here, you can go further, in the classroom, in the field, and well beyond. We provide personalized education, cultural fluency, and training for in-demand careers.

We don't just prepare you for the future. We prepare you to change it. Plus, Algoma has the most affordable tuition in Ontario. Make the most of your university experience. Go further. Apply to Algoma has the most affordable tuition in Ontario. Make the most of your university experience. Go further. Apply to Algoma University today. So, let's start to bring this home a bit. When you practice gratitude, when you infuse play and creativity into your day and celebrate

small wins, you create just a life that feels more joyful and fulfilling, not just in the big moments, which may take months or years, but in the little everyday ones. These practices remind us that joy is always available to us if we're willing to slow down, pay attention, and invite it in even when things are challenging or hard or we're in the middle of a season of struggle. This is that concept of microjoys that I mentioned. We can open our eyes to invite or create those passing moments. So now that we've explored how to find joy in the everyday, let's start to bring everything together and talk about how to create a framework for designing your days in a way that makes everyday matter. So we spend a lot of this episode exploring some of the most powerful tools for creating a meaningful and joyful and present life, cultivating presence, designing your days

with intention, and finding joy in the everyday. Now let's bring it all together and create a sort of a simple model or framework, a roadmap that you can use to make each day feel good. Now this isn't about packing your days with endless tasks or striving for perfection. It's about creating a rhythm and structure that allows you to show up as your best self, honor your priorities,

and savor the moments that make life rich and fulfilling. So as we head into our wrap-up segment here of this episode, we're gonna explore two key practices, weekly reflection and creating a simple daily framework. These two tools will help you really integrate everything that we have discussed today into a sustainable, meaningful daily presence practice.

Let's start with the weekly reflection. This is a powerful practice that gives you the opportunity to just step back, review how your days felt, and make adjustments to stay aligned with your priorities and values. So why does this weekly reflection matter? I mean, the truth is life is dynamic. Your needs, your priorities, your circumstances, they can change from week to week.

Reflection helps you stay intentional rather than slipping into autopilot or getting caught up in the chaos of daily life. So how do we do this weekly reflection then? Well first, just choose a regular time. So we wanna choose a specific time each week for your reflection. Sunday evening, Monday morning, whatever works best for you.

Consistency is key. For me, I do this on Sunday mornings and I've been doing it every Sunday morning for years now. Now, then we to ask yourself three pretty straightforward questions. One, what worked well this week? What brought me meaning, joy or fulfillment? So that's kind of like the first one. The second, what didn't work or felt misaligned with my priorities, with what I said actually

matters to me. And then the third one, what small adjustments can I make for the week ahead? So three simple questions. And again, if you've been taking notes, that's awesome. But as I said in the beginning, all of this will be in your digest for this episode, your little, your cheat sheet for this final part in the series. So we go from there and then we want to plan for the upcoming week. So here we use your insights to intentionally design

your upcoming week, incorporating your priorities, the things that matter, your galley anchors, and your moments of joy. So the exercise this week is to set aside 15 minutes for your first weekly reflection. Write down your answers to three questions and use them to guide how you approach the next week. So I remember speaking with somebody who once shared how a weekly reflection just completely changed the relationship with time. This was a friend who used to feel like her weeks just kind of happened to her.

She was constantly reacting to whatever came up. I should call this reactive life syndrome, when your entire life from the moment you open your eyes to the moment you close them, is a reaction to other people's wants and agendas. But when she started actually reflecting each Sunday evening, which was her time to do it, she gained this sense of clarity about what actually mattered most and began to make small adjustments to better align her time with what mattered to her. And over time she started to just slowly feel more and more connected, more in control, more present in

her life. It wasn't just a life of reacting to what others wanted from her. It became a life of being present to what she wanted for herself. Second thing, create a simple daily framework. So now let's zoom in from the week to the day. A daily framework is just a simple structure that really helps you approach each day with intention and focus and presence.

It is not about rigid schedules. It's about creating touch points that ground you and align you with what matters most. So when you have a framework for your day, it's just easier to stay intentional and present. It helps you avoid the overwhelm of endless to-do lists and keeps you connected to your values and your priorities. So how do we actually do this? Step one, start your morning with intention. So the way that you start your

day sets the tone for everything that follows. A morning intention practice helps you approach the day with clarity and focus. By the way, if you're a shift worker, if you're somebody who's actually not up in the morning or you have reverse schedule, totally fine too. Just adjust this so that it's the opening of your day, whether that's the morning, the afternoon, or the evening. But think of it as sort of like your opening move here. So take five minutes each morning or whenever it is during the day that you start your day to ask yourself, how do I want to show up today?

What's one thing I can do to make this day meaningful? You might write down your answers in a journal or simply reflect on them while having your morning coffee. So tomorrow morning, right, here morning coffee. So tomorrow morning, right here's the invitation, tomorrow morning see if you can take just five minutes to set your intention for the day. Notice then how it affects your mindset and your actions throughout the day. So I remember one morning I was asking myself like how do I want to show up today? And the answer was patient and present,

which is not how I had been showing up. I was in the middle of a whirlwind, we were in the middle of a launch. That simple intention, regardless of what the external circumstance was, which did not change, but that simple intention, it shifted how I approached every interaction from my conversations with family to responding to emails and talking to my team.

It reminded me to just slow down and focus on what mattered most in each moment. And you know what? The bigger picture work still got done, but I felt so much better as I moved through it. Okay, so step two, incorporate a mid-day check-in. So mid-day check-in helps you kind of pause, reset, and realign with your intentions. It's an opportunity to correct course if the day has gone off the rails or to simply recharge your energy for the afternoon. So how do

we do this? Simple. Pause for a few minutes and somewhere around lunchtime whenever you take your lunch. Ask yourself, how am I feeling? Am I showing up the way that I intended? If not, what small adjustment can I make for the rest of the day? So you can combine this with a grounding practice like taking a short walk or doing some deep breathing or enjoying a mindful meal, some of the things that we've talked about earlier on in this conversation.

So here's the invitation now. Set a reminder on your phone to check in with yourself midday. Don't just count on the fact that you remember to do it. Literally make this an appointment, your midday check-in. Set it to happen automatically every day. And then when it happens, when you get that little alert, reflect on how the first half of your day went and what you want to focus on for the afternoon. I used to power through my days oftentimes without stopping to reflect and by the afternoon I'd used to power through my days oftentimes without stopping to reflect. And by the afternoon, I'd often feel pretty scattered or drained. But when I started doing

a midday check-in, it gave me a chance to just pause and breathe and refocus my energy and my effort. And I started to realize that I had been so caught up in work that I hadn't really connected with anyone all morning. This has happened so many times, but that check-in, it would prompt me to just say, like, wait a minute. Am I spending my energy in a way that's aligned with what I said was my intention for the day and what I truly care about? What brings me joy? What allows me to be present and alive? And when I realized it didn't, I would make a small adjustment. So one particular occasion I'm thinking about, you know, I literally just said, okay, I'm going to not only talk to a friend, I'm going to go out and I'm going to hike

so I can clear my brain a little bit. It was a mini hike because I didn't really have time for a full one. And then I wanted to enjoy a conversation with a friend who I hadn't caught up with in a while at the same time. So I kind of doubled up. And I, what I called, I took them on a hike with me, even though they were literally 2000 miles away. Step three here.

Okay, so we talked about the morning or the sort of like your opening move, your midday move. And now step three, end your day with gratitude and reflection. So how you end your day is just as important as how you begin it. A simple evening reflection practice, it just helps you close the day with a sense of gratitude, presence, and accomplishment.

So how do we do this? Take five minutes before you go to bed and ask yourself, what went well today? What am I grateful for? What's one thing I want to carry forward into tomorrow? Right? Or you can do any one of the three approaches to gratitude journaling. It can also be incredibly powerful here too. It's really just about creating some sort of

intentionality based ritual to wrap the day, to process the day, to let it go from your head and acknowledge what went well. You can jot your answers in a journal, reflect on them quietly, record a voicemail, whatever it is that works for you. So tonight, here's the invitation, take a few moments just to reflect on your day. Write down three things that went well, one thing you're grateful for, one small

intention for tomorrow. Or if it's like more interesting to you, just do one of the gratitude examples that we talked about earlier. I remember, you know, I've done this myself so many different times, like feeling frustrated about everything. This is actually related to us working on a book. And I just felt like I wasn't accomplishing anything that day. You know, it's almost like I was going backwards here, which when you're working on a large-scale, long-term creative project or endeavor, that is not an unusual experience.

But then I remember sitting down to reflect in the evening and I realized there are actually so many things that had gone well that day. A great conversation with a friend and a potential collaborator, a lot of laughter, like just literally belly laughing with my wife and just kind of chilling and doing absolutely nothing for a little bit with my daughter. And that simple practice of gratitude completely shifted how I felt about the day. Rather than being bummed about it, feeling it was wasted, I was like, you know what? Sure, I didn't check all the boxes on the productivity side of what I was working on,

but it was still actually a good day. So when you combine weekly reflection with simple daily frameworks, you create a life that just feels more intentional and grounded and joyful. Each week you reflect on the bigger picture and adjust as needed. Each day you anchor yourself with small practices that align with your priorities and values. Remember, it's not about perfection, it's about progress, it's about presence, it's about a sense of lightness and purpose. And the beauty of this approach is that it's just so adaptable and flexible. It accommodates you and the realities of your life. You can adapt it to your needs, your schedule, your season of life, start small,

experiment with what works for you, and just let these practices evolve over time. So this week, think about creating your own daily framework. Start with one or two elements we've discussed, like a morning attention or an evening gratitude practice, and just start to build slowly from there. Reflect on how these practices, how they make you feel and what adjustments you wanna make for the following week

to just make it yours, to own it. So as we wrap up, not just this episode, but the entire New Beginnings series, I wanna take a moment and reflect on the journey that we've been on together. Over the past five weeks, we have explored how to redesign your life for 2025. Not just through grand

plans and bold goals, even though we did talk about those, but by creating a life that feels rich and meaningful and aligned and present, that really represents who you are that is true to you. So let's take a moment to just kind of revisit the steps we've taken together. We start with the big picture, creating a roadmap for 2025. This wasn't about filling your calendar with tasks. It was about aligning your actions with your values and vision for the year using the tool of the good left buckets. Next, we zoomed in to focus on setting one bold, inspiring goal, something that kind

of stretches you and excites you at the same time, Maybe even scares you a little bit while still feeling achievable. And we explored my success scaffolding framework to help support you in making that goal a reality. Then we turned our attention to this topic of confidence. How to build the belief and resilience you need to take action even when the path feels uncertain. Confidence isn't something you're born with, which a lot of people actually don't believe. It's something that you build step by step. In the fourth episode, we shifted to the habits and the five key habits that can really move

the needle in your life. We talked about how to actually craft habits and integrate them into not just what you do every day, but your sense of identity and who you are. And today, we're bringing it all home by focusing on the everyday moments, because life isn't just about the big goals and milestones. It's about how we show up each day, how we experience those days, and how we make them matter. So the thread that ties all of these episodes together,

it's really intentionality. It's about making conscious choices about what you want, how you spend your time, and who you want to become. It's about showing up for your life with purpose and presence, knowing that the small things you do each day are shaping the person you are and the life that you live. And it's about giving yourself grace

along the way. Because no matter how much you plan or how many tools you have, life will always bring surprises and challenges and moments where things don't go as expected and that's okay. What matters is how you choose to respond in those moments. How you keep showing up, how you keep learning, how you keep growing, how you keep giving yourself grace. So as we close out this series, I want to leave you with one final invitation. This week I would invite you to bring it all together. Take the time to reflect on what you've learned over the past five weeks.

Visit your roadmap for 2025, reconnect to that one bold goal, and refine your daily framework. Ask yourself, what's one small action I can take today to better align my life with my vision for the year to come? And how can I bring more presence and attention and joy into my everyday moments? And as you step into the weeks and then the months ahead, remember this isn't the end of the journey. It is just the beginning. The practices and the tools that we've explored together are meant to grow with you, to evolve as you do. So let this be the year that you live more fully, more intentionally, and more joyfully than ever before. And remember, you are not alone in this journey. The Good Life Project, this beautiful community is here to walk alongside of you, offering inspiration, tools, support, and community as you continue to explore what it means

to live a good life. Life is not measured in years, it's not measured in weeks, it's not measured in months, it's not measured in minutes. It's measured in the moments that we have. The way you experience each day, going back to that Annie Diller quote,

it's really the way that you experience your life. So make today matter. Be present for the little things. Honor what's important to you and celebrate the joy and beauty that is always all around you. Thanks so much for being a part of this series, for showing up for yourself and for being a part of this incredible community. Here is to a year of meaning and joy and just living fully together. Let's make this year unforgettable. And one final invitation, if this series has resonated with you, then it would mean the world to me if you would share it with someone who might benefit from it as well.

A friend, family member, or a colleague, let's spread the inspiration and the tools to help others step into their best year yet. And if you haven't already, make sure to follow us so that you won't miss any future episodes. We have so much more exciting new things and ideas and offerings planned for the year to come. I cannot wait to continue this journey with you. Till next time, I'm Jonathan Fields, reminding you to live fully, love openly, and just make every day matter. This episode of Good Life Project was produced by executive producers Lindsay Fox and me, Jonathan Fields, editing help by Alejandro Ramirez, Christopher Carter, Crafted Our

Theme Music, and special thanks to Shelly Adele for her research on this episode. At Algoma University, your future has no limits. Here you can go further, in the classroom, in the field, and well beyond. We provide personalized education, cultural fluency, and training for in-demand careers. We don't just prepare you for the future, we prepare you to change it. Plus, Algoma has the most affordable tuition in Ontario. Make the most of your university experience. Go further. Apply to Algoma University today.