Good Life Project - To Succeed at Anything, Do This. (2019)

Episode Date: January 1, 2019

Success is not just about knowing what to do. It's about doing it.Information, plans and goals will not get you where you want to go. Nor will willpower. Success is about something bigger.To succeed at anything worth doing, you must make key shifts in your environment, mindset and community that "turn on" the actions needed for game-changing results.I call this "Success Scaffolding." It applies to everything, from weight loss to business, and relationships to careers.In today's episode, instead of our traditional guest conversation, I'm sharing and in-depth walk-through of my "8P Success Scaffolding™" framework.Every element, every step, nothing held back. Why? Because it is that time of year when millions commit to big, new, deeply-meaningful goals, only to walk away or fail by the time we hit February. Not because we don't want it badly enough. Not because we're not smart enough. But, because we do not have our Success Scaffolding in place.This is my New Year's offering. I shared it for the first time in 2017, but have continued to research and develop it since then. And, this year, you'll discover a new, greatly expanded version. It is about helping you make this year different, bridging the gap between hope and reality.You can find the 1-page worksheet HERE.Check out our offerings & partners: My New Book SparkedMy New Podcast SPARKED: We’re looking for special guest “wisdom-seekers” to share the moment you’re in, then pose questions to Jonathan and the Sparked Braintrust to be answered, “on air.” To submit your “moment & question” for consideration to be on the show go to sparketype.com/submit. Visit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today's podcast is going to be a little bit different. So it's the beginning of the year. And for the last two years on the podcast, the very first episode of the year has been me not interviewing a guest or in conversation, but sharing what I call success scaffolding. This is a really powerful approach to building what you need internally and externally

to accomplish almost anything. And both of the last two years, that one episode has kind of exploded with interest. So I have spent a solid chunk of time over the last 12 months revising, expanding, testing, and optimizing this framework. And there's some really cool new awakenings, ideas, tools, and powerful guidance to offer you. What started out as the seven Ps has now become eight Ps. And I am going to share this entire framework with you today

because I know as we turn the page on a new year, so often we look at this as a moment to sort of start fresh, to start clean, to think about the big things that we want to happen in our lives, in our work, in our relationships, in our health and make big goals, big visions. Sometimes we call those resolutions. Sad thing is the vast majority of those fail

miserably within a matter of weeks, if not days or even hours. This is about what you can do to make that different this year, to actually be able to bring into your mind the thing that you want so much to happen, approach it differently, and actually make it happen, maybe for the first time ever. That is where we're going in today's episode. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist,

whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised.

The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk.

Okay, so let's dive in. Over the last probably five to 10 years, the canon of books, audio, media programs that kind of go about inspiring you to do those big things that you wanna do in your life, in your work, has become pretty big. And I'm always fascinated. I love devouring everything that I can devour. And there is a word that keeps popping up. Sometimes it is offered explicitly.

Sometimes it's implied. Sometimes people use different language. That word is grit. And we've all heard about this thing called grit. It is heralded as the secret sauce behind success in nearly any endeavor. The thing that keeps you working and pushing and driving forward when the stakes matter, they're really high, stuff gets hard. and it always gets hard, by the way, even if it doesn't start that way. And this is the thing that we're told that is responsible for high level success, high level performance, getting and achieving and doing things that are really hard, take a long

time, require you to invest yourself fiercely, but are entirely worth it. And what we're told is that it matters. This thing called grit really matters. The research is pretty clear that it is this thing that you have that is the difference maker. But here's an interesting thing. When it comes to the question of how you quote, get grit, on that question, there is relative silence. There's this idea that some people just kind of have it and others don't. Some people think it's a trainable state. Still others think it's a blend of genetics or effort, but there's almost nothing that really says, here's how you quote, get it in a meaningful, really broken down framework kind of way. But what if there was something going on around grit? And that is my whole big question here.

What if the answer was actually not so much that you get grit, like it's something you just install in your brain, but instead the bigger part is about a very specific set of changes, not just to your state of mind, but to your environment, to your actions, to your teams, to the people you surround yourself with in the pursuit to achieve something deeply meaningful and massively impactful. What if grit, what if tenacity? What if the ability to not stop when things get really hard was as much of an outside game as it is an inside game? And all the things that you did to try to install it into your mind were destined to fail.

And less than until you discovered how to build the bigger success scaffolding, not just in your mind, but also around you to keep you fiercely committed and accountable to your vision. Well, that success scaffolding, that sort of comprehensive blended inner and outer game of grit and extreme accomplishment, that's what I'm going to share with you today. It's based on what I call my 8P success scaffolding framework, and it brings together a mountain of academic studies, experimentation, and optimization in the field in real life, years of learning at the feet of and interviewing many primary researchers, leading teachers, professors, and people who have accomplished what seems impossible in nearly every domain from art to business to health, relationships, and beyond. The final word here before we dive right in, there's nothing for sale. This is simply

an offering at the beginning of a new year with the hope that you will tap the power of the 8P success scaffolding and hopefully share it with anyone else that you actually would love to see succeed at something they desperately yearn to make happen this year. To make this the year that you finally put in place the inner and outer elements needed to do the things you've always wanted to do, but have never been able to make happen before. Okay, so let's dive in. As I mentioned, Success Scaffolding is made up of these things I call the eight P's. That's the letter P. I'm going to walk you through all of them one at a time, deconstruct

them, show you the elements of every single one. And then at the end of this podcast, I'm actually going to show you how you can get a one-page mind map that will give you the entire framework. So get a pen, get a piece of paper. There are going to be a lot of moments where you're going to want to take notes. And at the end of this, I will still give you completely free a one-page mind map of the entire scaffolding.

Let's start with the first P. The first P is plan. Now, this is kind of interesting because this is actually the starting point for most people when they wanna do something big and meaningful. They go out and they start to say, okay, here's what I want to make happen. And what I need to do is make a plan to make it happen. The problem with this is two things. One, that tends to be the starting and ending point for most people. So they think, well, the plan is what I need. And once I have the plan in place,

well, then I'm just going to go do it and everything will be great. The plan also very often wars mightily with real life. So I'll give you an example. A lot of people have desires to run or to physically achieve something. One of the big goals that so many people have is to run or to physically achieve something. One of the big goals that so many people have is to run a marathon. Now, there is a fairly standard marathon training plan that is available. You can go online. You know, it's 14 or 16 or 18 weeks.

And millions of people have followed this. The thing is, if you go out and you find a plan, or if you go out and you find a diet, or if you go out and you find a diet, or if you go out and you find a workout program that is shown that it actually works in a laboratory, it works under controlled conditions, it works for a certain type of person living a certain type of life with certain abilities and resources and constraints, that plan may work in those particular circumstances. But the big miss is you've got to ask yourself, does the plan actually sync with the day-to-day realities, the constraints, the resources of my own life?

So if you're a parent, you know, and you have young toddlers and your plan requires you to go and exercise, you know, early in the morning, five days a week, pretty safe bet that is going to be derailed within a matter of days, if not hours or minutes, because the reality of your life does not allow you to do that. Similarly, if you're on a nutrition plan or a diet plan or something like that, and it requires you to drink 64 ounces of fluid in an eight-hour window throughout the day, and you have a job which requires you to be front and center and present and in a lot of meetings

or on stage, that is not going to work for you. Trust me, I have actually experimented with this and it doesn't work for me. So one of the big misses here is that so many plans that you hear about, that you read about, that you sort of like see out there in the ether that may be valid and proven in a laboratory

and in controlled circumstance where you're not actually living your day-to-day life in the real world. They work for somebody else in somebody else's life or in a controlled setting or in a laboratory, but when they actually make contact with the realities of your life, they get blown apart. So number one about your plan, when you're thinking about it, when you're putting it together yourself, whether you're maybe working even with a professional to help you with it, or if you're going on to the interwebs and downloading and finding other plans that you know have worked for other people in different circumstances, make sure it passes the, does this sync with the realities of my day-to-day life test?

Because that is one of the first and biggest points of failure for almost everybody. If it does, great. But I'll tell you, you're probably sort of like in the 5% of people where it automatically does. If it doesn't, that doesn't mean you automatically jettison it.

It means that then you think, what do I need to do to tailor this so that it will work with the realities of my own life? And you do that work in advance so that you don't get derailed by just diving into this completely unrealistic thing. And then in the first hour or day or week, when it gets blown apart, instead of saying, well, this just won't work, I'm giving up on the whole thing, you've already anticipated this and made the changes needed.

So a couple of more really important elements when you are thinking about putting together your plan. First, get really clear on the outcome that you want and define it, map it, make it crystal clear. Think about micro steps rather than big disruptive change. The way that our minds are wired, we dream of this big, giant, huge difference at the end of whatever it is that we're trying to do.

We see ourselves in that place. But if we actually have to make immediate disruptive change to get there, with very rare exception, we just won't do it. We don't want to endure the pain, the suffering, the change that that will bring on. The way that we tend to actually be able to make really big disruptive outcomes happen

is by taking tiny little micro steps one at a time. So when you think about your plan, rather than saying, I'm going to make a wholesale change to my diet, wholesale change to my movement, wholesale change to my exercise, you know, completely and radically change the way I work, whatever it may do, stop yourself. If that is what your plan is based on, you're almost guaranteed to fail. What we want to actually look at is how can I make this into tiny little micro steps that feel so almost easy that maybe even we think we're cheating because they're not so hard

and they're not really doing much. But what we're actually trying to do is make it small enough so that we will actually do them on a daily basis. And then we take the micro steps and we make them incremental. And we just slowly start adding a tiny bit and a tiny bit and a tiny bit to them every day. Right? So, so far we have in the plan, we have to make sure that it syncs with the realities of our day-to-day

life. There's a clearly defined outcome. We're working in micro steps rather than big disruptive change. And we're making them incremental. So a little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more every day. So we kind of ease our way into higher and higher commitments without even really thinking about it. And I want to wrap this up in the plan part of it by sharing an overlay, which is something that was developed by a researcher and professor, Professor Gabrielle Uttingen. And she has done a lot of research on achievement. And she's actually specifically looked at one of the big myths in a lot of achievement, or the world of quote, manifestation, which is really just a sort of a more metaphysical overlay for goal achievement. And one of the questions she was asking was, how do you actually, you know, like, what is the process for achieving big, hard things? And one of the big questions she examined

was, does it make a difference whether you stay completely hyper-focused only on the positive, meaning, you know, define what you want to get and then never, ever think about anything bad, never think about any obstacles, Never think about any obstacles. Never think about, you know, things that might get in your way. And that is a lot of sort of the mythology around goal achievement or this, quote, manifestation world is that never go there. Because if you think the negative things, if you think the dark things, if you think about the obstacle, you will think them into existence and you will derail yourself. So Professor Union wanted to test this. And And in fact, she did in a library. She had a group of people that thought about these things and then developed an approach for handling them. And then she had a

group of people who completely ignored them and stayed only positive thinking on the outcome. What she found was that the positive thinking, never think about obstacles, never think about anything that can go wrong, never think about failure group, actually was much less successful than the group that really did anticipate these things. But she created a particular way of thinking about these things that made them more successful.

And it's a simple methodology that she shorthands as with the acronym WOOP, W-O-O-P. What does that stand for? The W is wish. And that is really clearly identify the thing that you want to happen. This is where I was talking about clearly defining an outcome or a vision. This is that. So the first O is actually outcome. So now you're really defining it, right? So this is what I want to happen. And here is the outcome in a very defined, very clear, crystal clear way. So I can see what I want. The second O actually is short for obstacle. So here, instead of ignoring potential obstacles and pretending everything is going to

go beautifully and you're just going to automatically accomplish it, the instruction is actually think about what are the most likely obstacles to come my way? What are the biggest things that have a chance of popping up along the way and derailing me. And these may be external things, things that happen environmentally. These also may be internal things, my own demons, my own inner chatter, my own thoughts. And then you write that down. Then instead of ignoring that,

the P, the final letter in whoop stands for plan. You actually create a plan to define what your response will be should one of these obstacles actually pop up. And you do all of this before you start working towards this thing that you want to achieve, right? So wish, outcome, obstacle, plan. And what happens here is that by identifying the likely obstacles beforehand, both internal and external, making a plan so that you know before you even start what it will take to

move through these obstacles to actually deal with them, then you don't get derailed along the way because if they never show up, well, then that's great. If they do show up, you've already put together the way that you have, you are going to handle this and move through it. So it's not a big deal. You know, a lot of times the worst time to put together your plan on how to handle an obstacle

is when the obstacle comes to you. But because you have sort of done the work already, your answer is in place, the actions you'll take are in place, the decisions you'll make are in place, and you're much more likely to move through it with ease and not be derailed and get where you want to go. There's one other thing that tended to happen in this research, which is that when you anticipate obstacles in advance and you actually map out the work that it will take in your plan to move through these obstacles, it becomes clear just how much effort may be involved

in this thing that you want to do. And it allows you to make a much more informed choice about whether you still are willing to commit to making this happen before you ever say yes. And sometimes it makes you stop before you ever get going. And it allows you to actually say, you know what, this is not going to, this is potentially going to take way more than I thought. And I am not truly as invested as I thought I would be, because if that is what it will really take, then I'm not willing to do it, which is actually a really good thing because it stops you from allocating a ton of energy

and time and resources to something that would have derailed you before you ever do it. And it lets you reallocate that time, energy, and resource to something else that you do want to happen, but would be more likely to actually achieve. So now let's move on to our second P. And the second one in success scaffolding is purpose. Purpose. Why does this matter? What do I mean by this?

What I mean by this is it is your underlying reason why. So in the beginning, we talked about identifying the thing you want to make happen and the essential sort of like the fundamentals of what to think about when you're making a plan. But here's the thing you want to make happen, and the essential sort of like the fundamentals of what to think about when you're making a plan. But here's the thing. One of the things that gets you through adversity along the way is having a really clear,

well-identified reason why, having a strong sense of purpose. What is the reason that I'm doing this thing? And we see this in pretty much every domain. So if you are looking to found a company or a business or a venture, and you really know exactly what you want to do, but you haven't gotten very, very clear on the reasons why you want to do it, you know, what is the impact you want to have? What is the deeper driver for you? You know, okay, so you have a clear picture

of what you want to create, but why do you care? Why do you care? If you're not really clear on that, then when you start to hit adversity, when things don't go your way, and in everything that you do, that takes an extended period of time where the stakes are high, that takes substantial amount of energy, and the outcome is really meaningful, you will hit adversity. It's just part of the journey. It's always there. It's always going to happen. The only time you won't is when something is short, sweet, and easy. And truth is, those things, for the most part, aren't super rewarding. So when you're doing something big, adversity is going to come your way. And in addition to what we talked about planning

and mapping out how you'll respond to it, another really important thing that keeps you moving through it is having a very clear sense of purpose. Why are you doing this? Establishing your reason why. So before you dive in, what you wanna do is take a couple of minutes and say, okay, so

that thing that I want to do, I've mapped it. I know what the outcome is. I'm clear on it. I've given it color and flavor and sound and specificity, but why do I care? And take out a journal page, take out whatever you want and spend a couple of minutes, if not more, really asking yourself, what's the deeper driver? Why do I care about making this happen? And then you can ask what's been, I've heard described in a lot of different ways. Sometimes I've heard described as the five whys. Why do I care about this? And why do I care about this? And why do I care about this? And why do I care about this? And why do I care about this? Whether you ask it twice or three times or four times or five times, ask it more than once.

So you start to get beneath the superficial drivers of purpose and you go deeper and deeper until you really understand, oh, this is why this really matters to me. Because it's that deeper reason why that gives you the level of purpose needed to sustain action when things get really challenging. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping.

And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday, we've been compromised. So let's move on now to the third P. That is people. So the third P in success scaffolding is people.

And this is interesting because in my mind, this is hands down one of the most important ones in the scaffolding. It is also very often one of the most ignored ones in the scaffolding is also very often one of the most ignored ones in the scaffolding. When we are mounting some sort of quest or any kind of desire to do something big and meaningful, it's very, very difficult to achieve something on that level alone. We need people along the way to help us make it happen.

But here's the thing, we actually benefit from having people play five different roles. Now, some of these people can play multiple roles, but when we think about the people in success scaffolding, we're looking at people to play five distinct roles. So what are those five roles? Well, first we have your co-strivers. I like to call them parallel playmates. If you happen to

be a parent or have been around tiny little kids when they're really young, you'll see they're sort of, they sit next to each other and they're playing giddily and happily right next to each other, but they're kind of not playing with each other. So co-strivers or parallel playmates are people who are working to achieve something similar to you along the way, going through a similar process of seeking and struggling and working. They may be part of a particular project that you're working on. So it may be a team on a venture or in a division or in a company. Maybe it's a team of people who you're all working together to run a 5K or you're all

working to lose 20 pounds or you're all working to find some cure for something. So you're kind of co-striving together towards one shared outcome. But it doesn't actually have to be that. So you may also all be working for your own similar individual goals. You know, maybe it's five people who are all looking to run something, but you're not on the same team together

and it's something different, but it's similar enough so that you're kind of all going through a similar experience along the way. And the thing about your co-drivers or your parallel playmates is that you're sharing the experience of seeking and challenge. And one of the primary energies that you share among this group is commiseration, which is kind of funny to think about

because you're kind of, you know, it's like you get to grumble together. You get to complain together. You get to wake up in the morning and be like, oh my gosh, it's 5 a.m. I'm doing this again. And you get to share your stories about, you know, how this happened and this happened and this happened. You also get to share your wins. But a lot of the fundamental energy of this group is actually commiseration because there is a tremendous amount of shared humanity and bonding and elevation that happens when you share the struggle with somebody else. So your co-strivers are really important. And one of the primary energies of that group is commiseration. The second role is champions.

Champions. So the champion's fundamental job is to lift you up when you're struggling, when you're falling down. It's to cheer you on. These are your cheerleaders, if that's an easier word for you. And champions are really important because you're going to stumble. You're going to fall. You're going to hit days where you're just thinking to yourself, this is brutal. This sucks. I don't know if I can do it. I don't know if I'm good enough. I don't know if it is the thing that's really going to make a difference for me. And you'll start to doubt, you'll start to question. And in addition to all the other things that we'll put in place to help battle this, your champions can be there to say, hey, listen, I believe in you. This is going to happen. You can do this. You are good enough. You are equipped enough. And I'm going to help make sure that you are here to do it. So your champions, the fundamental energy is cheerleading. The third role is what I call accountants. Accountants. And this is not somebody sitting

behind a desk doing your books. This is someone whose primary role is accountability. This is someone who actually shows up and says, okay, you told me that this is what you wanna do. And you told me that this is the work you're willing to put in to do it. And I am going to accept the role of helping to hold you accountable to doing the work that you've stated you're committing to doing

in the name of making this thing happen. So an accountant is somebody where you have an agreement with them and you say, this is what I'm doing. This is why it matters to me. This is the work that I'm committing to do on a daily or weekly or whatever it may be basis so that they can see all of these details.

And then you ask them, are you open to being the person who helps hold me accountable to the vision, to the work and to doing what I say needs to be done in order to make this happen. So your accountability person or people will play that role. And it's important to actually get that level of agreement from them. You want them to know the outcome, your reason why it matters, the work that's needed, and the commitment that you're making to actually do it. So they understand

what you are saying you're going to do, and they know what they will be holding you accountable to. Now, question comes up very often, can your accountants also be your champions? My answer is, in theory, yes. In reality, very often, they are not the same person because the level of sort of directness and holding somebody to account that has to come from your accountant is often a very different energy and not the same thing that the person who would be your champion and your cheerleader

would be good at doing. Because very often a champion or a cheerleader is somebody who just wants you to feel really good and pick you up when you're down. And they also may tend towards being much more forgiving and lenient if you kind of go off track or miss a day or do whatever it is. Ah, it's no big deal. You can still do it. Everything's going to be great. Whereas your accountability person is going to say, okay, so you said this is what you wanted to do. You said why you want it, why it mattered so much. You showed me the work that it will take to do it and you're not doing it. And that's not okay. This has to happen. So very often those states of mind or those sort of energies, those vibes don't easily coexist in a

single person. So I found very often it's more effective to have these two roles played by two different people. The fourth role under our people element is mentors, mentors. Now this can be, you can use different words, it can be coaches, it can be guides. But the fundamental thing here and the fundamental energy of your mentors is wisdom and acceleration, wisdom and acceleration. So you're looking for people that in some way, shape or form, deeply understand the journey that you have committed yourself to.

Very often they have gone on their own version of it themselves, or they have worked with or coached or successfully led many other people through the same thing. So they really understand on a deep, visceral, embodied, experiential level, what you are moving through. And they also are much further down the road than you.

And they understand all the different things that come up and they have seen how to adapt, how to share wisdom to help you adapt what you're doing along the way, to move through obstacles, to deal with struggles, and to accelerate your journey and change your path or your commitments to the work that you're doing. So for example, if your initial plan said,

I'm going to do X, Y, and Z every day for the first 30 days, and you get halfway through that, and you realize that you are doing X, Y, and Z every day for the first 30 days. And you get halfway through that and you realize that you are doing X, Y, and Z, but it's actually not yielding the results you thought it would. Well, you may have the ability, the knowledge to know how to now change your plan so that you don't just give up, but you can adapt it to keep you moving forward. Very often we don't. And that's where the mentor can step in because they do have that knowledge.

They're the person who actually says, okay, I'm on the outside looking in. I see what's going on here. And I have been through this process with myself and enough other people that I understand how to make changes in an intelligent way to make this work for you so that you don't have to be derailed.

So the fundamental energy of this role is wisdom and acceleration. The final P is under people, is community, community. And this is feeling like you are a part of something that is bigger than you. And the fundamental energy that you get from community is belonging, a sense of belonging, a sense of you can show up as yourself. You don't have to do anything to fit in and that you will be accepted and held. And this sort of creates

this big umbrella effect of helping you feel like no matter what happens, you can just be you. And you will have a person or a couple of people or a group of people where you have a sense of belonging. And you don't feel lonely along the way. You don't feel isolated. You feel like there are other people who get you and support you simply for being you. And this is really important and really powerful.

So quick review. The third element is people. We have five fundamental roles that we need to be played to really maximize our scaffolding. Coast drivers, the fundamental energy of them is commiseration. Champions, the fundamental energy there is cheerleading. Accountants, the fundamental energy there is accountability.

Mentors, the fundamental energy there is wisdom and acceleration and community. And the fundamental energy there is wisdom and acceleration and community. And the fundamental energy there is belonging. Now, do all five of these roles have to be satisfied in order for you to have success scaffolding work? Short answer is no. But the more nuanced answer is the more, the better. And if none of them are satisfied, if not a single one of these are satisfied, your likelihood of success drops dramatically. So basically the more of these five roles you can have in place, the higher your likelihood of succeeding is, especially if it is something big and challenging and long-term and the stakes are high. So that is a wrap on people.

Let's move on to the fourth P in success scaffolding. So the fourth P is possibility, possibility. What do I mean by that? So you can have a great plan. You can know exactly what you want to accomplish. You can have a strong sense of why it matters to you, a really strong reason why. You can line up all these different people to play the roles that you need to feel supported. But here's the thing. If even in the context of all of that, in fact, even in the context of all of the other seven Ps, if you have them all in place, but you do not have a belief that the thing that you want so much to accomplish is possible to accomplish, nothing else matters. Nothing else matters. This is a non-starter. So why is this? Well, think about

it on a sort of a practical level. If you don't believe that the thing can be achieved, your brain basically makes this calculation and says, okay, if I don't believe it's possible, why on earth would I ever invest even the slightest amount of effort in making it happen? Right? So there's this complete disconnect. You will not take action if you do not have a belief that the thing you want to accomplish is possible. But let's go a little bit deeper into this because it's a bit more nuanced than that. So does that mean that you have to 100% believe that you can run a marathon or lose 25 pounds or get this amazing new job or start this company or create this body of work or build a beautiful

relationship? Does it mean that you have to 100% buy in and say, yes, I believe this is possible and I believe I can do it? So the short answer is no, you don't have to. You don't have to. This is where what I call the 3% rule kicks in. So what you need to do is 3% believe, not 100%, not even 50%, not even 75%, not even 10%. What you need to do is 3% believe. Meaning if the door to your belief in possibility is just cracked open a tiny bit, if there's

some voice in you that says, look, this is big. Honestly, I don't know if it's possible. I don't know if I'm able to do it, but there's something in me that says, maybe, maybe I can. You know, like I'm not a hundred percent convinced that I can, not even 50% convinced that I can, but there's a little voice in me that says, yeah, it could be hard. It could take a long time, but I do believe that it is potentially possible, that it can happen. And all you need is the tiniest little sliver there, the tiniest little sliver because we're gonna start to build on your belief in possibility over time.

And we'll talk about that as we move into the next sort of wave of peas on how as you start to take action, your belief that starts as a 3% belief starts to build to five and then 10 and then 20 and then 30 and then 50 and then eventually in inevitability. And here's the thing. You may have also heard sort of a, it's been a popular bit of a self-help meme that actually you don't have to believe first, you know, that actually

action precedes belief in possibility. That, you know, instead of just telling yourself that you should take action and your action is the thing that will actually convince you that this thing is possible. And here's the thing. After the first step in, that's probably right. Because every time you take an action and you see that it's working,

you see that you're moving a little bit closer and a little bit closer and a little bit closer, then each little step starts to add to your belief and possibility. But here's where I'm kind of fascinated and focused. What is the thing that allows you to take the very first step in? Because the problem for most people

is not sustained action. It's they never take the first step. And in a perfect world where you have abundant time and abundant resources, taking that first step, if you had no belief that the thing that you wanted to do was possible, you're just like, eh, I got nothing to risk. I have plenty of time on my hands. Well, maybe you would actually take that first step and then let your results become the thing that helps you believe and believe and believe. But I don't know anyone that lives in that world. I don't know anyone that lives in a world where like, ah, I got so much time on my hands. There's no cost to actually taking an action.

The world that I live in, the world that most people I know live in is a world where you wake up in the morning and you already feel I've got 50% more to do today than I actually have time for. And everything that I do has an opportunity cost to it. So if I say yes to one thing, that means that I'm saying no to another thing. And I already have way too many things on my plate to do in any given day. So the reality is that for most of us to take

the first step in, we actually will not do it in the real world because there's an opportunity cost to it and we feel it, we're not actually willing to take that hit unless we at least 3% believe. So for the very first step in, for the very first step in, we need to find a way to 3% believe. And some of us just do it on faith, but a lot of us don't. A lot of us don't. So the question becomes then, well, how do we create that early belief and possibility, even if it's just 3%? And that leads us to the fifth P. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th.

Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot? Flight risk. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here.

It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, Charge time and actual results will vary. In order for us to take action and start to increase our belief in possibility, we need proof.

Proof that I can do it and proof that it is doable. So how do we get that? Well, we already talked about the fact that once we step into it, then we start to get, you know, our action becomes a self-fulfilling building body of proof. We get micro tastes of progress. And when we're trying to take that very first action, the lower the stakes and the smaller we can chunk the micro actions, the easier it is for us to say yes. But there are a couple of other ways that our brain is able to sort of get that initial buy-in. One of them is something that we've seen all the time. It is when we see the stories of other people who we see as being similar to us,

who have similar quests and similar lives, similar constraints and resources, who have done this thing or attempted to do this thing before and succeeded. So when we look at that, we think, huh, you know what? They're similar enough to me and I see that they've done what I wanna do. So maybe my brain gets to say,

maybe it's possible for me too. Again, you don't have to get 100% there, but if you can get 3% there, it'll allow you to start taking the action that gives you the micro tastes of progress that become a building body of proof through your own experience. So the stories of people who are similar to you and others,

and we see this out there in the world all the time. In fact, you see it in the world of marketing all the time. Specifically, you see it on infomercial marketing all the time. Specifically, you see it on infomercials all the time. What do you see? Any infomercial that has been airing for more than a hot minute, which means that it's probably working, you will very likely see is a wall-to-wall testimonials.

Testimonials are in there because they work, because our brain sees them as being, these are people who are similar enough to me that have tried to do something that I want to do and succeeded. Maybe if they can succeed, then what that's telling me is it might be possible for me too. So the first type of potential proof is similar others, stories of similar others. The second thing that we often look to, to create this proof in the belief of possibility is to people we trust. And very often,

these are people that we see as being authorities in a particular field or domain or plan or process. So if we go to somebody who has coached a thousand other people to do what we want to do, and they like, they look at you and they hear your story and they say to you, this is possible. Like knowing you, knowing what you want to do, having worked with a thousand other people who've succeeded, I'm telling you as an authority in this space, it's possible. So that can become something which serves as another form of proof, which helps you get to that place of possibility and start taking action. Another place that we tend to look, and this I think is misplaced, but I think it's interesting to speak to for just a minute, is celebrities who are out there doing something similar. And I don't necessarily think this is always a good thing because we tend to confuse celebrity with authority. And just because somebody is a celebrity in the space

who we admire who they are, what they stand for, what they do, we tend to have an aspirational sense of affinity, which is not necessarily real. Meaning we aspire to be like them, to be friends with them, to live the life they want to live or that they are living. And we kind of transfer into that. And the truth is very often, you know, they live such a profoundly different life than us that it really is not an analog, that we can't really draw any true authority or proof from that particular person. But because we've become sort of a, such a celebrity obsessed culture, we sometimes delude

ourselves into thinking that if a celebrity who we respect or aspire to be, or to be around says that it's possible, then it's possible. So be really careful of your brain's bias towards celebrity and the assumption that along with celebrity comes authority, because it does not always come that way. One final sort of way that we look to people that we trust is not just coaches who have worked with other people and help them do the same thing, but people who have some sort of academia or pedigree or certification or licensing. So if you have tons of degrees or awards in a field and things like that, that can also help serve as sort of these indicias of authority. And then we'll trust that person. And when that person says that it's possible to do, then we believe them,

that opens the door to possibility for us. One final way that we tend to build proof, and that is when we see facts, data, or demos. So if we go out there and we start to hit the internet and we search and we find all these studies that show that this thing we wanna do is possible and that people like us have done it, the research, the facts out there start to help us actually see that it is possible. And sometimes demos, live demos will convince us they'll serve as proof of possibility.

Sort of a fun, really fast, easy way to think about demos is if you've ever been to a market or to a place where there's a booth set up where somebody is demonstrating some sort of miracle cleaning product. They cover a tile floor with all sorts of horrible stuff and then mop it up instantly. Or there's a terrible stain on a shirt and then there's a big coffee stain and then this miracle product just instantly makes it vanish. Those demos actually seeing, witnessing a demonstration

of something's possibility or ability to actually succeed can serve as proof for us. So reviewing micro tastes of progress once we take that first step in can help serve as a growing body of proof that this thing is possible. And the more steps we take, first step in, can help serve as a growing body of proof that this thing is possible. And the more steps we take, the more proof we have, and the more steps we are,

the more possible we believe it is, and the more we continue to take action. Similar others, stories of similar others, people we trust, people in authority, and facts, data, and demos. Those are the sort of big buckets under this element of proof. Now, once we have proof

and we start to take our small actions and we start to experience, you know, our own taste of moving towards our outcome, we want to actually add another piece of scaffolding that really helps us witness our own movement forward. And that leads us to the sixth P, and that is progress. that really helps us witness our own movement forward. And that leads us to the sixth P, and that is progress, progress.

So for us to continue taking action, we must experience progress on a regular basis. Some really fascinating work done by Professor Teresa Maboulay that showed that in fact, one of the biggest motivators or the biggest indicators of somebody's willingness to continue to take action to achieve something big and sustained and long-term is regular small tastes of progress. Not big giant awards, not huge triumphs or threshold moments, but it's the small day-to-day tastes of progress. So there's another reason that this is actually really important to create some sort of mechanism where we can witness and memorialize our regular small bits of progress. And that's a quirk of the mind.

It's a bias actually called the negativity bias. So our brains are wired in a bit of a strange way. We tend to default to focusing on the things that are going wrong, the things that we perceive as bad, the things that we're not doing rather than the things that are going right, the things that we're not doing, rather than the things that are going right, the things that are good and great. And there's very likely a sort of a historical survival reason for this. So for example, if you know, in prehistoric days, you're walking by a

dark cave, or a forest where you don't know what's rustling behind it, it's a pretty good idea for your brain to say, warning, danger, negative. The thing that I can't see or touch out there is something that I should move away from. And I have a negative bias association with it. And that's going to make me move away from it. Problem is, this day and age, the negativity bias actually tends to make us avoid

all the good stuff, avoid the progress we're making, avoid the amazing things that are happening, the great conversations, the movement towards the things that we want, in the name of the much smaller number of things that go wrong, that take us off track. So in order for us to offset our intrinsic negativity bias, we need to actually feed our mind a series of positive things all day long. In fact, there's a ratio. We need exponentially more positive bits of experience and data than we do negative just to offset the negativity bias because that negative bias is very often so much stronger. So this is where progress tracking becomes really, really important for us.

We want to create a way for us to have objective, regular benchmarks for progress tracking. Now we can do this in any number of ways. You can do it in the form of an app that, you know, allows you to enter whatever the metrics that you're measuring are every day. You know, if your goal is to walk a mile every day, you know, you can have an app that allows you to basically enter at the end of every day. I have met my goal. You can wear a tracker, a motion tracker that actually will track your number of steps. So you might say, okay, so my goal is to walk

10,000 steps every day. And you can wear a fitness device, a fitness tracker, many smartphones actually now just have that built into it that will tell you that will track your progress. So you can look at it at lunch, well, how am I doing with my steps? At dinner, how am I doing with my steps? So you make sure that you're tracking it and you stay on track. And then at the end of the day, when you hit that goal, you get to sort of say, okay, I've made it.

And this becomes a slowly growing record of the fact that you are doing the work, that good things are happening. So when that, you know that negativity bias gremlin kicks in and says, you suck, it's not going to work, you're not doing it, you can actually look and you say, okay, so actually I can see that I'm actually doing really good things. I'm doing the work every day. And now I'm tracking progress in a way where I'm seeing that it's actually having results. It's moving me closer, right? So I'm walking, I'm hitting my 10,000 step goal

on a daily basis. And it's also my resting heart rate has slowly dropped. My blood pressure has dropped. My weight has dropped. My energy has risen. So what you wanna do is choose your mechanism to track the metrics that matter most along the way on two levels.

One is work and the other is outcomes, right? So the work outcomes are the actions that you're committing to take on a daily basis. You want a way to track and note and build a record of you doing those. And then also changes in the outcomes that you're looking to influence along the way. So you want to track those two things on a fairly regular basis. And the research shows that in fact, when you do track those on a pretty regular basis, you're more likely to achieve the outcome that you want. Maybe it's a journal, maybe it's an app, maybe it's a device, maybe it's some form of tech, maybe it's just a piece of paper or a chart in your wall. Maybe it's a calendar where

you're X-ing off days and it's visual in front of you so you can see it all day, every day. Whatever it may be, find the mechanism that works for you, that allows you to create objective benchmarks for both work and movement towards an outcome and track it on a regular basis so it becomes a record of your progress towards the thing that you really want to make happen. So that is the sixth P, progress. And now we are heading into the finishing stretch here, heading into the final two Ps in our 8P success scaffolding,

the inner and outer game of achievement, of grit, of perseverance, of all the things that it needs to actually make what you want to happen, happen. What are these final two Ps? So this is kind of fun. The seventh one is what I call the pledge. And this is a bit of a fascinating psychological phenomenon.

So more than 30 years ago now, social scientist Robert Cialdini wrote a book called Influence that looked at the drivers of influence. What influences us to do certain things, what influences us to change our behavior and our decisions, to take actions. And what he found was a list of six different things. And among them was something called the consistency principle.

And what that basically tells us is that we are wired in a way where we want to see ourselves and we want others to see us as being consistent human beings. Meaning if we say something, we want to see ourselves as the type of person who then continues to say things that are consistent with the statement that we made

and continues to do things, to take actions that are consistent with the things that we've both said and done in the past. It's this interesting quirk. Now, this can actually be used against us and it can lead us to make very negative statements and actions and dig us into a hole because we will start to act and say things that are consistent with something that in the very beginning was actually wrong or misguided or not based on fact. And instead of opening ourselves to the reality of truths that we've learned along the way, we ignore them. We keep our blinders on. And the consistency impulse is so strong that we value that over actually adjusting course and opening to reality. So we just keep digging ourselves into a in arguments a lot. You make a statement at first and maybe it's out of anger or maybe you really believe it's true. And then over a period of

conversation or through seeing other things or forms of proof or experience, you take action and you realize, oh, well, I was actually pretty wrong. But now you're dug in and now you've made a statement to other people about this and you don't want them to see you as being the type of person who flip-flops or who's inconsistent and you don't want to see yourself that way. So you just continue to double down and double down and double down on both a statement level and an action level and you dig yourself into a hole. Here's the interesting thing. This same impulse can be used really powerfully

to fuel beneficial statements and actions. And one of the most powerful ways that I've seen it used and used it myself is by creating something I call a pledge. And that pledge is basically a document, a written thing that says, I am committing to this one particular outcome. I'm committing to make it happen. The reason why it matters so much to me is this. And you fill in that. And then you say, in order to actually make this happen, I will do this.

And it doesn't need to be the entire plan, but like it should be the first steps or the things that you're committing to do on a daily basis. And when you actually create that pledge, what we see is that you are more likely to then act consistently with the things that are in it. So this has been used actually in the past in the fitness world, where somebody comes in and they say, hey, I'm signing up for gym or I'm signing up with a personal trainer and I really want to get fit and I want to lose 40 pounds.

And the trainer will say, okay, so let's put this down on paper. Let's make a contract. And the contract has, this is the outcome. This is why I want it. This is the work I'm willing to do to make it happen. Okay, now sign at the bottom. Now, is this a legally binding contract? No, of course not. But the thing is in our brains, it doesn't matter. The fact that we've actually

just made this pledge, that we've made it to ourselves internally, and we have somehow memorialized it and made it publicly to other people, that actually triggers the consistency impulse. It triggers us to want to continue to make statements that are consistent with it and take actions that would be consistent with it as well. And it increases our likelihood that we will stay on track as things get challenging. Interestingly too, you can create a pledge and then share it with the five different roles of people that we have talked about before. You can post it publicly so that there's more accountability.

You can put it online on your social media accounts if you want. Basically, the more people know about it, the more publicly the impulse actually deepens because you want to be seen as the person who acts consistently with it. So that is the seventh P pledge. And it creates this, it plays on this really interesting quirk of behavior about the way that we want to see ourselves and be seen and how that leads us to take consistent actions and make consistent statements along the way. And that brings us all the way home to our eighth P, and that is practice. So what do I mean when I say practice? Well, is it the classic practice, practice, practice, and you'll get better? No, that's actually not what I mean. When we talk about practice, what we're talking about is taking all of these things that we've talked about and actually building a daily practice of action taking.

Turning this into something which is not just something which is sort of forced, but something that it becomes a part of ourselves. This becomes a part of our daily practice. us, you know, understanding our plan, revisiting our purpose, connecting with the people that really matter, doing the things that allow us to deepen into a sense of possibility, continuing with the micro tastes that build the proof of possibility and keep us taking action, the progress tracking, staying on track with the pledge that we made and being consistent. When we take all these behaviors and we build them into a daily practice so that it starts to become not just something that we force ourself to do, but it becomes something which becomes essentially a part of our identity. You know, this is the practice that we

do. This is who we are. We are the type of person who embraces the practice of doing the things needed to achieve what we want to achieve. And very often under that sort of like bigger umbrella of practice, there are two things. And those two things are ritual and habit. So how are those different? Well, they're different largely in the level of intentionality that we bring to them. So habit is about the things that we do on a repeated basis every day,

sometimes multiple times a day. And the goal with them is to repeat them over and over and over to a point where they become automatic, where they are no longer the things that we think about we have to do, but they actually just become an automatic behavior. And one of the reasons that we do it is because the more automatic it becomes, the more ingrained it becomes on an identity level, but also the less energy it consumes in our brain. It moves sort of from the more cognitive part of our brain, the executive function part,

to the more primal part of our brain, which is actually much more efficient. In fact, our brain is constantly, all day, every day, looking for ways to make behaviors that we do repeatedly automatic so that it can conserve energy and not end up completely depleted. In fact, the majority of the things

that we do on any given day have become automated and are habit-driven because our brain has to do that in order to survive. So we want to take the things that we literally do the same every single day and make them less and less conscious decisions and more and more automatic. And we do that by simply making them small, incremental, doing all the things that we've

done over time. They will lead to the creation of a habit, right? Now, the other side of this, I mentioned is ritual. And this is different in intentionality. So ritual are very often the things we say or do on a regular basis, and we want them to happen on a regular basis. But part of the joy and part of the power and the value of these is that we actually do not do them in an automatic way. We do them in a very intentional way. And it's the presence that we bring to that that helps make the work and the power and the process so much more rich and rewarding along the way. So I'll give you an example here. I have a morning mindfulness meditation practice

and breathing exercise practice. Now, this is a blend of habit and ritual, and this is how most things work. There's an interplay between the two. The habit part of my morning practice is every single day, I get up at just about the same time. I wander out of my bedroom. I sit in the same place. I use the same app. It's always set for the same exact amount of time. It chimes with the same bells. I don't think about this. It's automatic. I turn it on and I go about my

practice. And then when I'm done, I get up, I turn off the app, I go and I make coffee. This is just what I do. So the behavior around, all the behaviors leading around my actual practice are completely automated for me. I don't really even think, I don't wake up in the morning and say to myself,

okay, I have to go and sit on my cushion. I have to open my app. It's just what I do. It's on autopilot. Now, what about the actual practice of meditation itself? So during the 25 minutes or so where I do a breathing practice and a meditation practice, that is where I become very intentional.

I don't want that to be automatic. I want a certain level of intentionality so this becomes the ritual part of it. So when I'm there, I'm actually doing a lot of work to bring my awareness to the experience, to bring it to the experience of my breath, to bring it to the experience of open monitoring all the sounds and sensations around me in the room, to bring it to the experience of noticing when I'm grasping at something and then being very intentional about letting it go, to be present. And part of the reason is because it is that work, it is that intentionality that actually allows me to build the capacity

to really create more of a sustained state of equanimity as I move throughout my day. So this is an example of how a simple morning practice leverages both the power of habit, the automatic elements of it, and the power of ritual, the intentional elements of it, to create a practice that I do like clockwork every single day. And that really has the efficiency of automaticity, but also the intentionality that allows me to train and grow and evolve and get the benefit of the real richness of the practice. So that is what we want to think about, taking all these different things that we're doing and figuring out how do I actually build this into, proof, progress, pledge have scaffolding. We have basically this thing that allows us to think about the thing

that we want, we yearn so much to achieve, to make happen in our lives. The thing that very likely we've thought about a million times before, maybe we've tried, you know, like a hundred times before. And because these elements were not present, because we were missing pieces of the scaffolding, we failed at the quest. And then we blamed ourself and then we shamed ourself. Maybe we said we're not worthy. Maybe we told ourselves it's impossible because that helps us feel better about our inability to do it.

But the reality is, maybe we've just shamed ourselves and told us that we don't have what it takes. We don't have the perseverance. We don't have the grit. So here's the reality. The reality is that thing called grit, that thing called perseverance,

the possibility of it happening, all these different things, it's less about not getting those in past attempts because they're not possible. And it's more about not having all of the critical elements of success scaffolding in place before you started, and then engaging with them along the way

so that you actually have the inner game, the inner pieces of the puzzle in place to allow your mind to support the effort and the outer, the environmental pieces of the puzzle in place so that everything around you actually helps to ensure that you will succeed so that you're not just relying on a false and always depleting sense of

willpower and motivation, which pretty much never gets you anywhere for very long, but you're actually relying on structure and changes and people and process and practice and all these different things to make sure that this time, that thing, that thing that you claim to hold so dear, that you say is so important, that you've now connected with a deeper reason why will finally happen.

So my greatest hope is that you will explore this. You'll re-listen to it. You will share this with others so that you can actually pull together a team of people and all understand what this framework is about and embrace it together to go out into the world and do the thing you're here to do with people you cannot get enough of.

And maybe make this the year that it all finally happens. I mentioned in the very beginning that I have created a one-page mind map for you. And I would love to be able to share it. I'm hoping you've taken a ton of notes with this as well. But for that one-page mind map, which really identifies all of the elements I've talked about,

if you're already on our email list, then we will send that out to you. And if you would like a copy, just make sure that if you head on over to goodlifeproject.com and you just jump onto our email list, you will immediately or within a couple of seconds or minutes, get a reply back and attached to that reply will be your one page mind map. You can print it out. You can frame it. You can do whatever you want with it. More important than anything else, engage with it. So rather than just saying, this is interesting, this is fascinating, I can't wait to do something

with it. And then putting it in a drawer, do the work, engage with it, make it happen. I cannot wait to see what you create in your life, in the lives of the people around you and in the world when you actually step up and start to bring that thing inside of you to everyone around you. Wishing you incredible success and achievement. And that's a wrap for me today, guys. Signing off, I'm Jonathan Fields for Good Life Project. Thank you so much for listening. And thanks also to our fantastic sponsors who help make this show possible. You can check them out in the links we have included in today's show notes. And while

you're at it, if you've ever asked yourself, what should I do with my life? We have created a really cool online assessment that will help you discover the source code for the work that you're here to do. You can find it at sparkotype.com. That's S-P-A-R-K-E-T-Y-P-E.com. Or just click the link in the show notes. And of course, if you haven't already done so, be sure to click on the subscribe button in your listening app so you never miss an episode. And then share.

Share the love. If there's something that you've heard in this episode that you would love to turn into a conversation, share it with people and have that conversation. Because when ideas become conversations that lead to action, that's when real change takes hold.

See you next time. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes.

The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman.

I knew you were gonna be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're gonna die. Don't shoot him, we need him! Y'all need a pilot?

Flight Risk.