Good Life Project - Year-End Reflection Part 4 | Our Contribution Bucket

Episode Date: December 28, 2023

What does your Contribution Bucket look like these days? On this special year-end reflection episode, we dive deep into the work and effort that fills you up rather than drains you. Jonathan shares what he's learned from researching human flourishing at work, including identifying the 5 key qualities that make work energizing: purpose, excitement, flow, full expression, and meaning. Jonathan then analyzes his own contribution bucket over the past year, how it was impacted by health challenges, and what he'll change going forward to align work with his values and sparketypes®.If you want to reflect on how your work and effort make you feel and set intentions for a more energized 2024, don't miss this episode. Discover how to find purpose and joy in your unique contribution.If you’re open to it, record your own responses and email them to [e-mail]. We may include your reflections in an episode. I'm excited to share this powerful process over the coming weeks to help us all step into the new year with intention.Take The Good Life Bucket Quiz to discover your levels.Discover the Work That Makes You Come Alive! Take the Sparketype® AssessmentView the 1-page Worksheet.Find all of the Year-End Reflection episodes on this Spotify playlist.Episode TranscriptCheck out our offerings & partners: My New Book SparkedMy New Podcast SPARKED. Visit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

So my question for you today, how have you felt about work over this last year or so? How has your work made you feel over the course of the year, whether it's your job or your primary devotion or role or just the thing that you dedicate most of your energy to? The way we contribute isn't just about what we give to others, to the world, to our jobs, to our work, to the entities around us. It's also about how that experience makes us feel, whether it fills us up or empties us out. This has been a really challenging year on the contribution front for so many.

The last three years just profoundly shook up the way that so many of us think about work, about values, expectations, and beliefs around it. And many have been completely rethinking this area of life and realizing they want and need more from it. A paycheck isn't enough. The most basic needs being covered, it isn't enough. There is a new set of expectations and values and non-negotiables that we've been folding into how we contribute and what we get back from it. And the world of work has been in deep flux for many reasons, which is why in today's final part four of our special month-long year-end reflection series, we're tapping into the wisdom of the good life buckets to better understand how this last year has impacted us

in three critical areas, vitality, connection, and contribution. And our focus today is on your contribution bucket. Now, if you missed our opening episodes and this special bonus year-end reflection series, you'll definitely wanna cue those up to listen to as well, because I share the basic model of the good life buckets and why they're so powerful in helping us both understand how the key areas of our lives are doing, and also giving us the information

needed to look ahead and make whatever changes or shifts are needed in order to come back to life in all areas of life. We talked about the importance of our vitality bucket and our connection bucket, what they are and are not. And I shared a powerful journaling exercise to tap as a year-end reflection and planning tool. And you can find links to those first three year-end reflection episodes in the show notes. Today in our final year-end reflection bonus episode,

we're diving into the contribution bucket, asking what it can tell us about this last year. Then we'll explore the five clarifying questions that I'll invite you to ask yourself and journal on. I'll share my own personal assessment for my contribution bucket this year, how I'm feeling about the state of my own work life and what I'm planning to do about it in the year to come. And I have a very special invitation and a special tool

that we have spent years developing, creating, that will really help you identify what are the core drivers of work or effort for you that will give you that feeling of coming alive so you can better understand why you felt the way you felt leading up to now, and then set yourself up in the year to come to really transform and fill that contribution bucket

so that you feel that the way you're showing up at work and how it's making you feel is amazing on all fronts. So excited to share this final installment of our year-end reflection series on the contribution bucket. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. 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. Av 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 or later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Okay, so we are diving into your contribution bucket today in our final year-end wrap-up episode.

What is this thing that I call your contribution bucket? Well, most of us think about sort of the primary contribution that we make. Oftentimes, our mind goes to the word work, right? It's a focus on work. But I want to reclaim that word a little bit here, because when I'm talking about contribution and the things that fill your contribution bucket, I'm really focusing on anything that invites or requires you to exert a significant amount of effort over a sustained window of time in your life, right? Now that can and often is that thing that we call our job or our career.

And for many people, that actually is the centerpiece of your contribution bucket is the thing that is you spend the greatest amount of your waking hours doing for the vast majority of your adult life. So it's okay to sort of say, you know, like the work that we do or your job, but it's just something that you said yes to. And it is very much a full-time thing, or at least a very large part of your energy and time on any given day, right? It takes up so much of what moves us through the day. So think more broadly, what are the things that you spend a substantial amount of time devoting meaningful amount of effort or energy to for a longest window of time, right? Think beyond

simply your job, although a lot of it for many people is going to be focused around that and think more broadly about life in general and what you say yes to and what you give energy to. So that's sort of like a broad resetting of the word work and how we think about your contribution bucket. And remember also, contribution often we think about what are we giving to dot, dot, dot. What is our energy, our effort, our love, our devotion, our creativity, our innovation? What is that contributing to other human beings, other effort, our love, our devotion, our creativity, our innovation? What is that contributing to other human beings, other entities, other communities, other beings,

whatever you want to fill in after that, organizations, structures, societies, cultures, right? But I want you also to do a little bit of a reframe here because the contribution that I'm talking about goes both ways. We're talking about, yes, what is the output of my energy? What am I contributing from the energy or the effort that I'm actually putting in to all these different potential recipients? But at the same time, we really want to look at, and what is it giving back to me? What is the feeling that it gives back to me? What are the assets it's giving back to me? What are the needs that it's satisfying for me? Now, when many of us think about this, and again, let's just for purposes of ease, let's say we're talking about our job,

our work, like our primary job here. And when most of us think about, well, what is it contributing back to me? Often the first thing that comes to mind is, well, I think about money. I think about security. Is it basically giving me, you know, it's giving me a paycheck. It's giving me benefits. It's giving me the ability maybe to save some money and plan long-term. And those are all really important things. They matter. They allow us to feel baseline comfortable in the world, right? I would never say that those things don't matter. And if you are struggling with all of those different factors right now, they may be the primary thing. They may be the thing that you're most focused on. There's no judgment. There's no shame there. We all go through different moments and seasons of life where those essential needs become

more or less important and more or less covered. And wherever you are, acknowledge the fact that that's okay, that these things matter. They play a part in what our work contributes back to us, how it satisfies our most fundamental needs. But what about beyond that? What about our more human flourishing needs? What about our aspirational needs, right? How does that thing that we call work contribute back to us on those different levels? And over the years, I've gone deep into what are those things that we want to feel beyond having our essential needs covered from the work that we do. And in fact, this became such a powerful devotion of mine that five years ago, we actually created

an entirely new company, more of a research and development and training organization to really study the world of work and what it means and what are the different qualities of work that make us come alive. And we identified five different states. So one of those states is a sense of purpose. We want the work that we do to give us some sense of purpose. Now, I'm not saying necessarily that this has to be some notion of satisfying a quote, singular life purpose. I'm not entirely sure I actually believe in the existence of that for many people. I think the random person stumbled upon something that seems to somehow

become their central purpose and it stays with them for life. But so many more of us actually never do. And yet we can derive a sense of purpose from so many other things that holding ourselves to the standard of having to discover that quote singular life purpose, which I think for many people is a bit of a misnomer. It means that we're never actually satisfied and okay with the fact that we may have any number of things that give us a strong sense of purpose. And one of the questions we ask in the context of work is, is the work that we're doing, are there things about it that give us a meaningful sense of purpose? And we know that this is really important, not just because we like to

feel like there's some sense of purpose behind what we're doing, like we're working towards something that matters. There's also really powerful research on the effect that purpose has on everything from our psychology to our physiology. It doesn't just allow us to perform at higher levels and be more, quote, purposeful at work and perform at higher levels and achieve more, but on a physical and psychological level, it has a profound effect on our ability to just flourish as individuals.

It affects everything from state of mind, from mood and anxiety and depression to your actual risk for life altering or ending disease and even the level of inflammation in your body. So having a sense of purpose is not just about the feeling of waking up and saying, there's something that I'm working towards that matters to me, which is important. And that's great to have. Also understand that there is a trickle out effect into your psychological and physiological wellbeing that can be stunningly powerful,

both on the positive when you have that sense of purpose and on the negative when you don't have a sense of purpose. Now, is work the only way to have a sense of purpose? Of course not. There are other things that contribute to you having a sense of purpose. If you have a full-time job or two full-time jobs, and you happen to have a kid that you're showing up for who you are a primary role model in their lives, and you spend a couple hours a week with them mentoring them, you're not getting paid for that. It's something that you just love to do. And that gives you a really powerful and meaningful sense of purpose. And that's great. So work, yes, can be

a powerful sense or purpose or deliverer of purpose. And to the extent that we can allow it to align with that, we want to, but also know that we derive purpose in different parts of our lives as well. So purpose is one of them. A second quality that is really key in terms of what our work can give us to make us feel alive is a sense of being energized and excited, that we're banishing the Monday blues. So when you wake up on a Monday or whatever is your first work day these days, because I think the classic workweek has been thrown up in the air. We're all kind of like doing it our way now. But when you wake up first thing in the morning, your eyes are open and you know this is a quote workday. How does that make you feel? Are you energized and excited to get to work and to do the thing? And do you feel like as you go throughout the day, even if it's hard, and even if it's long hours, that it still gives you more energy than it takes from you. And you're excited to keep doing it. And then when you go home at night, you're ready to recover and you're ready to relax or do things or hang out with friends, whatever it may be. But then you also know that you're excited to go back and do it again. Do you have that feeling? Does it energize and excite you? Or

does it do the opposite? Does it deplete you and push you away? So energized and exciting are two qualities that really help you fill your contribution bucket, right? So we've talked about having a sense of purpose. Purpose helps fill your contribution bucket when you get that from your work. Being energized and excited by the work that you do helps fill your contribution bucket. And again, you can be energized and excited by other things on the side too. And that will also contribute to your contribution bucket. A third quality that we look at is, does it allow you to sort of lose yourself in a sense of flow. Now, you may have heard the word flow before. Maybe not.

Maybe it's new to you. Sometimes athletes or performers and musicians call it being, quote, in the zone. And there are distinct qualities that happen when you access this state. And some of the components of that are that you lose a sense of time. You often feel like you blink and it's been 10 minutes

and then you look at the clock and you realize it's been five hours because time just flies. Sometimes time slows down too. You feel like you're completely absorbed in the activity itself. Like the world around you vanishes away. Like you are just completely immersed in this experience. You feel like you're skilled and capable and you have the resources to be able to do the thing that you came to do. These are some of the feelings and the qualities of being in that flow state. And flow is again, one of those states that isn't just amazing. And we know it when we've been in it. We can remember times where we feel it,

whether it's joyfully playing with friends when we were kids or painting something or writing, and you just completely absorb and you're like, wow, that was incredible. When I was a kid, I was a gymnast. And the second I would feel my fingertips touch the bar, the world completely vanished. There was nothing that existed except me, my hands on the bar, my body, and my breath. There was no gym. There was no gym, there was no audience watching. And I also knew that the moment I became aware of anything else, I had lost, I had basically fallen out of flow. And there's a pretty good chance that I was also

going to fall on the piece of equipment because I had lost my ability to be there and present with it. But what we know is that this state of flow has also been well-researched by a social scientist named Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. And he showed that when we're in this state, again, it has just these profound psychological and physiological benefits to us and also has some pretty powerful performance benefits. We become hyper-present, hyper-creative, hyper-cognitive. We become, and it's also a state which has been described as existing almost beyond emotion where it's not happy, it's not sad, it's just bliss.

It is sheer absorption and bliss. So being able to access that state more frequently and stay there longer is a powerful aspect of work that helps to fill your contribution bucket. And there are two other qualities that we look at as well. One is the feeling of being fully expressed. And that's on sort of two different levels. One's the level of identity, like all of you gets to show up. You're not hiding or stifling anything. But also so many of us feel like there's this wellspring of potential within us. And we're never entirely bringing it to the thing that we're doing. There's always some that's kind of like set on the side. Sometimes we feel like there's a lot of our potential that's off to the side. We don't really know how to access it or how to unlock it or bring it to the thing that

we're doing. And feeling fully expressed is also the ability to unlock that, to step into your fullest potential, perform at your highest levels, right? So it's feeling fully expressed on the level of identity and potential and capability. And when we can operate at that level, we feel so much better, so much more alive, so much more weightless. And it tends to show up in the things that we create. So we contribute at a higher level. And then that experience contributes back to our own ability to fill our contribution bucket and flourish at a higher level. And that brings us to the fifth element of work or effort that helps to fill our contribution

bucket. And that is meaning. It's the experience of meaning. So meaning is the feeling that who you are and what you're doing actually makes a difference, that it matters. This is a subjective quality and experience, by the way. There's no objective measure that says this is meaningful for all beings, for all people in all circumstances.

It's entirely unique to you. Somebody can do the exact same task and one person feels like this is monotonous and eye-rolling and I want nothing to do with it. It has no meaning for me. Another person can derive a deep and lasting sense of meaning from the exact same activity. So never be judged or let yourself be judged or judge others for whether something does or doesn't give you a sense of meaning. It is entirely independent. You get to decide, is this meaningful to me? Does it genuinely matter to me? And that sense of meaning is the feeling that often gets derived from pursuing something that gives you purpose as well. So there's a relationship between meaning and purpose, but they are not the same thing.

Think of meaning as the feeling and purpose as the verb. Purpose is movement towards something that is important. And meaning is the feeling that you get by actually immersing yourself in that pursuit. So it all comes together in one big body of work. Now I mentioned in 2018, actually it is, so it's going to be more than five years now, this became such a consuming dedication for me. I became so fascinated. I've always been fascinated by work and contribution and how it affects us as human beings and our ability to live good lives and had so many fantastic conversations over more than

a dozen years here on Good Life Project about this topic. But we developed our own special organization to go deeper into this in 2018 called Spark Endeavors. And as part of that, we start to research and develop a set of imprints. We identified a set of 10 different imprints or impulses for work that gives you that feeling of coming alive,

that gives people those five different states on a pretty regular basis. And once we developed and identified these 10 different impulses that we have, we started to realize that wrapped around those impulses are a set of pretty regularly recurring patterns, behaviors, tendencies, and preferences that most people who have these different impulses have. it was the archetype for work that sparks you. And then we spent the vast majority of the entire year developing an assessment that would allow somebody to spend 10 to 15 minutes fairly quick and answer about 50 or so questions. And at the end of that, learn what we call your sparkotype profile. And that tells you your primary shadow and anti-sparkotype. Your primary

is your strongest impulse for work that makes you come alive. Your shadow is your secondary or runner up impulse for work that makes you come alive. And your anti-sparketype, that's the type of work that you may actually say yes to. It may be a part of your job or your primary devotion or role on a pretty regular basis. But there's something about it that intrinsically is just more emptying than filling. It takes more energy than it gives you, requires greater recovery when you have to do it, and greater motivation to actually make you say yes to doing it. So we developed this assessment, and we released it to the world at the end of 2018. And we were not surprised by what was about to happen. As I sit here and record this for you, somewhere around 850,000 people from around the world have completed this assessment,

generating more than 42.5 million data points and serving as now one of the largest ever global studies on work-life fulfillment. We have stunning insights that have come out of this. And what we know is that, especially in a phase two follow-up survey that we did, what that showed us is that aligning your work or effort with your sparkotype is stunningly important. It increases all those five different states that I talked about. And we also know that the less aligned your work is with your sparkotype, the less likely you are to say that you have a sense of meaning and purpose, that you have access to flow, that you're energized and excited and expressing yourself fully. So there's a really powerful relationship here to first discovering your sparkotype profile

and then being able to align the work that you do with that profile as a powerful way to fill your contribution bucket. So that is the way that I look at your contribution bucket and the relationship between this other body of work that we've been developing for years now and building a massive data set and tons of real world applications and use cases around. And when we come back, we're going to walk through my analysis of my contribution bucket using those five clarifying questions. Then I'll invite you to do a final journaling exercise for this year in reflection. Back to you in a moment. 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 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 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. So let's dive into my review of what my contribution bucket looks like as my year-end process here. You know, probably makes sense to start out with what my contribution bucket looks like as my year-end process here. Probably makes sense to start out with what my personal Sparkotype profile is so that you have some context for how I think about my contribution bucket. So for me, my primary Sparkotype or the strongest driver for work that makes me come alive is what we call the maker. And that is all about making ideas manifest, the process of creation. It's this fiercely generative impulse. And that has driven me to invest effort for my entire life.

My runner-up or what we call the shadow, the sort of second place sparkotype is what we call the scientist. Now the scientist is all about problem solving. It's about the kick of figuring the thing out. Big problems, burning questions, complex puzzles. Those are the things that I really love to wrap myself around. So those two things, the maker and the scientist, tend to work together really well because we're constantly having to drop into scientist problem solving, figure out mode. And that allows me to then release myself with new ideas and insights and solutions into the pure generative maker mode. And that allows me to then release myself with new ideas and insights and solutions into the pure generative maker mode. Now for me, rounding out my sparkotype profile on the opposite

end of the spectrum is what we call the anti-sparkotype. That is the work that is generally the heaviest lift, the one that feels like it takes the most energy and motivation to get you to do it. It's the most depleting when you quote, have to do it for work or for values alignment and often requires the greatest amount of recovery. Even if objectively from the outside looking in, other folks look at that type of work and say like, it just doesn't feel like it's such a heavy lift. You experience it that way. So for me, my anti-sparker type is what we call the essentialist. The work of the essentialist is all about creating order from chaos. It's about systems, process, clarity, utility. I love being able to function within a work environment where those systems exist.

They make everything better and faster and easier. But when I'm the person who actually has to create them, then I kind of just want to curl up in a corner and pretend it doesn't have to happen. So that's where I'm stepping into my year-end reflection on my contribution bucket, knowing that the sparkotype, again, it's not the only thing that matters in the contribution bucket and filling it, but we found that it's really critical and central to it. So I want to share that so you have some context about how I answer the five clarifying questions for this particular bucket in the context of my

Sparketype profile. So let's work through those five questions. What level is my contribution bucket at now? Rank it from one to 10. So when I think about this, I think there are times during the year where it's been pretty high. There are times during the year where it's been really low. Right now, I would put it at about, I would say probably somewhere around a seven. So not great, but not awful. It's decent. It's okay. Which is a little bit distressing for me, to be honest with you, because I'm the guy

that runs a second company, which is all focused on doing work that makes you come alive. So when I see myself getting honest and giving my contribution bucket a rating like that, I get really curious, what's going on here? And we're going to get to that. So the second clarifying question, where has it been over the course of the last year, high, low, average? And as I mentioned, I think there were points, especially around the earlier parts of the year where it was really rocking at probably closer to an eight or nine. So many things were aligned. I was doing a lot more of the work of my sparkotype in the way that I like to do it in the modes that make me come alive. I got hit in the middle of the year with illness.

It kind of knocked me out of a lot of things and forced me to really do a lot of rethinking, but it also limited my capacity to work at a level that I often like to work at. And that knocked me down pretty low. I would say I was probably closer to a four when I was functioning there. So I've been working my way back slowly since then, since the middle of the summer. So I'm back at around a seven-ish right now, I would say. And there's definitely still room for improvement. And that brings us to that third clarifying question. What have been the main contributors to this level, both within and outside of my control? So when I think about the things that are outside of my control, there was the health issues that came upon me. I had no idea

it was coming and really kind of knocked me for a loop for the better part of three months. Now, what's interesting about this is, so I had this thing called shingles, which is effectively the chickenpox virus that can emerge later in adulthood as a different kind of thing, which leads to often a painful rash and intense nerve pain, which I had for months. And it can really stop you from being able to function the way that you want to function in almost every way. And for me, I'm asking the question, was that within my control or outside of my control? And when I've started to realize,

because I really started to ask myself, why did this happen to me? Very often it's related to stress, high levels of sustained stress and complexity that just start your immune system functioning at a lower level. And this thing that's kind of been quietly inside of me for my entire life finally decides to emerge. And I start to think to myself, I don't really feel like I felt a lot of stress during that particular time. But in hindsight, what I've realized is that I have

very longstanding and strongly developed mindset practices. And so much so that often what happens with me is that my mind feels calm and clear and balanced and able to do everything that I wanted to do. But there's a level of latent stress, sort of ambient stress that builds up in my system that my mind is able to process out with a fair amount of ease, but my body is not. My body takes the hit. And when I thought about, okay, so how did my health, my vitality bucket affect my contribution bucket? And why did it sort of end up being so low for both of them for a chunk of the year?

And it's because, you know, as I described earlier, the laws of the buckets in our first year in reflection episode is that all the buckets are interconnected. The height of the lowest bucket will always cap the height of the other two buckets. And for me, my vitality bucket was on pretty low during this sort of particular moment over the year. And that made it so that it actually functionally wasn't possible for me to fill my other two buckets, especially my contribution bucket at a level that I would normally feel I was capable of, because I just didn't have the energy, the resources, the focus. My bandwidth was being taken up at least in part by dealing with illness and pain and the uncertainty of if and when it would

go away, which thankfully over a period of months it did. So it affected my contribution bucket in a really meaningful way. But there were other things that also, when I really are getting more honest about it, led me to say like, this is a seven out of 10 and not a 10 out of 10. And that is when I think about, have I been doing the work of my spark, have I been in maker mode a lot? Have I been in scientist mode a lot? And have I been able to opt largely out of essentialist mode a lot? I knew you were going to be fun. Tell me how to fly this thing. 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. 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'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. Because we know in our data from that body of work that the more you do the work of your sparkotype, the more likely you are to actually say that you have a strong sense of purpose and meaning and energy and excitement and flow and all these different things that fill your contribution bucket. And the more you do the work of your anti-sparker type,

it is the opposite. And I really started to look at like, what have I been investing my energy in? Has it been in the work of being a maker? Has it been in the work of being the scientist? Or have I fallen into the work of the essentialist? What I've realized is that there has been a lot of making work and a lot of scientist work, but not as much as I want, not as much as I would love to do. I know I'm at my

happiest when I'm just able to lose myself in those two modes. And I haven't been in them. I've been in a lot more maintenance mode and sort of on the outside looking in sustaining mode. And I realized that I really need to get back to that, whether that is in the actual, quote, work that I do, the job that I have running businesses, or even just on the side, making, writing, painting, creating. So I'm really getting more intentional about how I'm going to resolve this. But there's one other thing that I feel is a meaningful contributor to my contribution bucket not being as high as it could be as I head towards the end of the year.

And that is that I've had a mantra for a long time now. And that mantra is fewer things better. To me, I know that when I am doing fewer things better, so rather than 10 different things at a medium level, two or three things at the highest level that I can, I'm so much more nourished, so much more fulfilled, so much more fully expressed. The things that I want to make happen in the world happen more readily and at a much higher level. I am able to close the gap

between the vision of what I want to make happen and what I actually make happen. And again, this is not just me, but functioning along with a group of amazing humans that help along the way and contribute. And what I've realized is that running two companies simultaneously and sort of recovering from an interesting and weird year, I found myself doing a lot of different things simultaneously and none of them to the level that really makes me feel like I am fully alive and engaged. So there's been a lot of reorienting around, okay,

so how do I reimagine the things that I've said yes to, the things that I want to continue to invest my energy in, but do them in a way where it's less simultaneous complexity and compounding, and how can I spread them out over time more? So I'm doing fewer things better. So part of it was about drifting a bit away from the primary sort of expression that makes me come alive, maker scientist, but also part of it is about the mode of work that I drifted into, which is many things all at once rather than fewer things better. So I'm doing a lot of work and thinking about that as I look at the year moving forward about how I can reimagine this. And that brings us to that fourth clarifying question,

am I content with both the average levels for the year and where I am now? And I think I've kind of spoken to that one already. Somewhat content, it's been a tough year in some ways. I've tried to move through it with as much intentionality and awareness and grace as I can, not always effectively. And I'm just doing a lot of thinking about how to do it differently in the year to come, which leads us to that fifth clarifying question. What, if anything, might I think about changing as I prepare to plan for the year to come? And the two guides for me in order to be more effective at filling my contribution bucket and keeping full are really getting back to every day asking myself, am I doing the work of my primary shadow sparkotype? And am I figuring out how to lessen the impact of

or do less of the work of my anti-sparkotype? Every day, I try and make decisions that allow me to do more of my spark work and less of the things that empty me out. And that second question, which is, am I doing things in a way that allows me to do fewer things better? Or am I piling too many things on all at once and adding complexity and stress in a way

that both hinders what I'm capable of doing and also affects me, my state of mind, my vitality bucket, my relationships in a way that I don't like. So thinking a lot about that and basically committing to a daily check-in in the year to come where I wake up every morning and kind of say, okay, where's my contribution bucket today? How aligned is the work that I have set up for this day or this week with my Sparker type profile? And am I stepping into them in a mode where I'm able to do fewer things better? So that's how I'm thinking about doing some reimagining in the year to come. So I hope that was useful to see how I think about my contribution bucket over the course

of the year, where it is, what the contributors were to it, and then zooming out and thinking about how can I shift it so it's consistently higher in the year to come. Take care. 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 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 going to be fun. January 24. Time and actual results will vary.