The Lazy Genius Podcast - #191 - Naming What Matters in 2021

Episode Date: January 4, 2021

The turning of the calendar doesn’t change everything, but it does change something. It changes our outlook, even the tiniest bit. We are no longer in one of the hardest years, if not the hardest year depending on your life experience, we’ve ever faced. So today I want us to start small in our own lives where we are and think through what is going to matter to each of us in 2021. Helpful Companion Links Emily P. Freeman offers us many invitations to look back and see what matters to us. If you’re unfamiliar, you can listen to her podcast The Next Right Thing here, buy her book by the same name here, or order her brand new Guided Journal here. I talk about a lot of Lazy Genius principles in this episode, which are in my book. You can buy a copy of The Lazy Genius Way here. Download a transcript of this episode.   Some of the links in this post are affiliate links, meaning if you click through and purchase something, I may earn a small commission at no cost to you. This podcast is hosted by Kendra Adachi and executive produced by Kendra Adachi, Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The ride that steals the spotlight every time it hits the road, that's the Volkswagen Tiguan. Its sleek exterior makes a first impression you can't ignore. Step inside to find available full leather seats and wood accents. Under the hood, the available 201 turbocharged horsepower power engine gives it a fun to drive edge. The refined Tiguan, you deserve more style. Visit vw.ca to learn more. SuvW, German engineered for all. Hi there. You're listening to the Lazy Genius Podcast. I'm Kendra Adachi and I'm here to help you be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. Today is episode 191. Naming What Matters in 2021. We did it. You guys, we did it. The calendar is officially set to 2021 and now we look ahead at all the possibility, all the fresh stars, all the hope. But it's also still 2020 and some

practical ways, right? Our kids still might be at home. There is still not a vaccine for the majority of Americans if you are in fact living in America. I see you, by the way. I see you listeners from England and Australia and South Africa and Thailand. It's so cool. Basically, like I said a couple weeks ago, the turning of the calendar, it doesn't change everything. But it does change something. It changes our outlook, even the tiniest bit. We are no longer in one of the hardest years, if not the hardest year depending on your life experience we've ever faced. So today I want us to start small in our own lives where we are and think through what is going to matter to each of us in 2021.

One of the most common questions I get is how to actually name what matters. Like, what if you don't know? What if you want to apply lazy genius principles to your life? Things like house rules and scheduling rest and building the right routines all in my book, The Lazy Genius Way, by the way. But if you want to use those, but you don't know where to start, since we always start with what matters. That is what we will do today. We will figure out how to name what matters, especially in 2021. A few weeks ago, I was listening to one of my pastors during our longest night service,

which is a service of lament on winter solstice. And he used the phrase, a universal kinship with sorrow. it jumped out at me because it feels so desperately true. We have a universal kinship with sorrow. And leaving a year that brought a universal kinship of sorrow, it feels significant. Now, there is still sorrow around us without question. Absolutely. But for me, 2021 holds almost a universal kinship with hope. If we don't have hope for what is in front of us, we're just going to keep drowning. Not just in the sorrow. but in the schedules and the canceled plans and unknown futures. We have to have hope.

And I do think that 2021 is uniquely positioned to offer some. And I want to enter into that hope on purpose through the lens of what matters. So how do we know what matters? Last year, probably more than any other year, it's been a crash course in what matters. We have had to cling to the goal. good we can find to the systems that sometimes work, to the daily and nightly rituals of an ordinary day. Many things that we love, things that mattered before 2020, were lost last year and might still be. But without reflecting on those things, it's hard to really name them well.

Basically, we can't know how to look forward unless we're also looking back. So I've always, always struggled looking back. I'm like a present person. I'm a present future person. I don't really, I don't really like the past very much. Many of my personal realizations about what matters, they have come, they've had to come really through conversation or an invitation from someone else to figure it out because I don't always do it well on my own. One person who has offered many invitations to me to do that over the years is Emily P. Freeman. I do not call her that when we're like hanging out and walking. I do not call her Emily P. Freeman. But that is how you will know her is Emily P. Freeman. If you are new around here and you have not heard me mention Emily before,

she's in my real life. She's a neighbor. I love her with my entire heart. She's also a fantastic author of the book The Next Right Thing. It's a book that offers a simple, soulful practice for making life decisions. She also has a podcast by the same name that I highly recommend. And she wrote like four other books anyway. But the point is, when Emily wrote the next right thing and she started the next right thing podcast, I was so happy for all of you, for everyone else who got to read or hear a taste of how she has helped me think, like, through life over the years, how she asks questions to help me figure out what matters. When my intuition, something I lean on a lot, when my intuition is not speaking up or offering an answer, often a look back will. But again, I'm not like really great at that on my own. I like, I always. need some help. So if you are like me, I have good news for you. Very, very good news. Tomorrow, January 5th, Emily is releasing a next right thing guided journal, a simple, soulful way to look back so that you have better info on how you want to move forward. I love to help you move forward

and create systems around what matters to you right now. But if you're struggling to know what does actually matter and you want to develop a practice of noticing, the next right thing guided journal is your absolute best companion. I know because it is mine. It is my absolute best companion. When Emily told me she was writing it, you know, like a while ago, I was I was all caps excited. Like, when is this available, please? Can I have this now? Thank you so much. And now that I've held it in my hand and I've started using it and writing in it, it has already added clarity in places where I wasn't fully sure what mattered. It's helped me look back in ways that I'm not good at doing on my own. So there's that. That's your first step. I want you to get Emily's next

straight thing guided journal. I cannot emphasize how this simple practice of looking back with a guide, a kind guide in like a really comfortable simple way will help you. So you develop a practice of looking back in whatever way works for you. And then after that, there is a very simple, customizable path to naming what matters. And it happens with three super simple questions. what could matter, what does matter, and what matters most. Now, you're essentially narrowing down your possibilities. Because here's the thing. If you try to just pull one out of the air, like what matters most to me?

If you just try to answer that, it's not going to work well because it feels like so much could matter, which is true. So rather than fight that, we start with it. What could matter to you? This is where you just write all the things down. Anything that feels like it could matter belongs on the list. Again, you already probably know a good bit of what matters to you simply because of how we've had to live this past year. What has kept you afloat? What has made you feel like a person? What did you long for? What do you still long for? Name those things. Name what could matter using 2020 as a guide. Also, quick unrelated side note. Because it's 2020, because it is the first week of January,

I am not able to really record at home because all the humans are at home and it's a rainy day and I'm in a room that's next to like suddenly a lot of traffic. So I apologize for the sound that you guys are getting. It's just the way it goes sometimes. That's okay. All right. So another way that you can name what could matter is by thinking categorically. Okay. So what could matter in your body, in your soul. What could matter in your home? What could matter in your planner, in your kitchen? What could matter in your relationships with a certain person? What could matter in your creativity, your work, your free time? Some of us think better by kind of niching down and getting specific. So write down anything that comes to mind, anything that could matter in any category that feels right,

especially if that just sort of helps you narrow down a little bit better. Okay, that's our pass, our first question. What could matter? Next question, what does matter? Now that you have a list, you just start crossing some things off. You'll know what to cross off in some places because those things just don't matter as much as other things on the list. You can see that now that they're written out next to each other. Now, this is harder for some people than others, mostly because a lot of us have expectations and even some shame in certain areas of our lives and what we think should matter, right? You might, think that a home-cooked meal every single night, it should matter. But deep down, it just doesn't

matter to you. But you feel weird about that. Like something's wrong with you. But listen, maybe this just isn't a season for home-cooked meals. Maybe you haven't really learned any foundational skills or enough to cook dinner on a very, very regular basis. And so forcing yourself to be proficient at something you're new at, it just makes you feel bad about yourself. Or maybe you just don't care. You don't want to cook home-cooked meals. You like takeout. It works great for you. basically if you find yourself saying well that should matter though just pause a moment and ask why ask why that should matter now some things should matter even if they're hard the word should in and of itself is not the indicator that you should ignore that thing for example the work of anti-racism

and racial redemption in our churches and our systems our government and our relationships. All of that comes to mind, right? Reading books and listening to podcasts on difficult topics, having hard, vulnerable conversations, going to city council meetings. These are not things that we're probably super jazzed about at any given time because they take effort. And they should. They should take effort. The word should isn't always bad. It's just important to ask why you're saying it. I should care about being a loving citizen. That doesn't. does matter to me. Now, will the small steps to focus on that be as easy as saying that reading for fun matters to me? Probably not. But that's the beauty of being a lazy genius. We get

to decide what matters to us, and then we take steps to support it. Sometimes those things are difficult or weighty or not super fun, but that does not mean they don't matter. There's something else here now, something new. From exclusively on Paramount Plus, it's the series Stephen King calls scary as hell. Everything here is impossible, but it's also real. Sci-fi vision calls it the best show streaming right now. We're running out of time and we still don't know the rules. Don't miss what the movie blog calls something you need to watch.

Saving those children is how we all go home. From binge all episodes exclusively on Paramount Plus. Aw, isn't something we need to travel for. It's something waiting for us in everyday life. whether in a city street or a moment with a work of art. I'm Dr. Keltner, host of the Science of Happiness podcast. Join me for Cities of Aw. A special series on how our public spaces can spark awe, wonder,

and enhance the quality of public life. You can find us wherever you listen to your podcasts. The shoulds I want you to watch out for are cultural shoulds, gender construct shoulds, performative shoulds, earning your worth shoulds. Those shoulds generally do not serve you. So all I'm asking you to do as you eliminate what doesn't matter as much as some other things on your list is just to pay attention to when you say the word should. It is not an automatic pass, but it absolutely deserves attention. We all have some things that we are in the process of letting

go of releasing the power of that idea of, you know, you should do this, you should care about this says who says who sometimes the who matters and then you can continue the work of narrowing down what does actually matter all right so we've named what could matter what does matter and now you can choose what matters most if you have eliminated and maybe even separated out a handful of things that really do matter you have a much smaller group to pull from about what matters most now does that mean that whatever matters most gets rid of the other things. No, not at all. But having that top thing, having that main priority, it helps you make better decisions every single time. The focus on that one thing, it feels like a strong limit that is restricting you from living. But in reality,

it's making it easier to live. It's giving you guardrails and easy yeses and easy knows. It helps you set boundaries and protect your margin and know when to focus on something and when to let it go. You cannot be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't without naming what matters most. You just can't do it. One of the principles for my book, The Lazy Genius Way, is to go in the right order. And the first step of every order for everything is to name what matters. You will feel more grounded and purposeful and alive. And a lie and even productive because you're not trying to do everything and make everything matter. You cannot make everything matter. So with your cold list, with this handful of things that do matter

that you've named, I want you to try and circle the thing that matters most. Now, again, you can have something that matters most across a couple of categories, you know, like what matters most for yourself and your own care and honoring of yourself, what matters most in your family, in your work, that kind of thing. You can name that. you can have more than one thing that matters most because our lives are made up of a variety of responsibilities and relationships and all of it. But in each category, or however you want to do it, have one thing, one thing that matters most so that everything else falls into place more easily. It makes the direction clear. Now to put some personal context around this, I'll share with you

what matters most to me in 2021 and how I named that. So I have felt this past year a lot in my body. I haven't slept well. I have had a lot of soreness. Headaches. I've been unkind to myself on more days than I would like about the shape and size of my body. I've grown to like really appreciate and respect it and even love what my body looks like now, which is very different than what I would have considered an ideal body to be a few years ago. But the messages that we have lodged deep within us and that we hear and see all around us every single day, it just makes it tough. sometimes to tell ourselves the truth. So I have had some days of unkindness towards myself or days where I had to work really, really hard to believe the truth in 2020. I mean,

that's a very normal thing, by the way, but it happened a lot more than usual this past year. I also notice that my care for my body is so directly related to my thought life and the health of my soul. Everything is connected. And I definitely tend to put the care of my body at the end of the line, which directly impacts every other part of who I am, right? So in noticing all of that, I started to read and listen to and just pay attention to good, solid, kind words about embodiment and care for myself. And in that processing, I landed on the phrase, honor my body. I want to honor my body in 2021. In my personal life, that's just what matters most. and it's already begun with just asking myself at the start of the day and then throughout even like,

how can I honor my body today? How can I honor my body right now? By focusing on right now or on this one day, I can name what I need that day based on rest and my schedule and my hormones and the health of my relationships and all kinds of things that impact how my body is feeling. And then I'm ending the day by asking, how did I honor my body today? And writing that down, like naming it. That daily ritual of the asking and the writing, it has already made a big difference. And what that does, by naming that is something that matters the most for this particular year,

it allows me to let go of things that dishonor my body. And that looks different every day, right? Honoring my body could be how I feed it, how I move it, how I rest it, how I think about it, how I dress it, all of the things will change from day to day. So I'm not creating rules of how I think my body is honored. I'm not setting up all of these like steps I have to follow. I'm just being present with the question because honoring my body is what matters most. How I do it is secondary.

Another thing that matters in 2021. And this is more kind of everywhere else, like in my home and my relationships and even here in my work. The thing that matters is joy. joy matters in 2021 finding it experiencing it and sharing it that matters most so obviously 2020 it had so much sorrow and even though joy can exist alongside sorrow or right after it or right before it you know the two are not mutually exclusive i want to focus on things that bring me and my family and my people joy this year on purpose with intention at the expense of of other things.

It's, I mean, it's just one year, but like, joy matters to me most in 2021. And I will let many other things go this year to keep that a priority. So that might mean, like, taking the long way because it's prettier, saying yes to ice cream in the middle of the day because my kids would think it's so fun, not letting my plants die. So I can experience how much joy they want to bring me, like all kinds of things, like silly things, big things, it doesn't matter. But those are two things that matter to me this year.

and they have already given me such a clear lens to look through with more intention and without adding a lot of extra stuff to do like really it's made life simpler i'm not adding new tasks or new things new routines new habits to a life that's already going it's kind of like um like the analogy of a train it's not like i am piling more cargo onto an already loaded train i named where i'm going what matters most and then i got rid of all the cargo and i'll keep getting rid of cargo then i'll keep getting rid of cargo that I'm not going to need. Like it just gets in the way. So this way of thinking is incredibly freeing and doable and practical and soulful and all the things.

This is why I love not just the book, The Lazy Genius Way, but the actual lazy genius way. We need system and soul. We need both. We're not robots. And we're also not like, I don't know, amoebas just trying to survive with no structure around us. Isn't it? Aren't those the things that are just like,

blobs. It's not either or, it's both. But you cannot have both in like a nice, comfortable way when you try to make everything matter. It just doesn't work. So this week, I'm going to give you a little homework assignment. I wish I could come up with a cooler name than that, but I want you to go through these three questions. What could matter? What does matter? And what matters most? You've heard a lot, I'm sure about like a word of the year. Obviously we know a ton about resolutions and all the language around goals and the start of the year and all that kind of stuff. And I hope going through this process, it might actually give you some clarity on what your word is if you want one, what your resolution is if you want one, what a goal is if you want one. You can't really decide any of those things without

first naming what matters most, but also you can't even live well without naming what matters most. So this process, while like very simple in nature, is so worthwhile, it's such a good way to spend your time. And if you are just really, really struggling to know what matters because you haven't been looking back or you would like some help at figuring out what gives you energy, what gives you life, what decisions are preoccupying your thoughts, or you want to just sort of approach that differently in this coming year, go grab yourself the next right thing, guided journal. It will give you so much direction. for this upcoming year simply by helping you pay attention.

Thank you so much for spending a few minutes with me today, and I would love to see you this week on Instagram. If you don't already follow me there, I'm at the lazy genius. Also, if you are listening to this episode on either January 4th or 5th, and you live in the triad area of North Carolina, Emily and I are going to be hanging out in a Target Marking lot for anyone who wants to come and say hi or get a book signed or just wave or whatever while you're doing like a night run for your diapers and bananas.

All the details will be on my Instagram account at The Lazy Genius and then Emily's at Emily P. Freeman. We don't have like times or anything yet, but you might remember that when my book released last August, I ended the launch day in a Target parking lot with Emily. So tomorrow on her launch day, we're going to do the same thing. And I hope you can come and say hi. I appreciate you all so much. Thank you for listening. Thank you for your patience with the rain and the cars and the buzzing refrigeration.

behind me today. I appreciate it. And until next time, be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. I'm Kendra and I'll see you next week. Have you ever felt like you were living just a B or B plus life? It's so dangerous to live that. More dangerous than a B minus or a C plus life because when you're living a B or B plus life, you don't change it. You think it's good enough. Is it? I'm Susie Welch. I host a podcast called Becoming You. People think, okay, an A plus life is not available to me, but there is a way. We are all in the process of becoming ourselves. Listen to Becoming You wherever you get your podcasts.