The Unresolution: Why New Year’s Resolutions Fail & What Works Instead

New Year’s resolutions fail, not because of discipline, but because the system is broken. In this episode, Jonathan Fields introduces The Unresolution, a calmer, more reliable way to change that replaces rigid promises with fun and forgiving experiments, kind reflection, and compassion. This episode is for anyone who wants genuine growth without burnout, shame, or starting over yet again. Episode Transcript https://www.goodlifeproject.com/podcast/the-unresolution-antiresolution-microexperiments/ Follow us on Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/good-life-project/id647826736 to never miss an episode. If you LOVED this episode: You can find the 1-page worksheet HERE. https://www.goodlifeproject.com/ws2026/Find all of the New Year three-part mini-series episodes https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3cy1kmpvCpdV6zAGJJamPX?si=rBW0v07dSbm9V4swUeU1cA. Check out our offerings & partners: Join My New Writing Project: Awake at the Wheel https://jonathanfields.substack.com/aboutVisit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes https://www.goodlifeproject.com/sponsors/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Jonathan Fields?

  So it's January 1st. Imagine you've made it through the first day of the year. It's night, the sun goes down, the novelty of the day has worn off. Your feed is full of day one out of 365 posts, gym selfies, green smoothies, and neatly written resolutions. You meanwhile are in this kind of strange, quiet in-between. Maybe you nailed the day, maybe you didn't really start at all, and you're already telling yourself, okay, the real new year starts tomorrow, or maybe Monday, or soon. There's that little voice that says, if I don't get this right now, the whole year is kind of doomed.

• 0:44Jonathan Fields?

  So you do what we've all been trained to do. You try to draft the perfect resolution, the perfect habit streak, the perfect health plan, the perfect productivity system, the perfect version of you who finally gets it together and just never falls off. And underneath all of that is this pressure. If I just push hard enough, design it well enough, want it badly enough, I can finally fix myself this year. Here's a question I want to explore with you today. What if the problem isn't that you don't want it badly enough, or aren't disciplined enough, or haven't found the right planner or app?

• 1:28Jonathan Fields?

  I mean, what if the problem is the way that we've been taught to, quote, "do the new year in the first place"? What if the traditional resolution, this rigid all-or-nothing promise that you make to a future you, is the wrong tool for an actual human life? And what if there's a different way to begin? A gentler, more flexible approach that doesn't hinge your worth on perfect follow-through, that treats your goals as experiments and not ultimatums, that makes quitting and changing your mind just a part of the process, not proof of failure? So in this episode, I want to share something I've come to think of as the unresolution. It's a way to step into the year that it keeps your desire for

• 2:13Jonathan Fields?

  growth and change, but it lets go of the self punishing perfection obsessed container that so often just breaks us. We will also include a link in the show notes to a simple one pager PDF that you can download with all of the questions and prompts in it so that you can sit down and work your way through it afterwards if that's easier for you. So excited to share this episode with you. I'm Jonathan Fields and this is Good Life Project.

• 2:48Speaker 01

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• 3:31Speaker 01

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• 3:44Speaker 02

  Hey, we're Nick and Jack, hosts of the best one yet. Behind every episode, there's research, emails, spreadsheets, and our shared Google Doc, the headline hammer. With Google Workspace with Gemini, Google's AI is built right into the premium versions of tools we already use, like Gmail, Docs, and Sheets. No new tools or extra logins, just personalized AI for the way we work. That means less time on the work around the work and more time finding the stories worth talking about. Get AI tools for work. Upgrade to Google Workspace with Gemini at G O O dot G L E slash Workspace with Gemini. That's G O O dot G L E slash Workspace with Gemini.

• 4:20Jonathan Fields?

  So on our last episode, we talked about what I call the myth of the clean slate. This is the idea that, you know, in order to start fresh, you need to erase your past self, wipe away your history and become a totally new you. We explored something really different, treating your past year as data, not a verdict, welcoming your past selves back into the picture. Instead of dragging them out to the curb, beginning this new chapter with the person who lived last year, not in spite of them. So here we are. You don't need a clean slate. You don't need to become some mythical flawless version of yourself before you're allowed to move forward.

• 5:05Jonathan Fields?

  That raises a pretty big question, though. Okay, if I'm not doing new year, new me, then how do I actually begin again? How do you step into this year with intention, without making a brittle list of resolutions that you already secretly know will crack by February at the latest? That's what we're going to explore today. Because this episode is not about abandoning growth or goals or dreams. It's just about changing the container you put them in. So let's start by taking a really honest look at how we've been taught to do resolutions. Even if you don't write them down anymore, a lot of us, we still carry this internal

• 5:49Jonathan Fields?

  template that looks something like this. Pick a handful of things that you're unhappy with. Turn them into bold, sweeping declarations. Attach your self-image to doing them perfectly. And then start January 1st like your life is a movie montage. Hope that this time, your willpower doesn't run down. And just to be clear, we're not talking about thoughtful, flexible frameworks here, things like success scaffolding, that structure that I've shared over the years for bringing big, deeply meaningful goals to life in a real world, adaptive way. That work still stands in my mind. It still matters and we'll keep building on it. What I'm talking about right now is the cultural resolution template most of us inherit.

• 6:35Jonathan Fields?

  Things like, "I will never eat X again," or "I will go to the gym every day," or "I will meditate for 30 minutes every morning," or "I will write a thousand words a day." I will become that person. It tends to have a few built-in problems. First of all, it's all or nothing. If you're on, you're succeeding. If you miss a day or two, you're quote "off," and the resolution is broken. There's no such thing as a messy middle, or good enough for this season, or "I adjusted because life happened." It's just very binary, and real life is not.

• 7:18Jonathan Fields?

  So second, it often exists in a vacuum. You design it in this kind of weird time bubble. Maybe during the holidays or a quiet weekend, you know, when your schedule is disrupted, your energy doesn't match the rest of the year, and your stressors aren't fully online either. So you kind of create this idealized plan for quote "future you," who, you know, always sleeps well and never gets sick and never has caregiving emergencies and never gets a curveball at work and never feels lonely or tired or overwhelmed.

• 7:59Jonathan Fields?

  And then January 3rd shows up with reality. And your perfectly engineered resolution doesn't actually fit the contours of your actual lived life.

• 8:14Jonathan Fields?

  So third, it relies heavily on willpower as the main fuel. The unspoken story is something like this. If you really wanted this badly enough, you just make yourself do it. I mean, every day, no matter what, which unfortunately ignores the environments that you're in, the systems or lack of them around you, your nervous system, your mental health, past trauma, neurodivergence, and just basic human variation.

• 8:46Jonathan Fields?

  So when resolutions start to wobble, we usually don't say, ah, I see what's happening here. This structure just wasn't designed for a complex, dynamic life. What we do say is some version of, I guess I just don't have what it takes. And if that's you, I just want to say, you're not broken. You're not uniquely bad at follow through. You're capital H, human. A lot of the resolution containers that we have been handed simply aren't designed for real, messy, beautiful, human lives. So, so what if we change the container?

• 9:30Jonathan Fields?

  What if instead of a resolution, we tried the unresolution? So let me be clear about something upfront. When I say unresolution, I'm not saying stop caring or, or give up on yourself or just drift and see what happens. And I'm definitely not saying that goals are bad or that things like success scaffolding or other frameworks that really do help you achieve bigger, meaningful, more long-term sustained things no longer matter. In fact, everything we're talking about today is meant to play well with those kinds of structures. It's the, it's the stance underneath them that we're talking about here.

• 10:10Jonathan Fields?

  The unresolution is less about what you aim at and more about how you hold those aims. Think of it as three big shifts. So pillar number one, direction over dictate. And by the way, for those who are listening in, if you didn't listen to the last Thursday episode of mine where we talked about closing out the year in the myth of the clean slate, I'll, I'll share here that for that and for these first two episodes to start out this year. Feel free to listen along, feel free to pause and respond to some of these ideas and thoughts and questions and prompts in real time. Take out a journal, a notebook,

• 10:52Jonathan Fields?

  whatever feels good to you. Or we will include a PDF one sheet that you can just download and go through all of the core ideas and questions and prompts in the show notes. So just take a look at the show notes when you're done and click the link and you'll be able to download this free PDF one pager with basically all the key ideas, prompts, and questions in this episode. Okay, so pillar number one, direction over dictate. So instead of starting the year with this rigid, quantified commandments list, lose X pounds, write every day, never

• 11:30Jonathan Fields?

  do Y. The unresolved invites you to start with a direction. So what is that? Well, a direction is more like a compass heading than a finish line. Things like move toward vitality, or move toward deeper connection, or move toward creative expression, move toward calmer evenings, move toward feeling more rooted in my body. Notice that those things are actually not vague affirmations. They're specific enough to feel real, but also open enough to allow different expressions over time. A dictate says, do this exact

• 12:15Jonathan Fields?

  thing in this exact way every day, or you failed. A direction says, keep steering your life in this general way and allow yourself to adapt how you do that, really as you learn. Okay, so that's pillar number one. Pillar number two is about experiments over edicts.

• 12:37Jonathan Fields?

  So, once you choose a direction, and you can pause and do that now if you want, or just come back and again, you know, like, do the work, do the notes in your notebook, your notes app, whatever, download the PDF and you'll be able to follow along. Right? So, experiments over edicts, once you choose that direction, the traditional resolution move is then to craft an edict. "I will do X every single day this year. I will never do Y again. I will hit Z by this date no matter what." Right? So if you're saying to yourself that, you know, that my dictate is, you know, or my original thing is, my resolution is, "I'm going to, you know, like, I'm going to lose 10 pounds." And then the, you know, once you get to the, what am I actually going

• 13:22Jonathan Fields?

  to do to make that happen? You know, the edict says, "I will eat only 12 calories a day this year." Don't do that, by the way, please don't do that. "I will never eat anything that is not on my quote, 'okay, approved foods' list, or I will hit this very specific weight by this date no matter what." Right? In an unresolved world, you don't start with an edict, you start with an experiment. An experiment sounds more like, "Hey, for the next two weeks, I'm gonna try a 10-minute walk after lunch and see how it feels." Or, "For the next seven

• 14:06Jonathan Fields?

  days, I'm gonna put my phone in another room after 9:00 PM and just kind of notice what happens." Or, "For the next three weeks, I'll experiment with blocking 30 minutes twice a week for creative time and track whether it energizes or depletes me." If you're looking to improve your nutrition, "For the next 10 days, I'm going to try and eat, you know, more plants with my food." Experiments are time-bound, they have clear, modest parameters.

• 14:45Jonathan Fields?

  They expect to be adjusted and they generate information, not judgment. So you're not asking, did I prove I'm disciplined? You're asking, what did this experiment teach me about my life? My energy, my desires, my constraints and reality? Okay, pillar number three here is review over judgment. Review over judgment. What does that mean? So this third shift is about building in regular gentle reviews instead of these harsh verdicts.

• 15:26Jonathan Fields?

  So in a resolution mindset, when something isn't working, we usually either ignore it and push harder or we declare it a failure and just abandon it in a wave of shame. And again, I am raising my hand here. I have done this myself so many times in past years and past versions of myself. In unresolution, instead, you schedule a short recurring, just check in with yourself. Once a week, once every two weeks, whatever feels right for your life.

• 16:07Jonathan Fields?

  You ask, okay, so what worked? What felt harder than I thought it would? And notice I didn't use the word should. I didn't say what felt harder than I thought it should. What well, what felt harder than I thought it would? Because we're taking the judgment out of this. Ask, what surprised me? What didn't I see coming there? What just totally surprised me? Wow, who knew? Ask, what did this reveal about the life I'm actually living right now? Not about the fantasy life or the perfect resources and constraints and willpower. What did this reveal about the life I'm actually living right now?

• 16:54Jonathan Fields?

  And then we want to ask, given what I've learned, do I want to keep this experiment, tweak it, or let it go? Has it served its purpose? We'll get more concrete with this later, but that's the heart of the unresolved, these three pillars: a direction instead of a dictate, experiments instead of edicts, and a review instead of judgment. It's kind of like a living relationship with change, not a once a year contract that you're terrified to break. And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors. Good Life Project is sponsored by Sequencing.

• 17:37Jonathan Fields?

  So in midlife, we start noticing some of the things our parents carried and how they're showing up in their health and their lives, and wondering what we're carrying too. Sequencing.com can help. According to Sequencing, most popular DNA tests read about a tenth of 1% of your DNA. Sequencing.com reads all 3.2 billion positions and screens for genetic variants linked to over 15,000 diseases, conditions, and traits. That can mean catching inherited risks early and understanding how certain medications may affect you so you can talk it through with your doctor. Just swab your cheek, mail it back, and their CLIA certified, CAF accredited US lab handles the rest. Clinical grade, not novelty grade. Your DNA doesn't change, but what we know about it does.

• 18:21Jonathan Fields?

  So they keep reanalyzing your genome against new research for as long as you're a member. And they never sell or share your data, ever. Right now, Sequencing.com is offering our listeners up to 10% off your full genome test plus free shipping. Go to sequencing.com and use the promo code GOODLIFE for 10% off. That's sequencing.com promo code GOODLIFE. That's S-E-Q-U-E-N-C-I-N-G.com promo code GOODLIFE.

• 18:49Jonathan Fields?

  Good Life Project is sponsored by Bombas. So there's this moment every fall here in Boulder. The morning air is crisp, the light goes golden against the mountains, and something in you just wants to slow down, like soft layers and long walks and a warm mug and a good book. You know, the cozy feeling has just arrived. And cozy really does start at your feet. Bombas just launched new suede moccasins, cushy soles, a shearling lining, and water-resistant suede. So a little frost on the grass isn't a problem. Our whole family's sock drawers are basically shrines to Bombas, have been for years. Marina wool for chilly mornings, sports socks for when we get out and move, and compression socks for long travel days, which I'm actually about to have. Opening that drawer, they're just a ripe pair for whatever the day holds.

• 19:34Jonathan Fields?

  But the other thing that has kept me a Bombas fan for all of these years, for every item you buy, Bombas donates an essential clothing item to someone facing housing insecurity. One purchased, one donated. Over 200 million donations and counting. So head over to Bombas.com/goodlife and use the code GOODLIFE for 20% off your first purchase. That's B-O-M-B-A-S dot com slash goodlife. Code GOODLIFE at checkout.

• 20:02Speaker 01

  With no fees or minimums on checking accounts, it's no wonder the Capital One Bank guy is so passionate about banking with Capital One. If he were here, he wouldn't just tell you about no fees or minimums. He'd also talk about how most Capital One cafes are open seven days a week to assist with your banking needs. Yep, even on weekends. It's pretty much all he talks about, in a good way. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See CapitalOne.com/Bank. Capital One, N.A., Member FDIC.

• 20:36Jonathan Fields?

  So let me give you a contrast from my own life. There have been seasons where I have done the classic resolution thing. So I'll meditate every day for 30 minutes. I will work out six days a week. I will write 2,500 words every single morning at 5:00 a.m.

• 20:55Jonathan Fields?

  And sometimes, for a little while, it works. And then every single time, life happens, right? A launch hits, a family situation erupts, travel throws a wrench in everything. It travels through a lot of wrenches into a lot of things for me in the second half of this year that had I been operating on the sort of like the dictate and edict mentality, it would have been a total disaster. So old me, the resolution me, would interpret that as I blew it, I broke the streak, this isn't working. Maybe I'm just not that person.

• 21:35Jonathan Fields?

  But the newer, more gentle, maybe older, hopefully just a touch wiser me, the unresolution me, tries to treat a little bit differently. So instead of asking, why didn't I stick to the plan? I'll ask, what did this plan assume about my life? That isn't true. What did I learn from the days that it did actually work? What variations might work better with the actual life that I'm living now? And that tiny shift from I failed the plan to the experiment gave me data, that's where

• 22:19Jonathan Fields?

  everything starts to really change. Now, I want to zoom in on two ideas that live inside the unresolution here also. One is the joy of quitting and the other is the beauty of incompletion. Let's start with quitting. We are taught from the youngest time that there's this iconic quote, right? We've all heard it, we've seen it in movies. Maybe you've been told it by coaches or parents or people who are thought they really were giving you the best and setting you up for success. Winners never quit. That quote, right? Or don't be a quitter, right? Or once you start, you have to finish.

• 23:05Jonathan Fields?

  And oftentimes, the intent behind it is actually is is good. People just want the best for you, right? That sounds noble until it traps you in the commitments or experiments that no longer serve the person you are now, were never truly aligned with who you are and what matters to you, your values, were designed for a fantasy version of your life, not the real one, right? In a resolution world, quitting is a scarlet letter. In an unresolution world, quitting done thoughtfully is one of your most powerful tools. Which begs the question, so how do you tell the difference

• 23:51Jonathan Fields?

  between giving up and letting go with wisdom? Right? As I remember, say quitting done thoughtfully. We can kind of reframe those as, yeah, there's two sides. Just giving up and letting go with wisdom. And again, even the phrase giving up feels a little weird to me, right? Because there's judgment implied in there. So but we're going to use it for now because I'm not really sure what else to use. So giving up is usually it's fast, it's reactionary, it's driven by shame or fear. It's accompanied by a harsh inner narrative, things like, oh, I knew you couldn't do it, or you always bail. Letting go with wisdom, though, it's almost like the exact opposite. It tends to be slower.

• 24:34Jonathan Fields?

  It's reflective rather than reactionary. It's grounded in what you've learned and it's anchored in your values, in a clear understanding of what does and doesn't matter to you, what is or isn't important to you. Right? So when you sense that something might need to go, you pause and ask a few questions. One, does this still genuinely matter to me in this moment or season of my life? Not just because I said it would weeks, months, or even years ago when I made the initial commitment.

• 25:12Jonathan Fields?

  Two, is this version of the goal or habit actually compatible with my current reality? Right? You may have started and life was good. You have plenty of free time, you're in good health, and then over time you don't have plenty of time anymore. You have compounding responsibilities, overlapping things, and maybe you're sick. Maybe you're dealing with something chronic, right? So we always want to think about our current reality. We ask that second question. Is this version of the goal or habit actually compatible with my current reality? That brings us to the third.

• 25:51Jonathan Fields?

  If I let this go, am I moving toward something that matters more or simply away from discomfort? That is such a big one for me, and I think for everyone. I'll repeat it again. If I let this go, am I moving towards something that matters to me or simply away from discomfort? So sometimes you'll find, yes, this matters deeply, but the way I've structured it, it doesn't fit my life. I need a smaller or a kinder experiment right now. Other times you realize this doesn't really belong to me.

• 26:33Jonathan Fields?

  It came from someone else's expectation or from comparison or from fear. Again, raising my hand, I have done things because of all of those. And letting go is actually an act of integrity in those moments, not failure. So I can think of times in my own life where I stayed in a commitment way longer than was healthy because I didn't want to be a quote quitter. I didn't want to be seen by others as that person who quits. I stayed because I had attached my identity to the person who sees everything through, even though some other part of me was quietly saying, dude, this is just costing us way too much

• 27:17Jonathan Fields?

  in your humanity, your health, your mental health, your well-being.

• 27:22Jonathan Fields?

  And I can think of times when I finally let go of something, a project, a direction, an entire company, even something I'd been working on for years, even a way of structuring my days, and within days, I just feel, I feel my shoulders drop, my breathing is slow and deep and my energy come back online, my vitality returning. And that's how you know this was the right move. And that feeling, when it sustains and doesn't just vanish as a temporary salve for not wanting to feel discomfort anymore, but when it sustains

• 28:03Jonathan Fields?

  and builds, again, big signals, that's right. That's the joy of quitting on resolution style. It's the joy of reclaiming your energy and attention from things that no longer fit, if they ever did. So you can reallocate them toward what actually does matter now. So let's talk about the beauty of incompletion then, kind of like a nice compliment here. Traditional resolution culture, it worships finishing. I'll feel proud when it's done. If I don't finish, it doesn't count. Man, I have lived that one. Or halfway doesn't

• 28:48Jonathan Fields?

  mean anything, right? But the thing is, life really doesn't work that way, does it? You will start things you don't finish. You'll get halfway into a project and realize it's not what you thought. You'll be in process with parts of yourself for years, maybe decades. Incompletion is not a glitch in the system. In many ways, it is the system.

• 29:15Jonathan Fields?

  So I like to think of life as kind of like an ongoing manuscript, like the writer in me. Some chapters are in second or third draft. Some are still rough notes and fragments. Some are just a title and an empty page. You know, in that frame, unfinished doesn't automatically mean failure. It might mean this did what it needed to do for now. I learned what I needed from this stage. This belongs in this season as a sketch and maybe not the masterwork. One phrase I've been playing with is complete enough for now. Not completed forever, not perfect, just complete enough for now, for who I am and where my life is.

• 30:00Jonathan Fields?

  So, you know, maybe you didn't finish the quote online course, but one module changed how you work. Or you, you didn't write the whole book, but the process of drafting a few chapters clarified what you actually want to say. By the way, this one is really personal to me. You know, a little over a year ago, I committed with a friend to spending November, I guess it was 2024, trying my hand at fiction. You know, the goal was to write 50,000 terrible words of a novel in 30 days. And I got halfway through, I wrote about 25,000 words and then life happened. You know, it was a bit of an insane thing to commit to, especially at that time in my life.

• 30:44Jonathan Fields?

  I had no business doing it, but I thought it was, you know, superhuman. And I got halfway through doing it, but, and then I just, life got so busy and overwhelming with competing demands. I had to kind of like put it aside. And for a hot second, I was like, oh, I'm a failure at this. And then I was like, no, no, no, like actually this is still really interesting to me. But continuing with this, it isn't right for me for this moment of time. Right? But the process of writing 25,000 words was so illuminating and so awesome and so cool. Learning how to write something and construct worlds and characters and dialogue, all of which I'm horrible at still, right?

• 31:26Jonathan Fields?

  But I knew, I was like, this isn't right for me now, but what I had done, there was so much value in it. I so appreciated it. I didn't feel any sense of regret or lack or failure. And also there was this voice that I actually do think there will be a time when you come back to this. So it's okay to kind of set this aside now. And I'm feeling the call really strongly now to invite it back into what I'm doing. Right? So back then I said, this is, this is sort of complete for what it needs to be for now. And I'm now in a process where I'm hopefully going to be stepping back into that.

• 32:03Jonathan Fields?

  Other examples, maybe you didn't build the entire business that you had in your mind, or the private practice, or once the coaching practice, or the craft work that you were working on. But the early experiments, they taught you something crucial about, about how you want to serve, or create, or build. Right? Rather than seeing those as failures, the unresolved, it invites you to say, this might be complete enough for this season. I can stay in relationship with the essence of what I wanted without forcing some arbitrary finish line. Let's make this maybe a little bit more concrete with a tiny practice. If you're able, you might jot this down. If not, just think through it with me.

• 32:45Jonathan Fields?

  Again, we have a PDF, sort of one sheet on this. When you're done, if you want, just click the link in the show notes, download it. It's free and you can work through it there. But for now, maybe just follow along and think through it with me. And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors. This message is brought to you by Apple Card. Ah, fall, that cozy season where we swap the swimwear for sweaters and sunnies for scars. But before the Halloween decorations are put away, or Thanksgiving table has been set, there's already holly jelly music playing in the grocery store, reminding you that the year is coming to a close. Time to kick end of year into high gear.

• 33:25Jonathan Fields?

  When you use Apple Card with Apple Pay, you earn 2% daily cash back on all purchases, including food, decorations, gifts, and more. Get a head start on your end of year purchases. Apply for your Apple Card in the Wallet app on your iPhone today and start using it right away with Apple Pay. Subject to credit approval. Apple Card is issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City Branch. Terms and more at applecard.com.

• 33:52Jonathan Fields?

  Good Life Project is sponsored by TinCan. So if you grew up in the 70s or 80s, you probably still remember your best friend's phone number and stretching the kitchen phone cord around the corner for privacy. Our executive producer, Lindsay, wanted that same freedom for her kids, eight and 10. So in January, she got them a TinCan. Now, friends call the house to chat, make plans and check in without borrowing her phone. They even keep a handwritten phone book next to it. I kind of love that. TinCan is the new school way for kids to talk with their friends. It's a secure landline that lets them call all their favorite people, but with parental controls to keep them protected. No screens, no algorithms, no texting, just a phone being a phone.

• 34:34Jonathan Fields?

  Kids can only call or be called by people on your approved list. Calls to other TinCans and 911 are always free. And there's even an answering machine for messages that are, I'm told, gloriously ridiculous. Go to tincan.com/goodlife to get $10 off your first order, exclusive for our listeners. That's tincan.com/goodlife for $10 off. And when you use our link, you're supporting our show. Tincan.com/goodlife.

• 35:04Speaker 01

  With no fees or minimums on checking accounts, it's no wonder the Capital One Bank guy is so passionate about banking with Capital One. If he were here, he wouldn't just tell you about no fees or minimums. He'd also talk about how most Capital One cafes are open seven days a week to assist with your banking needs. Yep, even on weekends, it's pretty much all he talks about, in a good way. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See CapitalOne.com/Bank. Capital One, N.A., Member FDIC.

• 35:38Jonathan Fields?

  So here we go. I want to invite you to, to bring to mind two or three things from last year that you would label unfinished. You know, maybe the hobby you started and then dropped, the, the project you got halfway through, the habit that never solidified, or the, the idea you sketched out and then put aside. Just pick one. So take a moment and just kind of in your mind's eye, pick one. Okay.

• 36:07Jonathan Fields?

  Now, ask yourself, what has this already given me even though it's not finished?

• 36:17Jonathan Fields?

  What has this already given me even though it's not finished? Maybe it gave you a sense of what you don't want, or a moment of joy or curiosity, or a skill that you'll carry into something else, or proof that you're capable of trying. And then ask,

• 36:41Jonathan Fields?

  is there a tiny way I'd like to stay in relationship with this without pressuring myself to finish it right now? I can't repeat that. Is there a tiny way I'd like to stay in relationship with this without pressuring myself to finish it right now? Maybe instead of finishing the whole course, you revisit one lesson that really resonated. Or instead of finishing a big creative project, you give yourself permission to just make one small, low-stakes thing in that medium. Or instead of forcing yourself to complete the original goal, you carry forward the part of its spirit that still feels alive in you. It's an unresolved world, incompletion. It isn't a scar on your record.

• 37:28Jonathan Fields?

  Sometimes it's just the most honest place for someone to live right now. By the way, this applies to me for books, too.

• 37:37Jonathan Fields?

  I quit books, or I leave them in places of beautiful incompletion on a regular basis. Even though I'm a writer, and I love to think that everybody reads every word of the books that I write. All right, something is a little bit off there. Okay, so let's bring this down out of the abstract also, and into your January now, right? Because that's really what we're talking about here. I want to walk you through a very simple, practical, unresolved practice that you can start right now. So if you have a notebook or a note app, grab it if you can. Again, after this, you can just listen through this if you want now, and then check out the one pager, the downloadable in the show notes. If not, you can do this mentally, come back later to write.

• 38:22Jonathan Fields?

  We'll move through three steps here. One, choose a direction. Two, design one or two experiments. And then three, decide when you'll check in. So step one, choose a direction, not a resolution. Instead of writing resolutions, I'm going to invite you to pick one primary direction for this month, for this month, just one. Ask yourself, if my life were to tilt just a little more in one area over the next month, what would I want that tilt to be? If my life were to tilt just a little more in one area over the next month, what would I want that tilt to be?

• 39:04Jonathan Fields?

  So some examples might be moving towards feeling more grounded in my body, move towards more ease in my evenings, move toward deeper connection with one person who matters to me. Move toward more honest, creative expression. Move toward a calmer relationship with work. You don't have to phrase it perfectly. Don't worry about perfect language here. Just choose a direction that feels alive, not like a should, something that just kind of like, almost like vibrates in you. I don't know about you, but for me, I get this physical tell when something is aligned with me. I literally start to shake a little bit. I feel it in my body.

• 39:47Jonathan Fields?

  And if you're writing, jot down something like, in January, I want to move in the direction of, and then fill in the end of that sentence. Right? Take a moment and let something surface here. Okay. If you're just thinking this through, just think it through. And you can always come back and sort of like, write this out too. Step two. Design one or two experiments. Now, for that direction, we're going to design one or two small experiments. Remember, an experiment is time limited, specific, but simple. And something you're genuinely curious about, not something

• 40:30Jonathan Fields?

  that you're already treading, which so many resolutions are.

• 40:35Jonathan Fields?

  So let's play with some examples. If your direction is, let's say, move toward feeling more grounded in my body. Your experiments might be things like, for the next two weeks, I'll try a 10-minute walk after lunch on weekdays and notice how I feel. Or for the next seven nights, I'll pause for three deep breaths before I open my laptop after dinner and see what happens. Another example, let's say if your direction is move toward deeper connection with one person. Maybe your experiments look like, twice a week for the next two weeks,

• 41:18Jonathan Fields?

  I'll send that person a short audio or text, tell them one thing I appreciate. Or I'll ask them, once this month, hey, how are you really? And actually listen longer than usual. Or maybe if your direction is move toward more honest, creative expression. This is something that has become a real focus for me, too. You know, your experiments might be, for the next three weeks, I'll set a 15-minute timer twice a week and make something. Words, sketches, scraps that nobody else has to see. For me, one of the ways I actually kind of operationalized this in the last year,

• 42:02Jonathan Fields?

  because I want a little bit more structure and accountability around it, is I would sign up for time-limited workshops. So when I was learning metalsmithing, I would sign up for a weekend intro course. So like, spend two days immersing myself in learning the art of metalsmithing. Or, you know, four weeks or six weeks working with a master metalsmither, learning a particular thing. Time-limited, it was something, and it was really all just about learning. Like, there was no illusion about me being amazing at doing this from the get-go. So whatever your direction is, see if you can come up with one experiment that feels almost laughably small, and maybe a second one if you're feeling it. And write it out as, like, take this sentence format.

• 42:47Jonathan Fields?

  For the next, insert amount of time, I'll experiment with, insert action or commitment, and just notice what it's like. Again. Download the one sheet in the show notes if you want all the specific language here, or just hit pause now and do it again. For the next insert amount of time, I'll experiment with insert action and just notice what it's like. Take a moment here to let one experiment take shape. Think about it, write it down if it feels good to you. Okay, now, step three, decide when you'll check in. This is where we bring in that third pillar, review over judgment, right?

• 43:30Jonathan Fields?

  So pick a time, ideally maybe once a week or once every two weeks, long enough for you to actually see things unfold, but short enough where you don't start drifting. And you'll take this time, and this will be when you you'll spend five to 10 minutes checking in with yourself. And it could be a Sunday evening, a Friday at lunch, Monday morning before you dive into email. Write it down. Write this, "I'll check in with myself every..." and then make your commitment, week, two weeks, month, whatever it may be, right? I think it's really important to write these things down, by the way, because your brain encodes them differently when you actually eventually write them down.

• 44:15Jonathan Fields?

  So even if you're just following along, thinking this now, then please invite you, when you're done with this, to go back and actually write these things down. It lands very differently when we do that, like memorializing it just makes it more real for us. So you'll write that that final sentence for the checking down, "I'll check in with myself every..." and insert whatever the time that feels right for you. And when that time comes, now you ask a few simple questions. One, what worked about this experiment, right? Two, what felt harder than I expected? Three, what did this reveal about my actual life right now? And do I want to keep this experiment, tweak it, or let it go?

• 45:00Jonathan Fields?

  Write four simple questions. What worked about this experiment? What felt harder than I expected? What did this reveal about my actual life right now? And do I want to keep this experiment, tweak it, or let it go? If an experiment isn't working, that doesn't mean you failed. Remember, it means you just got information. You might keep it as is. You might shrink it. You might change it or change when you do it, swap it for something else, or consciously decide to end it and just reclaim that energy for something else. That is the unresolved in practice. It's not about, you know, nailing the right decision on January 1st.

• 45:42Jonathan Fields?

  It's about committing to an ongoing conversation with your life. So before we land this episode, I want to zoom back out for a second. If the first episode in this series, The Myth of the Clean Slate, was about who you're bringing into the new year, this one is about how you walk with that person. It says, "I'm not going to demand perfection from myself to justify change. I'm not going to hinge my self-worth on some ridiculous 30-day streak. I'm allowed to learn as I go, to adjust, to quit things that don't fit, to leave some things unfinished for now. You don't have to fix everything this month.

• 46:24Jonathan Fields?

  You don't have to become new you by next week. You get to be in relationship with your life. Curious, adaptive, experimental." So if you haven't yet, here's what I'd love you to do before we wrap this episode. Write down your One Direction for January. Write down one tiny experiment. Decide when in the next week you'll check in with yourself. That's it. You've just created your first unresolution. And then if it feels good over time, not right away, not out of the gate, but if it feels good over time, maybe February, maybe March, when your life accommodates it and you have the

• 47:07Jonathan Fields?

  space and you're curious about like, huh, maybe, maybe I'd explore a different part of my life or a different aspect of myself and, and visit like a new direction for that. Right? If it feels good, when it feels good over time, you can explore adding in nuance. In our next episode, we're going to build on this in a really beautiful way. So we've talked about not erasing your past self, approaching change as a series of experiments. And next, we're going to ask a deeper question. What if this year wasn't primarily about adding more or fixing more or optimizing more and was instead about discovering the ways your

• 47:49Jonathan Fields?

  life is already full, already meaningful, already enough? We'll explore what I'm calling the year of enough, a different way to experience the year ahead that isn't driven by constant, quiet sense of lack. But that conversation only really makes sense when you've already begun to relate to change in the way that we've talked about today and also in our year end wrap up, the clean slate episode last week. So for now, maybe let yourself off the hook for the perfect resolution, choose a direction, run an experiment, check in, adjust, and remember, the goal isn't to pass some arbitrary test. It's just to

• 48:31Jonathan Fields?

  keep walking with the person that you are in the direction of the life that actually fits you and feels good and makes you come and feel alive. Thanks for being here, for sharing this new year moment with me. I'm excited to see where your unresolution leads. We would love to hear about yours, by the way. Feel free to DM or tag us on Instagram, Good Life Project, and I will see you in the next episode. Take care.

• 49:00Jonathan Fields?

  This episode of Good Life Project was produced by executive producers Lindsay Fox and me, Jonathan Fields. Editing help by Alejandro Ramirez and Troy Young. Christopher Carter crafted our theme music. And of course, if you haven't already done so, please go ahead and follow Good Life Project in your favorite listening app or on YouTube, too. If you found this conversation interesting or valuable and inspiring, chances are you did, because you're still listening here, do me a personal favor, a second favor, share it with just one person. I mean, if you want to share it with more, that's awesome, too, but just one person even, then invite them to talk with you about what you've both discovered to reconnect and explore ideas that really matter, because that's how we all come alive

• 49:43Jonathan Fields?

  together. Until next time, I'm Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project.

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