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You have a plan for how to succeed in the second half of the year, how to “get back on track.” And a plan, it turns out, is the most sophisticated way to actually stand still while feeling like you're moving.

This is Part 2 of a special two-part midyear series on Good Life Project. In Part 1, Jonathan led a different kind of honest check-in, setting down the scorecard version of taking stock and actually looking at the one part of life that has been running quietly low. This episode is the moving part. It’s about taking action and building momentum, without waiting for a plan.

In this episode, you'll explore:

• Why plans fail, and why the reason is not the one you've been told. The flaw isn't you. It's how plans are built.
• The difference between a plan and a move, and why only one of them has ever actually changed a life.
• Seven elements that make a move more likely to survive a bad week, including Peter Gollwitzer's research on implementation intentions.
• The four traps that turn a move back into a plan, and how to recognize them before they happen.
• Why the middle of the year is one of the most powerful fresh start landmarks available, and almost nobody uses it.
• A five-step sequence you'll work through before this episode ends, leaving with a specific move already made, not planned.

This episode is for anyone who has spent the first half of this year meaning to do something and hasn't yet. Not because you lacked motivation, but because you were waiting for the right conditions that were never going to arrive. They don't have to. You just have to make one move.

Episode Transcript

If you LOVED this episode, you can find the 1-page worksheet HERE.

Next week, I'm sitting down with an old friend, Jessica Ortner, to explore something that most people have never tried, that looks a little ridiculous at first, and that turns out to have a surprisingly serious body of research behind it. It's called tapping. We're not going to sell it, and we're not going to dismiss it. We're going to give it a genuinely honest look: what the science does and doesn't support, who it's actually for, and then Jessica is going to guide me through a real session, live, on the episode that you can follow along with in real time. Be sure to follow Good Life Project wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss it.

Check out our offerings & partners:

• Join My New Writing Project: Awake at the Wheel
• Visit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes

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You can hit every goal you set in January and still be running on empty in the parts of your life the list never thought to measure. That's not a failure story. That's a design flaw in the instrument most of us reach for at the midpoint of the year.

Jonathan Fields has spent 14 years exploring what it takes to build a life that genuinely feels like yours. In this solo episode, he gets personal about a stretch that looked, by every external measure, like one of the best runs he'd had in years. A major work transition, real momentum in business, and every morning from 7:30 to 9, writing the first draft of his first novel. A genuinely good season. And one that was quietly drawing down on something no scorecard ever caught.

What you'll explore in this conversation:

• Why grading yourself against January goals in July is the least useful thing you can do at the midpoint of the year, and what to reach for instead
• The three Good Life Buckets framework (Vitality, Connection, Contribution) as a practical audit tool, not an abstract idea
• Two ways a bucket drains that most driven, successful people never see coming: the leak and the missing refill
• Why the most dangerous bucket is often not the one that aches, but the one filling and draining at the same time
• Three reckoning questions that surface something more honest than any goal list you've ever written
• Why so many of us would rather stay tired and certain than rested and unsure, and what it actually costs us

This is Part 1 of a two-part series. Part 2 arrives in a few days with the specific actions to take for your mid-year wake-up call.

Episode Transcript

If you LOVED this episode, you can find the 1-page worksheet HERE.

Next week, we're coming back for Part 2 of this series with Jonathan to talk about what to actually do once you've named the bucket, and why you don't need a plan for the second half of your year. You need a move. One small, real, repeatable move. And we're going to figure it out together in real time before that episode is over. Be sure to follow Good Life Project wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss it.

Check out our offerings & partners:

• Join My New Writing Project: Awake at the Wheel
• Visit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Between 10 and 15 percent of mothers and 1 in 4 fathers are currently estranged from a child. If those numbers feel shocking, the harder truth might be this: most of the moves parents instinctively make once estrangement begins are the exact moves that keep the door shut.

Dr. Joshua Coleman has spent more than four decades as a practicing psychologist and is a Senior Fellow with the Council on Contemporary Families. His own daughter once cut off contact with him. That experience, and everything he has learned since, shaped his work helping families find their way back to each other. He is one of the most trusted voices in the country on family estrangement and reconciliation.

In this conversation, you will explore:

• Why estrangement rates are at historically high levels and what massive cultural shifts are driving them
• The five defensive moves parents make that almost always make things worse, including why fighting for fairness is the most damaging trap of all
• What a genuinely healing apology actually sounds like, and why most apologies miss the mark entirely
• Why radical acceptance and hope are not opposites, and how to hold both at the same time
• How the principles of repair transfer to sibling estrangements and to grandparents cut off from grandchildren

If someone you love has pulled away and you cannot figure out why, or if you are the one who has needed distance and are wondering what repair could look like, this is the conversation for it.

You can find Joshua at: Website | Instagram | Family Troubles Substack | Episode Transcript

Next week, I am going solo, actually for the entire week, for a two-part midyear summer series about really taking a fresh look at where we are right now. Be sure to follow Good Life Project wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss it.

Check out our offerings & partners:

• Join My New Writing Project: Awake at the Wheel
• Visit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.