Sometimes I think we have this long list of things we want to do, and we think we have to get it done right now or yesterday, and I like to always remind people that it's called a life audit for a reason.
This is for your whole life.
How often do you get to sit down and go, okay, how are things going?
Where am I spending my time?
Am I happy with that?
Each one of these steps is really an opportunity for you to learn about yourself and to ask yourself a few questions to just dig a little bit deeper so that by the end, you'll walk away with more clarity and peace of mind.
And really like, we just need the next step.
We don't need the next 10 steps.
If you were a future planner and the next steps like makes you feel good and like great, I love that.
But a lot of people it's overwhelming.
So it's like we're just putting one foot in front of the other.
We're just trying to move the ball a little bit forward with each of these.
So it's hard to build the life that you desire until you understand and own the life you're currently living.
But how do we do that?
How can we get real and honest and clear on a level that sets us up to then bridge the gap between our current reality and the one we want to live?
My guest today has a really interesting and different answer.
It's a special process she calls the life audit.
Today's guest, Ximena Vangocheya, is a well -known voice in personal growth, mindfulness, and self -discovery and a groundbreaking user experience researcher who has worked at some of the biggest names in tech.
And she's applied everything that she's learned in that domain to the quest to understand and then live your best life.
What emerged was her popular life audit process, a series of thought provoking exercises to really help strip away the noise and reconnect with your inner wisdom and map a path toward your yearnings.
Ximena is the author of the new book, The Life Audit, a step -by -step guide to discovering your goals and building the life you want.
It's a powerful framework for unearthing your deepest desires and helping to craft an intentional life aligned with your values.
In our conversation, she walks us through the life audit's key phases and how simple acts like fun exercises like jotting down 100 different wishes can kind of open the floodgates to self -discovery.
And we explore powerful practices for auditing how you spend your precious time and energy, identifying the relationships that uplift or deplete you, anticipating roadblocks, and setting yourself up for sustained motivation.
So if you've been seeking more clarity, if you're feeling a bit adrift in craving tools to help uncover passion and build a life rooted in what matters most, then grab a notepad and get comfy and let's dive in.
So excited to share this conversation with you.
I'm Jonathan Fields and this is Good Life Project.
I am a long -time student of design thinking also and have always wondered about its application more broadly.
It's just the way we live our lives.
There's so much sensibility in that approach to problem solving, to problem identification and problem solving.
So I love that you sort of brought this in with a whole bunch of your other UX research experience to really sort of like say, like, can we tease this out a little bit differently, this whole thing called life?
Curious what the inspiration was for you to dive in.
Yeah, I mean, the inspiration was I was feeling lost in my own life.
I was at a stage of my career was in my late 20s.
I had just started learning about user experience research.
That was a career that I was pivoting into and so kind of getting to see how it worked in an office setting and also had a sense that the job that I had recently taken, which had taken me from New York to San Francisco, this big cross -country move might not be the best fit.
And at the same time, I was in that transitional space where you're in a new city, you're starting a new job, you're very open to different experiences, right?
You're meeting new people, you're trying new things.
And I suddenly had this sense of like, oh, my God, there's so much that I could be doing.
And I had a ton of ideas about what I might want to do, you know, creative pursuits on professional pursuits.
And it was this time of like really fertile creativity, but also feeling quite stagnant in my job.
And that just felt like such a disconnect.
And I wanted to figure it out.
I was sort of like, is this it?
Is this what it's going to be?
And I had been learning these user research techniques where basically, you know, as a researcher, one of the goals is really to understand users.
So I was working at places like LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, and really trying to understand, you know, what do people need from these products?
And one of the ways to do that is by conducting interviews or sending surveys and however you do it, you wind up coming back with a lot of data.
So lots of people said this, some people said that, some people implied this, even if they didn't say this or behaved in this way, even if they didn't articulate it.
And you sort of experienced this similar feeling of what we call analysis paralysis, where you go, oh, my God, there's so much data.
Like, where do I begin?
And I had that similar feeling in my own life of there's so much possibility, but where do I begin?
And it occurred to me that I could take this same set of tools, this toolkit from user research, which has a really nice clean way of answering that problem of where do I begin and how do I make sense of this?
And what is the insight from all this data and apply that to my own life?
And that's really how the life audit was born.
It was this transference of, okay, this is a technique.
This is a methodology that is tried and true that we use in this particular way.
What if I also applied it to my own life and uncovered, you know, these personal insights as well?
I love that the notion that so much I think of what we often create is is scratching our own itch in the very beginning.
But it's great when you can sort of look at and say, wait, actually, there's this whole skill set that I have that I've been applying at scale in my professional life.
And what if I turn this back on me and sort of like the things that I'm at and you know, feeling and questioning right now.
Early in the life audit you introduced a phrase unmoored, which I thought was a really interesting word because I think that feeling of being unmoored is something that so many people probably feel some aspect of these days.
But maybe we're having trouble putting language to take me into this experience of being unmoored at that time.
And it's certainly something that I have felt since and in other stages of my life.
And I think probably we all have to some degree at that point.
I think what I was feeling was just feeling a little bit adrift of I had gone through as most of us do, right?
We have this sort of academic track, right?
Your light your life is this academic track up until a certain point and then you graduate college or you know, you get your master's degree or whatever it is and you have to make some choices about what you might want to do and how you might want to spend your time.
And I think what I was realizing was that maybe I was wrong.
My first guess out of the gate had been that I wanted to work in academia that I wanted to be a professor.
I was in a PhD program.
I ended up leaving that PhD and deciding I wanted to work in tech.
So I had kind of already made that initial transition of like, okay, I was wrong the first time and then I was sort of feeling wait, but I think this is the right industry.
I'm not sure if this is the right role and you know, and I was doing a lot of exploring there and I think I was feeling unmoored and untethered in the sense that I had made these changes.
I was clearly at this moment of transition.
I was building a new life in a new city in a new industry and I just didn't feel like any of it was tethered to like a real sense of knowingness.
It sort of felt like I was grasping and at the same time, there were things that I was feeling really strongly these hobbies, these other things that I was drawn to where I did feel that sense of knowingness.
That was kind of what I wanted to figure out was like, well, there's so much happening.
There's so much potential and then there's all this kind of like funkiness, you know, how do I get through that funkiness and really get to this point of clarity for myself?
And you know in that case, it was finding my way through to get to those things that I was really excited about.
In other cases, it's been really like you pair things back or you go back to like that one true thing, right?
So, I think it depends on the phase of your life what that feels like but for me, at least at that moment, it was really trying to find that point of connection.
Yeah, that makes so much sense, you know, and the way you describe it, this notion of it's both this thing of what do I move toward but also maybe what do I move away from, you know, at the same time because oftentimes life is so packed these days for most people that even if we see this thing and we
kind of like have a taste of this thing that we're like, oh, this is interesting.
It's making me feel a certain way.
For so many of us, we don't have the bandwidth to actually step toward it in any meaningful way unless we proactively say, I'm going to need to clear some space.
What do I need to let go of?
And that's a hard process for a lot of people.
100%. And I think it's also something that we do over time, you know, at this point, I've done the life audit many times.
So, that was, you know, my late 20s was the first time I do it pretty much annually more or less since then and it does get easier and that focus is there more and more and it's a faster process because I have paired things down because I keep getting, you know, like, oh, that's still not interesting to
you, right? You know, or it's much clearer what I do want to focus on.
And so, it is a gradual process of, you know, really getting aligned with, okay, this is where I want to focus and then what do I actually have to do in order to make that happen.
So, that doesn't stay in dream land.
So, let's drop into some of the elements of the life audit because I think it's really interesting.
Early on, you know, one of the opening moves is this notion that you describe as 100 sticky notes in an hour.
When you just think about this, you know, I think for a lot of people, it's like, but that's what it is.
It's way too much. Can I even come up with 100 things?
So, talking to me about what this exercise is about and how it actually unfolds and how you've seen it unfold in your life and in people's lives and why it actually, why you feel like this is a really critical starting point.
It's very deliberate that we're using sticky notes and we're using a sharpie, and we're only giving ourselves one hour.
So we're kind of time boxing it to hopefully relieve some of that pressure if you don't have to spend days thinking about this.
And also really, we're pulling from that initial gut instinct.
So we're trying to not overthink things.
This is really the first step in the journey of uncovering what are some of the maybe hidden needs, goals, desires, wishes that you have within you, some of which you may have said aloud, some of which maybe this is the first time they're coming up.
And really the 100, the number 100 is just a guideline.
It's just something to aim towards.
So if you don't get to 100, no worries.
If you breeze past 100, great.
But the idea is that we're really brainstorming at this stage.
So if I were brainstorming new features for a product, I would do something similar.
I would pull out some sticky notes and I would just say, let's give ourselves half an hour.
Let's see what we come up with.
And the idea is to not be too precious to just fill this three by three, the standard sticky note with your Sharpie.
The Sharpie is also deliberate because it means that you're not going to write a paragraph on that sticky note.
You're going to write maybe two or three words.
Again, it's just like that gut instinct, the overall idea that you need to get out on that sticky note.
And then usually what happens is maybe in the beginning it can feel a little intimidating, like, Oh gosh, I've got, it's just me.
It's me and these sticky notes.
And I'm supposed to come up with what's going to come out.
I don't know what's going to come out.
Once you kind of start getting a few things down, usually it starts to build on itself.
So maybe you, you know, you have a couple of wishes around your career and that sparked some ideas around mentorship and that sparked some ideas around, you know, an area you want to be mentored in and maybe you want to learn a new skill.
And so it kind of builds on itself.
And that first phase it's super generative.
The idea is to just get it all out there with zero judgment, which can be hard because we are often self critical, but the idea really is to say, let's just see what comes up.
You know what, I'm not committing to anything at this point.
The road is sticky note away if I want to at the end, but let's just see, let's just unearth.
Like what would happen if I created that space for myself to listen to that inner voice, which is often drowned out by some other voices that suggest you should be living a certain way or prioritizing a certain thing.
So that's really what we're making space for is just hearing our own needs and desires and wishes during that phase.
I love how this is such a concrete way to actually step into this inquiry because so many of us just sit there and we're kind of like, hmm, what do I want?
Which is an important question to ask, but it's also a really big question to ask.
And this basically takes it, you know, it brings it down and you're almost saying, if your life was a product, what feature set would you be curious about at least having in that thing?
And it doesn't have to be, but like forgive yourself, but just thinking about like write all the individual little things rather than the really big kind of heavy questions sometimes of like, what do I want?
Like big things. And it's almost like you're just starting with like the little bits, like the little features.
And I feel like that's probably a lot more accessible to people than to try and answer the big question all at once in this sort of like a big and more of his way.
Totally. And I think it's also a chance to be playful, to take it lightly, to not feel like you have to come out with the answer, you know, capital T capital A after 60 minutes.
This is a sandbox. It's, you know, a place to play.
It's a place to just let things come up organically and you know, you'll probably surprise yourself in some way.
And there will probably be other things that you go, Oh yeah, I knew that was going to come up.
But yeah, it's a chance to just see what shakes out.
Yeah. And I've done this, a similar process, but in the context of actually developing a product or a program.
And it's amazing how many things you throw up there.
And then when you start to like, you know, ask yourself, huh, which of these things we really want to pull into it, which is kind of where you go in the book and you know, you say, okay, so let's start to map these in an interesting way.
I think the phrase you use was affinity mapping.
Like, you know, let's start by just going wide, just like throw it all up there.
But at some point your brain is going to say, okay, so how do we start to actually go narrow?
Because we need something that's a little tighter to actually think about putting energy into.
Yeah. Affinity mapping is something that we use in research when we've got a large dataset and we're kind of trying to see, you know, what are the patterns?
How can we group this data to make sense of it in some way?
And we're using that same technique, but with our own personal data.
And so we're looking for, you know, okay, I have these, let's say 100 wishes.
Is there anything that's tying them together?
Is there any affinity?
Does one sticky note have an affinity with another in some way?
You might look at them and see, you know what, I have a lot of hobbies, like creative hobbies, or I have a lot of wishes around my career and it's starting to group those wishes into themes so that you can get just a better lay of the land.
So it's no longer just, okay, what are things that I want to do with my life?
But now we can actually see, oh wow, I have ten wishes in the category of writing, let's say.
And I have five in design and I have 12 in community building and I have 20 in family, right?
And so you get this sense of what are the things that are most important to you.
And really like an initial snapshot of like, this is what's on my mind right now.
This is what I want right now, which is subject to change as your life changes, as you evolve as a person.
But for right now, these are the things that I'm most drawn to.
And I think having, because again, we're working with this tactile material, we're working with Post -its, which I like to put them on the wall when I'm doing this exercise or on a large desk or on the floor to somewhere that you can really just get it all out there.
And you're physically moving things around.
You're going, well, okay, maybe this group is about writing or maybe this is actually more broadly about creativity.
Or maybe this is about building my network in this given area.
And so you're moving things around and you're seeing those patterns.
And there's a screenshot where you can literally see like, wow, this is the biggest group.
That's where my mind is.
Like that's what I'm most drawn to.
Or this is the smallest group.
Okay. What does that mean?
And I think this is also a chance to look at what shows up and to reflect on, am I surprised?
Does this align with what I thought was going to come up?
Is there anything here that feels forced in some way that feels like, you know, actually that was someone else's voice, not mine, that kind of got in the way, got mixed up here.
And sometimes also to see like, well, what's not here that I thought would be here?
You know, I think when I ran my first audit, I expected the family bucket to just be so much larger because I have a very close relationship with my family.
And I thought, well, of course that's a priority for me.
Like, why isn't it really showing up here?
And then when I thought about it, I realized that it was so baked into my life already, how I moved through the world, that it didn't need to show up because it was sort of ingrained in me already.
And so it's a really nice chance to see like, okay, well, this is what I'm drawn to now.
And also, of course, there are going to be other things that are important to you that might not show up.
And that's actually really comforting too, to say like, okay, I've got some stuff under control.
Or like, yeah, this is exactly what I thought it was going to be.
Or, hey, that's such a cool surprise.
And then kind of take it from there.
I love that example that you shared of family also because it kind of keys into something I was thinking as you're talking or wondering, which is I wonder if this is also a really interesting signal to help reveal to you not just sort of like what you're curious about, or what you're sort of like, you'd
be really interested in moving towards or inviting more into your life, but also where the areas of potential misalignment or lack are.
You know, it's almost like, okay, so if you've got three Post -its for family and then a dozen for writing, does that kind of tell you that like family's actually feeling pretty good?
But, okay, so there's a dozen for writing which says I want to invite more of this in.
Like, we're going to explore that more, but also maybe it's a signal to say, oh, this is actually something that's really important to you.
And the volume of stickies that you have attached to it may also be telling you some of the data may be that there's a sense of lack in your life right now around this thing because there's so much that you want to move towards that you're not now experiencing.
Yeah, I think it's absolutely that.
And I think that one of the fun things about the life audit is that you get to ask yourself these questions.
Like how often do you get to sit down and go, okay, like, how are things going?
Where am I spending my time?
Am I happy with that?
You know, one of the steps that I suggest is to also think about, okay, once you've got this map of these are the things that I want to concentrate on, which may also include things that you are, you hold very dear that I think of as like a core value that you just carry with you every day, like to
be patient, to be generous.
Like those are wishes that might come up as well.
And you get that lay of the land.
And then there's also a step where you take a look and you go, okay, so this is how I want to be spending my time.
Now, how am I actually spending my time?
What are the activities that I'm spending the most time on?
You know, if I were to list the top five activities day to day, is laundry going to be in that top five?
Maybe, right? I don't know.
Is what is that top five really genuinely going to look like?
For most of us, it's going to include things like work or school.
That's one big category.
How does that align with everything that you want to do?
What, where are some of those gaps?
And I think that's a really important kind of checkpoint.
It's not to say that everything has to line up perfectly if it does.
Awesome. You are living your life in alignment with your goals and core values.
Like that is beautiful.
But I think realistically, we're all going to have at least one or two areas where we see, you know, maybe I'm not spending my time on the things that are going to bring me closer to that 10 post -it pile, right?
Or maybe I'm actively spending my time on something that is in direct conflict with one of my core values.
These are all things for us to get curious about of why am I doing that?
Is there another way forward?
Can I make some changes?
Maybe big, maybe small?
Yeah, that why question also so important, right?
Because once you identify, if you look at those top five things, right, and you see that, well, actually, there's a solid chunk of your life that really is not bringing that in in any meaningful way.
Yeah, this really the why question, why are things happening this way, like what's underneath the choices that I'm making and the actions that I'm taking or the choices that I'm not making in the accidents that I'm not taking?
And what's going on here?
You know, is it a fear thing?
Is it a resource thing?
Is it just, this is the moment of my life, and I'm actually okay for a particular window of time being out of alignment because it's in service of something bigger and more meaningful to me.
But the process that you roll out to lead up to that, I feel like it gives you better insights to step into that why, and really tease it out in a clearer and more valuable way.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, I mean, that is ultimately one of the goals is that we're aiming for clarity, not perfection, but clarity.
And then with that clarity, then you get to decide what you want to do with that.
And in my case, that first life audit, I did have that moment where I looked and thought, okay, I have so much I want to pursue creativity wise, I'm not sure about this job.
I kind of had that hunch going in and then it was like super confirmed.
But also, it was a time in my life where I could be okay with that, where I was like, okay, maybe the job doesn't have to be where I gain the most meaning and purpose.
Maybe that's something to work toward.
I don't have a solution for it right now.
But I know there's all this other stuff that I want to work on.
So I'm going to see how I can invest in this area that I'm really drawn to.
I'm going to slowly figure this other piece out because I think what this process also allows us is that clarity, but also time.
Sometimes I think we have this long list of things we want to do and we think we have to get it done right now or yesterday.
And I like to always remind people that it's called a life audit for a reason.
This is for your whole life.
So you don't have to kind of like rush in and make dramatic changes.
You can, you absolutely can.
And sometimes that's going to be called for, but also we can pace ourselves and we can decide where we're going to start.
And we can really interrogate that, say like, well, why do I want to start here?
Is it because I feel most set up for success?
I have the resources in place for that.
I have the skill set for that.
I have an accountability partner for that.
Or is it because I'm just most excited about that?
And so, you know, I'm willing to do the work to figure all that other stuff out because this is really where the heat is in this moment.
But again, it's like each one of these steps is really an opportunity for you to learn about yourself and to ask yourself a few questions to just dig a little bit deeper so that by the end, you know, I'm not saying you will have answered every question under the sun about yourself.
I think we have our whole lives to figure ourselves out.
But I do think you'll walk away with more clarity and peace of mind.
That makes so much sense.
And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors.
There comes a time in the life audit also where you share, you know, there's also an experience where you say, okay, so let's actually understand and articulate your own personal narrative where you're kind of like from data points and feature sets and identifying values and mapping and say, okay, so let's kind
of pull out a little bit here and say, what's the story?
Who are you and what is the story that you're telling with your life?
Yeah, I think of it as, you know, this is really the life audit represents a set of personal insights and you get to piece those together to understand like, what is this?
What does this mean for me right now?
You know, this is a snapshot.
It's a moment in time.
So like right now, so for example, just to give a concrete example, you know, last year when I did my life audit, I would say it was like 90 % health.
I had a lot of, I was diagnosed with a number of health conditions.
I was super concentrated on that.
All of my wishes were around, you know, like finding the right care team, finding the right medication, making the right lifestyle changes.
It was frankly a not very exciting life audit, but it was a really clear picture of who I was at the time, which was someone deeply preoccupied with their health and trying to figure out how to navigate something really unexpected.
And I didn't have as much time for the sort of fun stuff.
Might not have been the picture that I was most excited about, but it was an accurate picture of who I was in my preoccupations at the time.
Now, one year later, thankfully I found good medication, a good care team.
My life audit, you know, I was just doing it recently is about someone who is emerging from a cocoon, from, you know, a place of lack and now into something more like abundance and joy.
And I'm really focused on discovering new hobbies, meeting new people.
Like it's sort of like a rebirth.
And like, that is such a different picture than who I was just a year ago.
And it feels so useful to me to have that clarity of like, oh, this is the story of you right now.
And it's going to be different next year.
And it's really comforting to also know that we continue to change and to evolve and that if you have a bad year, that's okay.
Or if you feel stuck in some way, that's okay too, because we do keep changing, evolving and that story keeps changing too.
Maybe there's always the root of it.
The core is always going to be, you know, there's a germ that stays constant, that piece of you that is unwavering, but lots of things change along the way too.
And I think that's something that is a little bit scary, but also very comforting at the same time.
Yeah. I mean, just the notion that you're describing of, well, this is the story of my life now.
It's okay to actually, I feel like maybe even we're more comfortable actually telling the story of our lives.
If we think about it as now in this moment in this season, then if we try and say, well, this is the story of my life just writ large, where it's like, I don't know, you know, you're asking me to sort of like lay out my past and like all of my, what I think the future will be.
But if you just tell me like, okay, I'm in a moment right now, maybe it's six months, maybe it's a year.
Like what is the story of this moment, this season?
We could probably wrap our heads around that so much more easily.
And also, what I love is what you're describing is it gives context to all the other questions that we're asking and probably for many of us and depending on the season that we're in, a certain feeling of forgiveness.
Absolutely. Because it allows us to see what we were working with, to see what was preoccupying us, to see what was important to us.
And, you know, I like to look back and I talk about this thing in the book that I call an accomplishments box where, you know, when I'm doing a new life audit, I will save my sticky notes.
And then I'll go back and say, okay, what did I do?
And it feels really good to see literally, again, you know, a nice pile where you go, I did that.
I actually, you know, I committed to those things or I made those changes, or maybe they were core values.
I held fast to them and I really found ways to just act them out in my everyday life.
And it feels good to look back and see that.
And also the things that we didn't get to, maybe that's okay, too.
Maybe the reason we didn't get to those is because we were making so much progress in this other area or because it was not the right season.
Because I think part of what we focus on too with a life audit when we're looking at these goals is we are looking at what is it that I want to carry with me every day?
What's like a value and intention, something that I want to do every day?
But then we're also looking at what is something that I want to do someday, long -term.
And what's something that I want to do in the time in between near term, you know, next six to 12 months.
So there's always going to be things that you don't get to.
And that's intentional.
And I think that can also be comforting of there's always going to be more for us to do.
We don't have to do it all right now.
Again, we're looking at the span of a lifetime.
So let's just keep chipping away, like find our set of intentions.
Maybe it's for the year, maybe it's for the next six months.
And again, we can return to it, we can change, we can evolve.
You know, I always like to say, it's like, I reserve the right to change my mind, you know, and like what a beautiful thing.
Yeah. And this also ties really nicely into one of the elements of life audit, one of this early, this invitation to eventually then say, okay, so I'm going to take my wishes and I'm going to start to plot them over time.
But it's interesting also, right?
Because the way you just described it, and I think this has been mine, I'm sure so many other people's experiences, even if we sit there and we say, okay, so I got my 100 wishes out there, I distilled them down, I did my affinity mapping, I got like this and this cluster and this cluster, and then start
to say, okay, so what do I do with these things?
And then we start to actually take action on some of them.
Over time, you know, if you look back at any, let's say you've been doing a life audit, you know, for the last five years every year, I would imagine for you, if you looked back over any given year, that some of the things that you thought were wishes and you were like, yeah, I'm putting this in there
and focusing on it.
Once you got, you know, like 30 % into it and you start to replace actual lived experience with what you thought was going to be the experience, you're like, oh, that actually wasn't what I thought was going to be.
It's not making me feel the way I want to feel.
So it's like, there's what you think is going to unfold when you do this work and then there's a reality.
Yes. And I think, again, that's why I think of it as such a, it's a sandbox, you know, when we're generating these ideas.
And then when we start committing to them, well, it's an experiment, you know?
Nobody is holding us to this except for ourselves and, you know, maybe an accountability partner or two if you have one of those.
But like this is coming from within, which means that these are hypotheses.
These are ideas about things that we think will ultimately make us happy, feel fulfilled, feel like we're living a meaningful life.
And some of those, as we do them, we're going to decide we want to double down on them because it feels really good.
And then other things we're going to say, actually, like my dream of becoming a top podcaster is no longer interesting to me because I realized how much work you have to do and whatever it is, right?
But the important part is that we run the experiment.
And sometimes the experiment is even, you know, I wrote it on a post it and I never did anything with it.
That is information for you.
That is an insight.
Okay, why didn't I do anything with it?
Maybe I didn't have the skillset.
Maybe I didn't have the resources.
Maybe deep down that wish was not for me, or maybe that wish was for me five years ago, but not now, you know?
So I think all of it, it's all a starting point.
And then we kind of go bit by bit, we see what sticks, we see what doesn't, and then we reflect on that.
And that is the information that we keep kind of working on, you know?
It's kind of like you're sculpting, right?
And you're sort of like, where's the shape?
Where's the shape? Where's the shape?
Oh, there's the shape.
But it takes time and it takes experimentation.
CB I'm such a huge fan of looking at life as a series of just experiments and not saying like, oh, I'm actually committing to the thing that has to succeed.
But just what experiment can I run largely just for the purpose of learning?
Like, learning is my primary metric here.
Is it what I thought it would be or not?
Am I engaging it in a way that works or not?
Many years ago, my wife actually was kind of curious about teaching and was exploring getting a master's in teaching.
But before she did that, she's like, you know what?
How can I test this assumption?
So she actually started just doing substitute teaching and just getting into classrooms wherever she could.
And very quickly, she's like, you know what?
There are pieces of this that I'm really interested in.
But on the whole, this is really actually not my path.
It was a great short, fast, like low -risk experiment that she was able to run that says, okay, now I'm actually going to not dedicate the next two years and resources to getting a degree.
And now it frees up all of that time and bandwidth to say, okay, so what's the next experiment that I'm going to run?
But so often, we don't, I feel like we're not taught to look at life that way.
We're sort of saying like, find the thing, commit to it.
And your goal from that point forward is you must succeed.
You must build something around it.
Is that your sense also?
Yeah. I mean, you know, it's funny as you were sharing that anecdote, what I was thinking, what I love about that is that it was not just an experiment.
It was a small experiment.
It was like the smallest, the most lightweight version of the thing.
And I'm really a big fan of taking that approach because what she could have done is sign up for a master's in education, invest the several years of doing that, then go into the classroom and then realize like, oh man, this is really not for me, which that happens.
That is a way of learning as well.
But when you take the smallest thing, then you can get like a pretty big return on that investment in terms of learning, you know, is this for me or is this not for me?
And I do think that culturally, maybe this is shifting a little bit, but certainly there was earlier on this idea that like professionally you were kind of like one thing and you stayed at the same company for a really long time.
And I think those days are gone.
People are shifting from company to company.
Even when I look at my own career, it's like, okay, well, at one point I was in academia and another point I worked in the art world.
Then I worked in tech.
Now I'm focused solely on writing and illustrating, you know, it's like I've had four careers, four lives, you know, like more lives.
If you count like, you know, just how I've changed as a person emotionally, spiritually, mentally.
And I look at that and I think what a joy, like what a privilege to be able to shift and learn and grow and not be tied to one thing.
Now it is also the case that I'm a person who really loves variety.
I get bored quickly.
I like to change. I love learning.
So I like to, you know, dive into a new area and see what that's about.
There are other people who are creatures of habit and they really love, you know, that mastery of like one single thing and they really want to be the person who's been at that company for 10 years and like the tenure that comes with that.
And so everybody's path is going to look a little bit different.
But I do think just allowing yourself to be wrong from time to time and knowing that like that might happen.
I think that that actually was the biggest sort of wake up call for me when I was in my mid twenties was that moment of, Oh, my assumption was totally wrong.
Like I really thought I was bound for this path in academia.
I didn't like it at all.
Like that the first time that happened, I felt so much uncertainty and like doubt.
And it really kind of like shook my sense of self.
And since then, every time that happens, it's just sort of like, Oh yeah, like, okay, onto the next.
And I think it's it's a little bit you have to build.
It's like building a muscle, right?
Where you get used to being wrong about yourself and then learning something else and then trying something else and eventually, hopefully getting more clarity along the way.
I so agree with that.
And it's like, you know, as long as you're learning stuff and whatever experiment you run, you can figure out how to do it in a way where the stakes are actually relatively low.
Then it's pretty comfortable way to roll if you just let go of this notion that I'm supposed to always succeed at anything.
I say yes to, I feel like, you know, as a lifelong entrepreneur, I had to learn this lesson really quickly because anytime you start something, a business, like the vast majority of the assumptions that you make are going to be proven wrong really quickly.
And if you don't adjust to that pretty quickly, you are at a business in the blink of an eye.
And sometimes the adjustments that you need to make actually, they make the business work, but they move it so far away from what drew you to wanting to do it in the first place that the personal assumptions that you made about what it would give you as an individual start to become broken.
So it's this constant dance of like levels of assumptions that you're making, how can you test them and create feedback mechanisms as quickly as possible to see what is right for the market, what is right for me and can I find a sweet spot where it's all good in the middle.
And I think as an entrepreneur, you have to learn that pretty quickly or else you're not an entrepreneur anymore.
Once you start to fold that out into your life, then it starts to really just let you hold things a little bit more lightly and be more forgiving to yourself.
Absolutely. And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors.
Part of the life audit also is a focus on not just you, but the people around you.
You explore this notion of the five people and the roles that people play around you.
And also, you explore the notion of you like not just who are these people, but what is our influence on you?
I think you use the phrase effectively to help a harm.
Are they parasers or nourishers?
Take me into this a bit.
I think I first read about this idea of you being some version of the average of the five people that you spend the most time with.
I think I've read about it in a business setting or an entrepreneurial setting where it was like you've got to think about who's in your network who you're spending the most time in and input is important for output.
A business approach to it, maybe a little bit more of a transactional approach.
But when I heard that, I thought, well, in a way this makes sense.
It's like, who am I spending the most time with?
What am I picking up from them?
What am I internalizing from them?
How am I mimicking them?
Things that we're not even thinking about.
They've all these studies about married couples and how they start to become more similar in certain ways, even physically.
There's a ton of research on this idea.
I thought, yeah, this makes sense that I am being affected just as I affect the other people in my lives.
I thought, well, if there's this list of things that I want to do, if I have a set of intentions for my life, who am I spending time with?
Are these people going to be nourishing and helping me reach these goals or will they be taking away from it in some way or neutral?
I think probably most people fit in that neutral category of they're not really pushing you forward.
They're not really pulling you back, but really thinking critically about, okay, who are the top five people I spend time with?
I think most people will really not like this exercise because your top five people usually include your spouse or partner, your boss.
Maybe there's a neighbor you see all the time, but it's usually defined by proximity, convenience, not necessarily intention.
Some of those people may be, but usually the top five skews a little bit convenience heavy.
Now, if we're lucky, the people who we just naturally spend the most time with because of work or other circumstances are also the gems in our life who are really inspiring and motivating and energizing.
If you have that perfect overlay, you are winning at life because that is so hard to find, but for most of us, we're going to see a little bit of a gap between who we're spending that time with and who we feel maybe would be best in our corner.
I don't mean that this is about looking for that person who has a really deep network in your industry and can give you an intro to somebody or someone who can pass your along as you're thinking about switching careers.
Those people are important, but those are more transactional relationships.
I'm really talking about people who share the same values as you or are curious about what you're working on, who you can get that, you walk away from a conversation energized, not drained.
That's really one of the main criteria is, do I leave this conversation feeling buoyant, feeling inspired, feeling like I am in control or empowered in some way or do I walk away feeling like, oh, that was a lot.
I'm exhausted by that.
Again, it's not to say that we're going to cut everybody out of our life and copy paste, move things around completely, but it is about being intentional and thinking about who we're spending our time with.
Is this the right group or does this mean that we want to be investing, that maybe one of the outcomes of this life audit is, hey, I'm in the middle of this career change.
I realize I don't really have anybody who I can talk to about that.
I feel like I need support to figure this out or I'm becoming a parent for the first time.
This year, my life audit is really focused on family.
I think part of what I'm seeing is I want to build a community of parent friends.
I don't have that in my top five.
There are many reasons why those people might not be in your top five.
Again, offering ourselves grace, self -compassion.
There are real world constraints for what this list might look like, but using that as a starting point to see like, okay, are there changes that I could make?
Could I be more intentional about pursuing certain relationships or revisiting certain relationships or tending to certain relationships?
I think for me, when I first did this exercise, one of my takeaways was I am not spending enough time investing in these deep relationships that I really value.
There were people who I love, I care for so deeply, who I gained so much from and who I think mutually, I hope that I inspire them as well.
I really just was not keeping up with them, staying in touch with them.
It was a little bit of a wake -up call of, okay, if this is a real priority, then how can you really tend to this and nurture those relationships?
Yeah, I feel like so many of us have found ourselves in that place also where it's like, oh, this is my best friend or these are the three people I love most.
When was the last time you talked to them two months ago?
It's not because of ill will.
It's just like life happens.
We get busy. You've got kids, you've got a job, you're traveling, whatever it is.
But then you wake up and you're like, oh wait.
And there's something beautiful about those relationships in that they are strong enough to withstand the two months of absence and nobody's taking it personally because everybody understands that is so important to recognize that there's a resiliency to the relationship.
But also, what would happen if we fed it a little bit more?
What would happen if we checked in just like just a teeny bit more?
Think about how much stronger we could make that relationship.
Yeah. So here's a curiosity around this for me also.
I'm so curious what you take is.
So I think on a friend or family or chosen family level, we can probably identify those people pretty readily.
Like if you ask any given person, they're going to list them out pretty quickly.
But then when it comes to work and you start to ask, okay, so who are the people who are the real gems at work or who are the people where I really value this relationship?
It energizes me. It gives me so much and who are the people to plead me?
Sometimes it can get more complicated, more nuanced because maybe you're on a team and you have a leader and that leader is really gruff.
Like they're just relational style is so different from yours and you feel uncomfortable around this person.
And yet at the same time, you're learning so much.
Like you're growing so much from this and maybe even you're having hard conversations with them and getting unpleasant feedback.
But at the same time, you know, it's really important for you.
So it's complicated in some relationships really trying to figure out.
I'm like, where is this person on that spectrum?
Yeah. And I think sometimes we don't have the answer, but the question is the more important piece, just the fact that you're asking that question, because then I would say, okay, well, if I were in that kind of situation, you know, I could see maybe there's a world in which I say this is a season of growth.
This is not a leadership style that I aspire to, but I'm learning a ton about the craft of, you know, my role, whatever it is, therefore it's worth it.
On the other hand, maybe there's a point where I say, this is really a leadership style that I do not aspire to.
And I don't want to pick up any bad habits from this person.
And in fact, like working with them is really draining me emotionally.
And so I can't do good work because it's affecting me in this way.
Then maybe that's a sign that, okay, even though you love the company, let's say that super aligns with your values, but your direct manager, your supervisor has this draining effect.
There's a conflict there.
So maybe some kind of change needs to happen.
So I think like, you know, most of these things are going to require some degree of nuance and some trade -offs.
There's probably not a perfect list or a perfect set of wishes or a perfect set of action items.
But I think just asking those questions and giving yourself the space to step back and evaluate and say, is this worth it?
Like, is this tricky dynamic worth it right now?
Is this something that I need to remove myself from?
Or is this something that I feel like I have to get through this to get through to the other side to reach this bigger goal?
I think when we can start to ask those questions and build some awareness around it, then our choices become more choices as opposed to just us feeling like we're stagnating, where you just feel like, why am I still working for this person?
Okay, no, it's because I said that I'm learning from them in this way.
So I'm okay with that choice.
I'm in control of my destiny in that way.
And it's when you place yourself in that sort of question or position, you're also, it reminds you that you have agency, right?
That you're not just sort of like at the will of this person that's like, no, actually, I'm choosing to be here and there's a reason I'm choosing to be here.
And I'll keep revisiting this, but as long as I keep choosing it, at least I know, this is a place of intention rather than victimhood.
What about those neutral people also?
Because I'm wondering about that because like you said, if we do that quick audit of the five people that we end up spending, there probably are going to be some who are at different points of our lives.
Not so much gems, not so much, they're fine.
And I guess the questions or anything in my head is like, is that okay?
Yeah, listen, I would say, if you have all your top five are neutral, I would ask why?
Why is it that the people you're spending the most time with are in this like ticket or leave it kind of phase?
Maybe for example, maybe just move somewhere you haven't met your people yet.
The people you're spending time with are great in that, someone you're getting to know the city or the new job or whatever, but you kind of sense these are not like my people, you know what I mean?
These are not my ride or dies for the future, but maybe that's okay because it's that phase.
But you know, if you look at it and you go, okay, why do I have all these five?
And you don't know the answer to that.
Then I think, yes, it's worth thinking about how do you at least shift some of the dynamics within that list, so that you've got some gems in there.
And I think it's less about trying to remove anyone who is not like 100 % a gem, and more just trying to find like making sure you have some anchor points, some people that really are fitting into that category.
Because sometimes we move through the world and like, we're neutral to someone.
That doesn't necessarily mean that they should cut us out of their life.
Like, just because you're neutral doesn't mean that you never bring any value, right?
I do think it's about looking at like, okay, are they all neutral?
Why is that? Or are they all neutral or draining me?
Why is that? And what is the balance that I need for this phase of my life?
Yeah, that makes so much sense to me.
And maybe you have just, like you said, maybe you've moved across country to another country.
Maybe you've just left a really long term relationship, you're starting something, and maybe you're starting into something that's going to be incredibly demanding.
And you kind of want somebody to just talk to here and there, or a couple people to have dinner with, but you literally don't have the time in your life to invest seriously in relationships right now.
And having that context, like you described really in saying, well, what's really happening here?
Maybe this is a season where just for this moment, that's actually okay.
That's what you're able to sustain, to invest in.
You actually couldn't give more to relationships right now and probably unrealistic to expect a whole lot more from them as well on the other side.
Exactly. And I think also, sometimes people will shift from one category to another, right?
If we give somebody enough, maybe a coworker surprises us and we thought they were totally neutral.
And then we find out, oh my gosh, they have this whole separate life and like our personality is really vibe.
And then they become a gem.
And so I think that's another reason to kind of not necessarily write people off immediately, but to just like be aware, see if this is appropriate for the phase of your life that you're in, see if you need to give it more time.
And then just thinking about those gems that you really do want to invest time with.
So as you deepen into life audit process, you start to go into more of a granular sort of proactive mode.
You talk about, okay, so let's take these wishes and all the work that we've been doing and think about the people and the values and start to plot them over time and prioritize and now let's actually figure out, okay, so what is the plan?
How am I actually going to step by step?
How do we actually create something where I'm going to sort of tease this out and make it real and run those experiments, right?
One of the things that I thought was really interesting and I was glad to see that you put into this process is identifying the roadblocks and the hurdles and even anticipating them.
I remember this is a part of my process.
It has been for a long time and it was triggered in part by research by a professor at NYU, Gabriella Odengin.
I don't know if she's still there, but she was.
She basically did this research and she compared the outcomes of groups of people who were trying to achieve something.
One just kind of said, I'm going to do this.
It's going to happen.
They created a vision for it and a plan like all the steps need to happen.
The other anticipated obstacles, you know, and then pre -planned a workaround if and when this would happen.
She found that those people actually were much more likely to accomplish the thing and that always stayed with me.
So it's interesting to see you say, okay, let's talk about this along the way and not just ignore it and pretend it's all going to go well.
By the time you get to a point where you have really solidified, you know, these are the top things that I want to focus on over the next, you know, six to 12 months or several years, however you want to break it down.
It's really exciting because you've just spent this whole period of time getting to know yourself and getting to know what you want out of this life.
And now you're starting to narrow down and focus on that.
And as much as it's exciting, I also think it's important to be practical about it to go, okay, is that list too long?
You know, are you trying to do 10 things in six months?
How big are those 10 things?
I hope there are 10 really small things if that's, you know, the timeframe.
And I think being practical about it upfront can relieve some of the maybe not stress, but disappointment, right?
When things don't turn out perfectly as they rarely do.
So when we can anticipate and say, okay, I really want to try my hand at public speaking.
I've never done this before.
What are some things that might get in the way?
Well, I don't know anybody.
I don't know what I would write about, you know, what I would talk about.
I don't have a network.
I don't have a speaking agent.
I don't have time to come up with content.
If you realize up front, okay, you've got a lot of roadblocks.
One conclusion might be, actually, this is not something that I want to take on right now.
I'm going to slowly cultivate that network, think about what topics I might become an expert in, but it doesn't have to happen right now.
Another thing that might happen is that you go, okay, you know, I want to learn this new skill.
I think I need some mentorship, or I think I need to take a class.
And so you get these more tactical next steps.
And for each of these goals, intentions, wishes as dreamy and exciting as it is to have that big, the sort of like, er goal of like, I want to be a writer or I want to be, you know, whatever it is, the reality of how you get there is much smaller, it's less sexy.
It's, you know, bit by bit, you just you're, you're chipping away at it.
And so highlighting those roadblocks, what it can sometimes do is you say, okay, I don't have the skill, okay, let me solve for that roadblock.
I need to take a class.
I don't have the time.
Can I solve for that roadblock?
What could I remove from my plate?
Maybe I have to hire a babysitter to watch my kids once a week so that I can go to that class.
Okay, done. Or maybe you say, there's no way I can address that.
I have to shelve this.
So with each roadblock, we're really get a sense of, you know, what can I do?
Can I do something about it now?
If so, what? How can I take that and make it into a small step forward?
And then I think also the other part of this is that sometimes those roadblocks are not tactical.
They are emotional.
So sometimes what we're really talking about is I am scared of failing.
I'm scared to try. I feel overwhelmed.
I don't even know where to begin.
I feel a lot of anxiety around trying this new thing.
And even that is information.
Like again, this is really just a way for us to get to know ourselves.
You know, I was talking with somebody who one of their top five was starting to get in shape and they hadn't done exercise in a really long time.
And you know, so we're talking about, okay, what, what might that look like?
We talked about Pilates.
I was like, okay, there's this, okay, what if we sign up for a group class?
Then I came out, no, I really don't want to do exercise in front of other people.
Like that is the fear is I don't want to be seen by other people when I'm exercising because maybe I'll fall off the equipment or maybe I'll do something stupid or maybe I'll just look bad.
Right. And so you go, okay, that's really useful.
That actually eliminates a lot of avenues for pursuing this.
And it makes it really clear that you're someone who might benefit from a private class.
Right? And so we start narrowing it down and each of those roadblocks, whether they're physical, emotional, mental, financial is going to help us gain clarity and is going to help with planning the next step.
And really, like I always just emphasize, it's like we just need the next step.
We don't need the next 10 steps.
If you were a future planner and the next steps, like makes you feel good and like great.
I love that. But a lot of people, it's overwhelming.
So it's like, we're just putting one foot in front of the other.
We're just trying to move the ball a little bit forward with each of these.
That first reason that you mentioned also, that sometimes actually if you start to think about what are the things that would come up and you start to realize and you're like, I don't have the bandwidth, I don't have the availability.
If I'm going to need to move through all these things, I'm actually not as committed as I thought I was to actually dealing with this if and when they come up.
So I'm going to pull back and shift my focus on something else.
That was one of the primary reasons that that research I mentioned earlier said, probably had a higher success because the people who then did commit to it after that were, you had already pre -screened a bunch of people out of it by saying, I'm not down for this.
Once I realize what it likely will take, so the people who then did say yes, were much more likely to actually be the ones who would then commit to it and stick to it and work through all the stuff that comes up along the way.
One thing I want to dip into with you is, and this is right towards the end of the life audit process too, is this notion of motivation.
How do I sustain this over time?
It's interesting because as you were just talking, the word that kept coming to mind was confidence.
Part of what we're doing when we're looking at these roadblocks and we're making this plan and what we're taking these little steps forward is we're building confidence and the more of these small wins, the more momentum we have, the more confidence we have that we can make this change, we can start
this new habit, we can pursue this stream.
Some of that is baked into the process, but of course there are going to be days where things don't go as planned.
I think there it's figuring out what do you need as an individual to stay motivated.
Some of us need to share these goals with other people and we need to check in with them.
It doesn't have to be like, okay, it's Monday, it's 10 AM, let's have our life audit check it.
It could just be like, hey, a text message to a friend, how's that getting back in going?
How's that pursuing that design hobby going?
For some of us, it's going to be that.
For some of us, it's going to be tracking our progress in a journal or something like that, but it's figuring out how do I get those small quick wins and keep building on them?
Then what do I need to keep that momentum going, whether that's a person or class?
Maybe that one person we're talking about did not want to be in a class for other people, like they absolutely need to be surrounded by other people.
To have that recurring calendar invite where it's like every Tuesday I go to the book club or whatever it is.
I think it's sort of personal, but you're trying to figure out how you can keep building that momentum.
Then I do think that the Accompassance box is a nice way of sort of recapping and seeing like, yeah, I did that.
I am capable. I have proven that I can do these things and just like what you'll do next.
That all makes so much sense.
It feels a good place for us to come full circle as well.
In this container of Good Life Project, if I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up?
To live a good life, look within, listen within, make space for that voice to surface and surround yourself with people who can help you stick to those core values and pursue those dreams, whatever they may be.
Thank you. Thank you.
Hey, before you leave, if you love this episode safe, you'll also love our episode on the Good Life buckets.
Find a link to those in the show notes.
This episode of Good Life Project was produced by executive producers, Lindsay Fox and me, Jonathan Fields, editing help by Alejandro Ramirez, Christopher Carter, crafted our theme music, and special thanks to Shelly Adele for her research on this episode.
And of course, if you haven't already done so, please go ahead and follow Good Life Project in your favorite listening app.
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Until next time, I'm Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project.
