6 Habits that Make Life So Much Better | Spotlight Convo

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Episode Transcript:

Mel Robbins: [00:00:00] The fact of the matter is, we all have a particular habit every morning, and that habit is to ignore yourself or to criticize yourself when you see yourself in the mirror. You know, I’ve been shocked by how many people Jonathan can’t even look at themseves in the mirror. That’s the habit. So it’s going to feel weird to be with yourself because this is new. But what I’ve noticed practicing this very simple habit every morning, I have literally deleted the soundtrack that I have lived with for 52 years, and it is the most beautiful and liberating feeling in the world to have quieted that insane self-criticism. It’s one of the most extraordinary experiences I’ve ever felt in my life.

Jonathan Fields: [00:00:46] So habits. We know they matter. We feel how much negative habits take from us, and we would love to find and cultivate more positive ones, especially ones that truly move the needle and improve our lives. Our health, our wealth, our relationships, our work, and beyond. But which habits actually do that? And how do we find and cultivate them? In today’s spotlight conversation, we dive into a set of very particular, intentional daily habits that can transform your identity, your behavior, and your life from the inside out. And these sometimes deceptively simple habits are profoundly purposeful practices scientifically designed to rewire your nervous system, cultivate present moment awareness, and shed self-limiting beliefs. So maybe you’ve caught yourself in the mirror, drowning in critical self-talk that erodes your confidence or felt trapped by stories, insisting you’re just not enough or not smart enough, not attractive enough or talented enough or skilled enough. Well, our first guest, Mel Robbins, one of the world’s most impactful speakers and a dear friend of mine, unveils her viral high five habit that helps quiet the inner critic and construct an unshakable friendship with yourself. And then I’ll take the baton from Mel and share my own suite of what I call good life habits that I’ve developed over a period of decades of pursuing personal growth. So imagine if you could breathe in alignment with your desired state, move through flow states of blissful presence, or just immerse yourself in nature’s healing landscapes with clear, actionable techniques? I’ll really give you a step by step guide to make tiny daily revolutions that feel profound.

Jonathan Fields: [00:02:20] So these conversations, they aren’t about quick fixes or empty affirmations. It’s an opportunity to fundamentally re author the habits, beliefs, and behaviors that shape your sense of identity and perceive potential. So excited to share this spotlight conversation with you. I’m Jonathan Fields and this is Good Life Project.. Hey, so our first guest is Mel Robbins, one of the world’s leading voices in personal transformation and a longtime friend. Mel’s groundbreaking high five habit has helped really millions embrace their worth and potential in this conversation, Mel shares her profoundly personal journey from rock bottom to radical self-acceptance, and you’ll discover the surprising science behind high fiving yourself daily and how this kind of goofy yet powerful practice can flood your body with confidence boosting chemicals and change the way you see yourself and live. More than just surface level affirmations, this approach, it forges sort of an unshakable mind body connection with your truest, most capable self. So here’s Mel. So the high five habit. This is something that literally came to you again after moving through this season of profound disruption, upset, suffering, just like a metric ton of things not going your way, you know, and and.

Mel Robbins: [00:03:43] Those are just the things the lawyers will let us talk about.

Jonathan Fields: [00:03:46] Right? Exactly. You know, and and you effectively wake up in the morning and you’re looking in the mirror and you end up high fiving yourself, goofy as it sounds. Right? It does something to you. So you show up and you do it again the next morning. And the next morning. And similar to your own. Everything starts with you. Your own personal experience. You’re like, ah, like, I kind of did this and it made me feel different. Oh, let me try it again. And it’s making me feel even more different. And then it’s almost like. And this is literally simply looking in the mirror and high fiving yourself. Right. It sounds like you said, like, how could this possibly do anything? And yet.

Mel Robbins: [00:04:21] It does. Ridiculously cheesy.

Jonathan Fields: [00:04:22] Yeah. And so you start doing it and so many things start to change. And like you said, it’s almost like this interesting bookend. Or it’s like the five second rule gets you up off the couch. And then this starts to rewire your state of mind so that it puts you in a stance of action and confidence rather than victimhood. Even once you’re up off the couch and you know you’re in a place to take that first action, it’s like, but what about all the rest throughout the day? And what about the way that I see myself? And what about the way that I see my world? You know, when you talk about it. You know, part of you also says, okay, now that I’m feeling this in my body and my life, and it’s actually for some reason it’s helping me turn everything around, I got to know what’s happening in my head. So you go on this sort of like this quest for knowledge, you know, and you’re like, okay, is there actually science behind this? And what is it? And in fact, there is, which, you know, so I remember when you first told me, I’m like, all right, sounds interesting, you know, um, and I pull back and then I come back, I don’t know, a year later and you show me, I guess, what must have been sort of like the manuscript of the book, and I’m reading through it. I’m like, wait, what? You know, there’s all this science and there’s this first, walk me through what’s actually happening when you do this simple act. Oh.

Mel Robbins: [00:05:46] It’s incredible. I really want to put you at the scene because it’s such a relatable moment, and when I unpack it, Jonathan, it’s jaw dropping. How foundational this is in terms of what I’ve discovered. So, you know, I wake up one morning feeling overwhelmed and beaten down and stressed out. We’ve all had that feeling right of you just wake up. The stress is right there. You’re staring at the ceiling. I don’t even need to tell you what’s going on. It doesn’t even matter because it’s a feeling that you feel overwhelmed by your life. I use the five second rule 54321 because I still, 13 years later, have to use it to get out of bed. And I make my bed and I make my bed every morning. And that morning I made it so I didn’t climb back into it. I dragged myself to the bathroom. I’m brushing my teeth. And here’s the thing. You talk about morning routines. You talk about habits. You talk about mindset. You talk about science. The fact of the matter is, we all have a particular habit every morning. And that habit is to ignore yourself or to criticize yourself. When you see yourself in the mirror. And as I’m brushing my teeth on this particular very low, challenging morning, I catch a glimpse of myself, Jonathan, and I think, oh my God, you look like hell.

Mel Robbins: [00:07:08] And I look at the woman standing in the mirror and she’s got dark circles under her eyes and her grey hair is coming in and she looks haggard. She looks exhausted. She looks beaten down. Honestly, I felt sorry for her. And, you know, the thing is, is that what’s interesting is I, you know, started kind of picking apart her tired reflection. I started to think about the day ahead. And that, of course, was negative. I woke up late. I’ve got eight minutes for the zoom call. The dog still needs to be walked. And here’s what’s fascinating. If you had walked into the bathroom, Jonathan, I would have turned on a dime. I would have been like, Jonathan, I know life sucks. It’s not fair. You don’t deserve this. But come on, dude, if anybody can face this shit, you can. I would have known what to say. I would have been energized to help you. But standing there, seeing myself, I couldn’t think of anything to say. And here’s the other thing that’s really important. I don’t think I would have believed it because I didn’t feel confident. I didn’t feel resilient. I felt beaten down, and whatever it was, I was didn’t even have a bra on. I just suddenly raised my hand and high fived the woman in the mirror because she needed it.

Mel Robbins: [00:08:27] And look, lightning did not strike that moment. It’s not like my life magically changed. That’s not how this shit works. But something shifted. I felt my shoulders drop. I felt my chin lift, and I laughed because it’s so stupid to high five yourself. I mean, just like the scene itself is dumb. And so I laugh at how corny it was But then my mood changed and I thought, all right, this does suck. But you know what? Here we go. And I sent myself into my day. But it was the second morning. The second morning is when I felt something that I’ve never felt in my entire life. And this is where this shit starts to get deep. So I wake up. Same problem, same overwhelm. Nothing’s changed about that. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. I get out of bed, I make the bed. I start walking to the bathroom. And that’s when I noticed it. You know how when you’re about to go to a cafe and you’re going to see a friend that you’re really like, I’m about to walk into a cafe and see Jonathan Fields. I love this guy. How do you feel, Jonathan, when you’re about to see somebody you like?

Jonathan Fields: [00:09:39] You feel great.

Mel Robbins: [00:09:40] Yeah. You’re excited. You. And you’re, like, looking forward to it. I felt that way about the idea that I was about to see myself. I’m going to be 53 this year. I had never, ever looked forward to seeing the human being. Mel Robbins in the mirror. I’ve looked forward to seeing what an outfit might look like or a new color eyeshadow. I have never anticipated with enthusiasm seeing myself. And as I stood there in the mirror that second morning, that’s when something shifted because I actually noticed the human being I was looking at. And I started to think, who does she need me to be today? What game do we want to play together today? It was this weird experience where I was literally for the first time, feeling like I wasn’t alone. I was there with myself. It’s hard to describe. It’s this moment of objectivity, of presence, of depth, of intimacy with yourself. And then as I thought about the game I was going to play and how I was going to show up for myself, I raised my hand and high five myself. Now let’s get into the science, because this stuff is crazy.

Mel Robbins: [00:11:06] Here’s the good news. The good news is your nervous system, your heart, your mind. It is already programmed to have this work because of a lifetime of experience. So yes, it’s going to feel weird. It’s going to feel weird based on neuroscience, you know, you’re learning a new behavior. If I were to start writing with my left hand, I’m a right hander. It would feel weird. It’s new. You are breaking an old habit of staring at yourself and going er, or ignoring yourself. You know, I’ve been shocked by how many people Jonathan can’t even look at themselves in the mirror. That’s the habit. So it’s going to feel weird to be with yourself because this is new. That’s number one. Expect that. But number two is you raise your hand and you go to high five yourself, something weird is going to happen. You can’t think a negative thought about yourself. You can’t think a negative thought about your day because your mind isn’t programmed to think anything negative when you’re high fiving somebody, when you high five somebody. Jonathan, what does it communicate when you do it for somebody else?

Jonathan Fields: [00:12:06] Celebration. It’s an upbeat thing. It’s like. Yes. Like it’s basically it’s a physicalized. Yes, yes.

Mel Robbins: [00:12:12] I love you I see you, we got this. Come on now. Keep going. I believe in you. It communicates all of that. You’ve never, ever, ever given somebody an authentic high five that you hated. You’ve never given somebody a high five. Like you’re going down like that’s not that’s not what that means. And so your brain in your subconscious already has all that programming in it. The second you raise your hand to do the high five, the subconscious part of your brain takes over and it marries all that positive programming with your reflection. That’s what’s going on. The second thing that happens, and this has been validated by Doctor Daniel Eamon, because it feels so good to get a high five and you’ve received high fives in your life. Your brain recognizes it and it gives you a drip of dopamine. That’s why if you do this for more than five days in a row and get through the resistance, which I’m going to unpack for you, because the resistance is so sad, so profoundly sad that we got to unpack it. So you get a drip of dopamine, which means you’re now starting your day with a mood booster that’s free, that helps you focus, that helps you be more upbeat. We know, based on research, that your mood in the morning impacts productivity all day long. And that’s not all. Doctor Eamon also said that one of the reasons why you feel a little bit more energized is because your nervous system gets involved.

Mel Robbins: [00:13:32] So in life, when you wave hello to somebody, you raise your hands. When you hug somebody, you raise your hands. When you pat somebody on the back, you raise your hands. When you cross a finish line, you raise your hands. When you high five somebody, you raise your hands. These are celebratory gestures that your nervous system already is programmed to feel. So when you start to make this a habit, your nervous system gets involved and you start to feel that celebratory energy that makes you feel a little bit more confident, a little bit more resilient. That’s what I mean when I say your body is programmed to have this work for you. But now let’s talk about the resistance, because nine out of ten people, nine out of ten people resist the idea. And the reason why you’re going to resist this is more to do. It’s even deeper than the fact that you’re not used to doing it. It’s sad right now when you stand in front of that mirror, you drag with you a lifetime of judgment. If you’ve been abused or you’ve experienced trauma, or you have a heartbreak or you’ve been abandoned, you look at that stuff and you say, it makes me damaged, unworthy, not good enough. And you see a person that’s damaged and unworthy and not good enough. And you say that to yourself and you then cannot high five yourself. That’s what the resistance is, because you don’t believe you deserve it because of those things.

Mel Robbins: [00:14:55] Or maybe you’ve done things like I have that you deeply regret, that you’ve had a hard time forgiving yourself for. And you did these things because you were surviving. You’ve forgiven other people for doing these things, but you can’t forgive yourself. That’s the resistance that you feel. You don’t see somebody worthy of a high five because you’ve done these bad things. So it makes you feel like you’re a bad person. So that’s why you don’t encourage, support, celebrate, cheer, and love yourself. And there’s even more. If you’re somebody like me who’s an overachiever, who is married, I got to be winning. I got to be achieving. Because if I’m not achieving, then I’m not lovable. And you struggle with jealousy because when somebody else is winning, it means nobody’s going to love you. If you’re somebody that believes that the car that you drive or the money in the bank, or the number on the scale or the neighborhood that you live in, or the whether your hair is kinky or like if you believe all that outside stuff is what makes you worthy and lovable, you’re fucked because all that stuff can get taken away. And it also sets you up for a life like I had where you’re on a plane 150 days a year, exhausted because you think you got to just do one more speech. Because if you do one more speech, that means you’re that much more worthy.

Mel Robbins: [00:16:06] It’s about the outside stuff. And so the resistance is, well, I haven’t even done anything today, so why would I deserve a high five? And there’s even more research. But this is just like the holy cow, I want to go back to the kid thing, Jonathan, because I got the most incredible text exchange with our 21 year old daughter. Our 21 year old daughter is at the University of Southern California. She is a music student, so she’s at the music conservatory as a singer songwriter. And she wrote to me the other day and she said, are you getting excited about your book? And she said, I can’t wait to read it. I’ve been high fiving myself in the mirror and I said, how’s the high five working for you? And she says, well, when I do it, I don’t know what to say, because sometimes when I look in the mirror, my first thought is, you’re not as pretty as the rest of the girls. And I said, well, you don’t have to say anything because the high five itself communicates everything for you. And then she said, but what if I didn’t accomplish anything today? Like, I didn’t work out or I didn’t write a song like I said I would? Should I still high five myself after the shower? And I said, yes. You have to keep showing up every day trying to do a little better.

Mel Robbins: [00:17:34] That alone makes you worthy of support and celebration. You see, we have the secret to life, happiness and motivation backwards. You think you need to accomplish something to be worthy of a high five? And then she writes. Wait a minute. Are you saying the fact that I exist deserves a high five question mark? I said yes, and when you high five yourself for just standing there in front of the mirror, you are demonstrating that you see you and all your potential. You support you and you believe in you and that no matter what happened or didn’t happen today, you still have your own back. And then I asked her, so what do you think about what I wrote? And she said, I love it. It makes me feel great. And then I said, could you explain why? Because maybe it’ll help me explain this high five habit to everyone else. And this is what she wrote, Jonathan. Well, what the high five shows you is that you don’t actually know how much you’re always doing. And I think that once you start high fiving yourself every single morning, it almost allows you to be more present to everything you are doing. And it helps you recognize all those small victories. And when you compile those small victories, you can recognize all of your accomplishments, big and small, and eventually come to believe that not only are you worth it, but you can do anything.

Jonathan Fields: [00:18:57] Apparently, you’re raising some pretty interesting and cool and smart kids.

Mel Robbins: [00:19:02] Who are still beating themselves up, you know?

Jonathan Fields: [00:19:04] Right. As we probably all will continue to do. But the tools like really make a difference. What was so fascinating to me about that exchange was like this realization that a the simple fact of your birth gives you worth. You don’t have to do anything, you know. And somehow, like, we get all sorts of stuff caked on around that, that makes us forget that through life and think that we have to earn our way back into worth. And it’s like, no, you were born. Boom, done for life. That’s it. But then the realization that this is both it serves as a prime for your day, you know. So, like, you do this for the day, it makes a subtle shift in your mind. And the fact that you now have a subtle shift in your mind means you step out into the day differently. And as you step out into the day differently, maybe you do a little bit something here, and then maybe people respond to you differently because they see you carrying yourself a little bit differently, and maybe doors open a little bit more widely open, or maybe arms open to embrace you not because you’re consciously doing something different, but because you primed your brain to feel differently about yourself, to get a little bit closer to that feeling of, yes, I do have worth. And when you step out into the world that radiates without you actually even consciously telling everyone around you that I’m valuable, I’m valuable, I’m valuable. It’s something that people feel around your presence, which makes sense.

Mel Robbins: [00:20:31] And one of the things that has happened for me is that I don’t even need to high five myself anymore. On a really low day. I do and I will, and I still do it anyway. But what I’ve noticed, Jonathan practicing this very simple habit every morning, both of asking myself, who does the woman in the mirror need me to be today? And what game are we playing together? And also then sealing it. I don’t even see my face. I see a human being. I have literally deleted the soundtrack that I have lived with for 52 years, and I have reprogrammed it with all of those positive associations that a high five communicates. When I see myself in a mirror, I see a human being that I like. I see a person who’s doing her best. I see a person who needs, wants and deserves celebration, support and love and encouragement. And that’s all that I see. And it is the most beautiful and liberating feeling in the world to have quieted that insane self-criticism. Now, are there things that happen throughout the day that make me die? Of course. Are the things that I do? Of course. But to have removed that beat down every morning, it’s one of the most extraordinary experiences I’ve ever felt in my life. Mm.

Jonathan Fields: [00:22:13] Yeah. I mean, that’s powerful. You know, eventually the repetition, like, the neural grooves change. Mm. They do. You know, like, it’s like the old rule, you know? Like what? What fires together, wires together. And over time, if you keep repeating this, you’re getting different patterns to fire together. Mhm. I love that. And it feels like a good place for us to come full circle as well. So hanging out in this container of the Good Life project. If I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up?

Mel Robbins: [00:22:45] Hmm. I think it’s to surround yourself with people that you want to high five. It’s to do work or make an impact in a way that makes you want to high five what you’re doing. I think it’s waking up every day and being able to look the person that you see in the mirror, in the eye and smile and raise your hand and celebrate, encourage and support them. Send them into their day to play a game worth playing. I think that’s what it is. It’s, um, it’s really feeling like you are truly in control of what happens next because you are.

Jonathan Fields: [00:23:30] Mhm. Thank you.

Mel Robbins: [00:23:31] Thank you.

Jonathan Fields: [00:23:33] And we’ll be right back after a word from our sponsors So big thanks to Mel. Her story really reminds us that even our most seemingly silly practices can reshape neural pathways and rewrite the stories we tell ourselves. Just an inspiring testament to how small daily acts of self-love can literally rewire us for unstoppable confidence and possibility. Now, next up, I’m going to share a set of deeply impactful, good life habits that have become woven into my own personal routine and more than just actions or behaviors, these are the kind of intentional rituals that can quietly reprogram your being from the inside out. They’re a set of tips and techniques and mindset shifts that I have cultivated really over a period of decades. We’ll explore seemingly small habits with surprising scientific backing. It isn’t just potent personal development fluff, it’s a life-upgrading toolbox of neurological and biological and psychological game changers that I’m excited to share with you. So here we go. This first one, now I call it the Morning Hug. That’s a bit of a simplified name for it, because it does start with a very simple behavior. But as you’ll see, I’m going to invite you to expand on or modify it. And also I want to be sure that this is accessible to those who may not feel like they have another being to hug or be hugged by. So what we know is that human connection and in particular touch, are critically important for physical and mental well-being, right? When we have the experience of physical touch and emotional connection, and those can be conveyed simultaneously, that can be an incredibly simple it can literally last just a couple of seconds, but it can be a really powerful way for you to come back to a feeling of calm, a feeling of ease, a feeling of peace and a feeling of connectedness.

Jonathan Fields: [00:25:31] And now we know that the research shows that there is a powerful psychological and physiological thing that happens, and it only takes a couple of seconds. Now you may be thinking, well, that sounds like great for you, but what if I don’t have that person? Well, we know that almost any other being can actually give a similar effect. If you have a pet. That’s great. It’s partly about the feeling of interconnectedness that you have with another being. The other part is literally the physical sensation of touch that gets built into this. So what we also know is that even if you don’t have another being at all, whether it’s a person or a pet, you can still create your version of the morning hug. There’s a technique of self-touch that’s actually called havening, and part of that is literally embracing yourself. Wrap your arms around yourself. Interestingly, you closing your eyes. You can lie in bed. You can do it first thing in the morning. Sit up on the edge. Close your eyes. Take a nice full breath.

Jonathan Fields: [00:26:40] In a nice full exhale out of your mouth. Just reach your arms out and gently wrap your arms around yourself, and maybe even rock for a few seconds. As you’re hugging yourself. Put gentle pressure on that actually makes a real difference. A morning self-hug can be incredibly powerful, but what’s fascinating to know is that the research shows that even self-hugging and self-touching, simply hand on heart or hand on belly can have really similar effects of lowering stress, anxiety, blood pressure, decreasing cortisol, decreasing heart rate, and increasing oxytocin, which is super powerful because it makes this morning practice available and accessible to almost anyone. Right now. That’s kind of the first part of the physical side of the morning hug. Right now, the second part of this, and again, you can make this a habit, like the type of thing where you start to do it, you wake up, you get open your eyes, you sit up in bed and whatever it is, you know, whether it’s another being a pet, an animal, self, this is just the first thing that you do in the morning. It takes a couple of seconds. Spend a few minutes checking in with yourself, right? Check in with your thoughts and journal for just a few minutes. If you don’t have the ability to journal, then audio journal or thought journal. But the important thing is to create just a few minutes to just pause before you launch into your day and check in and say, how am I doing today? How am I feeling today? How is my night? Am I tired? Am I? Am I at peace, am I energized? What do I need as I move into my morning and day? Right? So the idea with the morning hug is we kind of have these two parts, we have the actual physical touch part, right? And then we have the emotional part, the emotional check-in.

Jonathan Fields: [00:28:40] Super powerful. That is good life habit number one. And it’s made a big difference for me. So good life habit number two breathing the breath is incredibly powerful in our ability to live good lives and can affect our state of mind, our state of body in a matter of seconds. So our breath, in particular our rate of breathing, is directly connected to the state of our nervous system. And the state of our nervous system is directly connected to the state of our endocrine or chemistry set inside of our body and the state of our chemistry in our body. The all the different chemicals that get sort of like sent out to the body largely determines how we feel. Everything from health to inflammation, to cognitive function, to emotional function, to pretty much everything. Breathing is this switch that allows us to up, regulate and down regulate all of these different systems in a ripple effect, and in doing so, immediately changes the way we feel. Now, I learned this very early on, and then I started to go deeper into the research.

Jonathan Fields: [00:29:53] And then I have stayed deep in the research on the relationship between breathing and physical and mental well-being. And the volumes of research have certainly become larger and larger and larger over those decades. And what we know is that certain types of breathing can upregulate your nervous system or super activate it, certain can downregulate your nervous system or bring it down to a much calmer, more peaceful state. And you can kind of pick and choose the ways to breathe, to be able to almost immediately return to the state that you want. Now, again, whenever we’re talking about breathing and we’re talking about things that regulate your body system. If you have any concerns whatsoever, any questions at all, always recommend talk to your qualified health care provider because these can have powerful effects on your psychology and physiology. So I have experimented with all sorts of different breaths, and my second good life habit is a type of breathing that I have called teardrop breathing, simply because of the shape that it forms. So for me, I will inhale for a certain amount of time. I will pause for that same amount of time. I will exhale for double that amount of time, and I’ll pause for that same doubled amount of time. So let’s say so if we start at the bottom of a teardrop right. And let’s say we inhale for two.

Jonathan Fields: [00:31:18] And that takes us down to the bottom. And then we exhale for two. Or we pause for two and then we exhale for four. That’s this longer thing up top. And then we pause for four. And it forms this angular teardrop shape. What I’ve done over the years is I wake up first thing in the morning, and it’s part of my morning practice. It is a habit. I don’t think about it anymore. It’s simply what I do. So I will do about five minutes of this teardrop breathing. An example of that would be something like this. Inhale one two. Pause one two. Exhale 1234. Pause 1234. So what we’re doing is we’re extending the exhale and we’re extending the pause after the exhale. Now for me this has become an incredibly centering habit that literally I don’t think about it anymore. This has moved from intentional thing. It’s moved from experimenting to find what really works best for me, and it’s moved to become a habit. It’s just what I do when I get up in the morning. Right. These are the things that I do, by the way. Um, before I do the morning hug, because I have some alone time first thing in the morning. So that is what one of the things that I just immediately do. So it’s incredibly powerful for me. So this is the second of my good life habits. I would encourage you to experiment with your own.

Jonathan Fields: [00:32:41] So let’s move on to our third good life habit. And that is movement. And there is incredible research on how moving our bodies affects every system, right. These are the things that we do. It literally is this trigger that changes everything. It makes a lot of things easier. It makes a lot of things better. It has almost as rapid and effect as breathing. In my experience, in being able to up or down regulate your nervous system, your state of mind. And we also know that it has really powerful long term effects on every system in our body, on our wellbeing, on our hormones, on our um, risk for illness and capacity to access wellbeing. Now, when we talk about this, I think it’s also important to note that people will have different abilities to move their bodies, and that’s completely okay. And it’s also one of the reasons why, you know, I’m offering different ideas, different habits, different behaviors, different activities, because some may be more accessible to some people and others to other people. To the extent that you can do even one of these, it can make a huge difference. If you have the ability to adapt and make any of these yours, then I would invite you to think about like given who you are, given your current state, given what your body calls for and is able to do, think about how these might work for you. Just close your eyes and kind of just notice.

Jonathan Fields: [00:34:16] How’s my body feeling? What does it need today? And if it’s calling to be gentle, be gentle. If it’s calling to say like I feel strong and alive, I’m going to push hard, then by all means honor that as well. Honor your current state of physical ability, and also do it in a way that engages as much of not just your physical body, but your mental body. And it’s kind of weird to say mental body, but I really, truly do believe that there’s a seamless loop between your mind and your body. We can’t disconnect them anymore. Literally, when you move your body, it changes your brain. But I almost feel like you almost can’t distinguish between the two at certain states. So engage your mind when you engage your body. And sometimes the way that we do that is by choosing activities that, by the very nature of the activity, require our mind to be in it. When your body moves, and the fundamental nature of an activity requires your mind to be intentionally present on a moment to moment basis in that activity, you experience that as play. Play that often rises to the level of flow and that is kind of blissful. So not only do you get this powerful state in terms of increasing health and muscle tone and wellness and longevity and decreasing risk for disease and decreasing inflammation and all these things in your body, but you translate what so many people dread and view as like, oh, I have to do this thing into something that you yearn to do and love to do.

Jonathan Fields: [00:35:47] This is one of the reasons why I hike on a regular basis here. The bigger message here is that movement really is powerful in so many different ways, and if you want to elevate it to the level of play and flow and bliss, do something where the fundamental nature of the movement requires your mind to be engaged, it will change the game for you. A lot of people think, well, how do I turn exercise from something? I have to do a behavior into a habit, something I just automatically do and I love doing. And a big part of that transition is connecting those two things physical movement with attentional focus, not because you’re telling yourself to focus, but because the nature of the movement requires your mind to be in it. Right. So I do this on a regular basis, and this has become like one of my powerful good life habits. So exercise whatever form is available to you. We think about it as a really powerful, good life habit. But again, I want to expand this a little bit and invite you to go a little bit further. And that is movement is not just about those, you know, 22 two hour segments during any given day where you devote yourself to, quote, capital E exercise. It’s also about how we move throughout the day.

Jonathan Fields: [00:37:04] So to the extent that you can look at the way that you’re spending your day and mobilize your workflow, mobilize your relationships, mobilize everything, it can make a really big difference. So the way that I look at my workflow, for example, I completely rewired the way that I do it to allow myself to be much more mobile So whenever I have in-person meetings and granted, none of us did for a while, but I think a lot of us are back to it. But even for years before any in-person meeting I had, you know, instead of going to a place and sitting and talking, I would say, meet me at this place. It was usually the coffee shop two doors down from me when I was in New York City. We’d get a cup of coffee and we’d go walk and talk. Every conversation I said, unless I have to be tethered to a screen, unless you have to show me something on a screen where we have to be doing it, we’re going to be up, we’re going to be outside, and we’re going to be moving while we’re doing it. So these are some invitations to start to think about reimagining the way that we work, so that we can actually become as mobile as possible, so that we can interject movement to whatever extent it is available and accessible to us, adapt it in whatever ways we need to, so that we can bring as much of it into our days as humanly possible.

Jonathan Fields: [00:38:19] So that is the third good life habit, and we’ll be right back after a word from our sponsors. The fourth one is what I call nature immersion. Now, what we know is that similar to breathing and movement, even physical touch, that nature, exposure to nature has a powerful effect on human beings. It also has the ability to downregulate or upregulate your nervous system. It literally can affect the level of inflammation in your body. It can affect your mood, your level of anxiety, depression. It can affect your physiological and psychological states in really powerful ways. So many of us have been in nature or around nature and thought to ourselves, I just feel good here. We have research now that shows that you feel good because it literally is affecting your body systems in Japan. There are entire forests that are designated as what they call Shinrin-yoku forest, which translates roughly to forest bathing. And they do this because studies have shown that when we regularly immerse ourselves in nature, especially walking through woods, walking through trees, walking through forests, or moving through them, even if we’re doing it in an assisted way, simply being in a natural environment can have a profound effect on us. So I have made not just a behavior, not just a commitment, but a habit of making sure that I have nature in my life. Now. For me, we’ve literally moved 2000 miles away so that I’m immersed in the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains, and I have access to incredible nature at every beat.

Jonathan Fields: [00:40:07] But you don’t have to do that in order to have exposure to nature, to plants around you on a regular basis. Right? Simple trees on the block, you know, sit outside If you have the ability to do work during the day and you can do it either sitting inside in an office you know, or in your home office or wherever you may be. Or you can be outside, whether it’s a cafe, whether it’s your backyard, whether it’s your front porch, whatever it may be. Choose the outdoor environment, because simply being outside, around plants and nature and animals can make a really big difference. We don’t think about it, but science tells us it really does matter. The ability that you actually have to immerse yourself even more in any kind of natural environment, say yes to it. Now. We also know that even if you don’t have the ability to be outside, that simply being inside and having windows that let you have exposure to natural environments can make a difference as well. Fascinating research about hospitals and people who are recovering from surgery or from illness. And what it shows that in a room where one person has a window, where outside they can see trees and another person doesn’t have any access to that natural light and to the trees.

Jonathan Fields: [00:41:31] Pain levels are reported as lower and recovery is faster, simply by having a window that has natural light and exposure to foliage. It makes a real difference. We also know that let’s say you’re working in an office or a home office, literally bringing a plant or plants into that indoor environment where you can look at them, where you can see them. Even that makes a difference in your psychological state, which then ripples into your physiological state. So we have levels of exposure, of immersion in nature that we can say yes to. And when we can’t actually get out to them, we can even bring them in through the guise of a window, or even bring things into our actual internal space that can give us some of that same effect, right? So no one is excluded from this. Just reimagine, do some thinking first, elevate this and say this actually matters. It matters more than I realize. There’s science behind that. Now, how can I first go out into it and then how can I bring more of it inside? To me, those things can make a really big difference. So I have a habit now of nature immersion on a daily basis. I don’t think about it. I know how it affects me. I thought about it in the beginning until it became an automatic behavior, but now it’s just a part of what I do and the way that I live my life.

Jonathan Fields: [00:42:57] And that brings us to our final and fifth good life habit. And again, you’ll see that a lot of these start as intentional behaviors, but using the fundamental science of habit, repeating them over time in a loop in a systematic way builds them into habit, and they become automatic Okay. Number five. Now this is not going to be new for most of you, but I still have to put it out there because it has been transformational in my life and I absolutely did not come to it voluntarily. And that is meditation. Now, for me, my particular practice is something called mindfulness. The mindfulness works on two levels, one as an actual dedicated practice. This is something that’s part of my morning, right? This is the early morning when I’m doing my breathing exercises. I also do a mindfulness practice. But the mindfulness practice has this powerful ripple effect. Over time, it starts to shift the way that you move into your day, the move, the way that you relate to yourself, the way that you relate to your own internal chatter, the way that you relate to other human beings. It is. It literally infuses every part of your life, and it has done so for me. So part of it is mindfulness as a practice or a habit, but that has this long term effect that literally changes the quality of your being on a persistent basis. 24 over seven as you move throughout your day and your life.

Jonathan Fields: [00:44:39] And in doing so, it changes the way that you relate to the world and the way that the world relates back to you in a really powerful, generative and generous ways that make life so much better. So what then, is a mindfulness practice? Now there are a lot of different approaches to meditation. And and I think they all have have value and they affect us differently. I’m drawn to mindfulness, in part because it gives me a set of tools that allow me to be present in what I’m doing. It can really change the way that you deal with things in life can make you much more present to them, much more curious about them, much more open, and more importantly, maybe than anything else. It teaches you how to identify where your mind is focused and let go of it. Right. So the practice is about focusing, noticing, letting go, and then coming back to a healthy, grounded focal point. And over time, doing this was profound to me. So I came back to it because I was trying to see if this would make a difference in my life. But what I found was that not only did it help tremendously with my tinnitus, which exists to this day, but I started to notice it was changing the way that I was moving into my day. I was less reactive. I was less stressed. I was less anxious. Now the circumstances of my life didn’t change all the things that would have made me reactive.

Jonathan Fields: [00:46:08] All the things that would have made me stressed, all the things that would have made me anxious. They were all still weaving in and out of my experience, and what I found was that this practice really changed the way that I was able to relate to all of these things, and it gave me the capacity to continue to say yes to possibility where the stakes were high. But the information was unknown. So high stakes, uncertainty plus possibility, and without suffering nearly as much as I used to. And that gave me the skills to step into the mode of creation and building and service and impact on a completely different level. And a lot of it started from me saying yes to this one technique. So let’s talk about that seated technique for a moment. Mindfulness. The practice itself is very simple. The instructions are super simple. The practice takes time. The instructions are basically to sit comfortably right. Whatever it is like, notice your body. Now, unlike some other approaches to meditation or what you might have heard, there is no instruction that says you must eliminate all thoughts and just completely clear your mind. Frankly, I don’t know if that’s possible. I know it’s not possible for me, and I don’t think I’ve ever met the person that can literally do that for more than a heartbeat. What the instruction is sit comfortably.

Jonathan Fields: [00:47:28] Find a place where your physical body is able to sustain itself for a short amount of time, whatever that looks like for you. Whatever is accessible for you. Whatever the physical way of placing your body is that allows you to be as at ease as you can be, and then you can kind of drop your gaze a little bit. And then the idea is to simply tune in to the sensation of your breath. Now there are different ways to do that that may be more accessible to people. So for some you can think about, well, let me notice the sensation of my breath as it enters my nose. And if we can, if you have the ability to just breathe through your nose, that tends to be more useful. So inhaling you can notice, oh, the breath actually, there’s a temperature change that it’s a little bit cooler as it moves into the tip of my nose. And let me see how far down the back of my nose and maybe into my throat, I can actually trace that sensation. And now as I exhale, there’s a very slight warming sensation at the tip of my nostrils when the breath comes back out of me. So some people find it easier to simply notice it there. Maybe you’ll notice the sensation of your breath because you’ll feel your chest, or your belly, or your shoulders just slightly expand outward a little bit with the inhale, and then slightly release back in a little bit with the exhale.

Jonathan Fields: [00:48:50] Maybe you notice it somewhere else in your body. But the idea is to simply go through a couple of cycles of breath and try sort of like, well, let me tune into my nose. Let me tune into my chest. Let me tune into my belly. If it’s helpful and I sometimes find this helpful, you can even place one hand on your chest and one hand on your belly and say like, where am I feeling? Like I’m breathing into the hand? And I can almost sense it that way. And the idea is that we use the breath as a bit of a light anchor for our attention. And this is the training in directing your attention. Now, what’s going to happen almost immediately, within a few seconds is your mind will start to think about something else. It will spin away from your breath and that is 100% okay. Over time, you’ll start to be able to notice that that your departure from your breath and your distraction to something else, your mind will start to notice that process as well. And you’ll say, huh, okay, thinking or feeling or whatever it may be, and with the next breath, just bring it back to the sense of your breath. So it’s the process of focusing, noticing, like noticing when you drift away, noticing what the self-talk is, noticing what the chatter is, and then consciously Dropping it.

Jonathan Fields: [00:50:11] Choosing to drop it and then bringing your awareness back to the sensation of your breath. So you may repeat this literally hundreds of times in a matter of 5 or 10 minutes. And here’s the cool thing when that happens, it doesn’t mean that you’re not doing it, or doing it incorrectly, or messing up. It’s just the nature of the practice. I have literally been doing this for, I believe, over a dozen years now, and my mind still spins off all the time. The difference is, I tend to notice it a lot faster. I treat myself gently when I do. There’s no shame or blame or you’re messing up or doing this wrong. And I just gently bring it back to my breath. So this gives you the skill of noticing, of choosing where to focus your attention, choosing how to respond to it and to yourself, and then bringing it back to where you want it to be. That over time, is what becomes so transformative. That is the game changing element of this practice, because it gives you control over your attention and allows you more control over how you respond to wherever your attention is. And to draw it to wherever you want it to be. I am a huge believer that in no small part, attention is life. Wherever your attention is, that determines the nature and the quality of your experience of life in that moment. And if your attention is constantly flitting all day, every day, over a period of weeks, days, months, years, decades, your whole life that determines the nature and the quality of your entire life.

Jonathan Fields: [00:51:54] So the more you gain the ability to actually have some level of relationship and control over where your attention is, how you process it, and how you direct it, it changes Profoundly your ability to live the life that you want to live, regardless of the circumstances you find yourself in, whether they’re glorious and alive and joyful or really hard and challenging, you have the ability to bring your attention to where you want it to be, and that is incredibly powerful. So for me, that fifth good life habit, which, like every other thing, starts out as a behavior. It’s intentional and willful, and over a period of time, through repetition and reinforcement becomes an automatic process that I just do every single morning and a habit that changes my life over time. Hey, thanks so much for joining me on this powerful exploration into transformative daily habits. I’m kind of in awe at how seemingly small things applied consistently can rewire our core sense of self and our self-narratives and the way that we behave and and really, the way that the world responds to us too. From Mel’s viral High five habit that builds unshakable self-worth to breathing and movement and mindfulness practices that unlock new realms of presence and potential, we gained a powerful toolbox for becoming the author of our most radiant, unstoppable selves.

Jonathan Fields: [00:53:24] So if you leave today with just one commitment to lovingly invest in uplifting daily habits, you’re already well on your way. And if you love this episode, be sure to catch the full conversation with Mel about the High Five habit and also my fuller Five Life-Changing Habits episode. You can find a link to those episodes in the show notes. This episode of Good Life Project was produced by executive producers Lindsey Fox and me, Jonathan Fields. Editing help by Alejandro Ramirez. Kristoffer Carter crafted our theme music and special thanks to Shelley Adelle 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 and if you found this conversation interesting or inspiring or valuable, and chances are you did. Since you’re still listening here, would you do me a personal favor? A seven-second favor and share it? Maybe on social or by text or by email? Even just with one person? Just copy the link from the app you’re using and tell those you know, those you love, those you want to help navigate this thing called life a little better so we can all do it better together with more ease and more joy. Tell them to listen, then even invite them to talk about what you’ve both discovered. Because when podcasts become conversations and conversations become action, that’s how we all come alive together. Until next time, I’m Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project.