Why Plans Fail, and What To Do Instead | Midyear Reset Pt 2
episodePreviously titled “Midyear Wake-Up Call | Part 2” — renamed by the publisher on Aug 3, 2026
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Why is a plan often just a way of not starting?
So all too often, a plan is really just a really organized way of not starting anything yet. We treat the plan as proof that we're serious. Most of the time, it's the thing standing between us and the only part that was ever going to matter, which is just us. starting. We are, almost all of us, far better at planning our lives than at living them. And at the halfway mark of a year, that gap is about to get very visible. So here's where we're going today. I'm going to tell you how I finally got something that I love back into my life and the deeply unglamorous thing that actually made it stick.
The
I'm going to make the case for why a move beats a plan every single time and why the middle of the year of all moments is secretly the best time to make one. And then you and I, we're going to make a move together before this episode is even over. Not plan it, but actually make it. And one quick thing, especially if you're new here, this is actually part two of a special two-part summer reset series. And last time in part one, we explored a very different way to take an honest look, to take stock at the halfway mark of the year and really name the one part of your life that's been running low. And it was a very different way of thinking about how the first half of the year might unfold. And today we do the moving part.
It's action time. So if you've caught part one, this is where the payoff comes. If you didn't, you can start right here and lose nothing and maybe circle back to part one after this for a little bit of fuller context. So excited to share this one with you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. And we'll get right into it right after this short break. So I want to start with a little bit of a confession and then the slightly embarrassing story of what I did about it. If you were here last time, you know that somewhere in a genuinely good and ridiculously busy year, I let something that I love fall just right out of my life, making things with my hands. And I said near the end of that first episode that if I wanted it back, I was going to have to need structure, not enthusiasm, because I had already proven that enthusiasm does not survive a busy season, at least not for me and for most people I know.
And I was in the middle of an extremely, extremely abundant season. Now, here's what I actually did about it. For a while, the artist and maker Jones in me has been finding an outlet in something called relief printing, or more specifically, this thing called woodblock printing. It's kind of like you make a design and then literally hand carve it into wood and then you use that as the printing plate to press prints off of it. It's just, it's so analog and so physical and so cool. I absolutely suck at it right now, but I also absolutely love it. And I had this built in rhythm that I didn't really have to think about. I'd signed up for a class. I'd been doing it alongside someone I love. And it was honestly one of my favorite things in the world.
The two of us just kind of making a mess on a Wednesday morning together. And when you're doing something that you genuinely enjoy with someone you genuinely enjoy being around, the showing up, it just, it kind of takes care of itself, right? You both just turn up because the other one's there and you get to do something kind of cool and you do it together. And that's what I was doing. And then life happened as it does. That easy shared rhythm, it was gone. And the showing up was suddenly entirely mine to carry alone, just me and my good intentions alone in a room. And we have long established on this very show in some detail that my good intentions have roughly the staying power of a gym membership purchased on September 2nd.
They're sincere, they're heartfelt, and they're gone by the end of the month. It just becomes so easy to rationalize doing a thousand other things that seem to be just much more important, at least in the moment. So this time I caught myself doing this. And here's what I, a person who literally studies spending your time well for a living, instinctively reach for first, a plan.
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Chapters
3 chaptersSpeakers
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