How to Get Your Life Together: The 90/10 Rule
01:21:19 Share

Hello and welcome to Being Well, I'm Forrest Hansen. If you're new to the show, thanks for joining us today. And if you've listened before, welcome back. There has never been more information out there.

about psychology, self-improvement, and mental health. There are thousands of books and podcasts and YouTube videos and expert opinions on how to be less anxious, more productive, and more fulfilled. We've contributed some of those. And it's great that there's so much information out there, but there are two big consequences. First, it's really easy to get overwhelmed, which tends to stop us from doing much of anything. And then second, it's easy to get caught up in the details and lose sight of the big picture.

We're chasing the next fad, the hack, the one simple trick, rather than focusing on the simple, fundamental things that tend to be responsible for most of our happiness and overall well-being. So that's what we're focusing on during this episode. How can we apply the 90-10 rule to ourselves? What are the 10% of our efforts that tend to lead to 90% of our results? And to help us figure that out, I'm joined by clinical psychologist Rick Hansen. So Dad, how are you doing today?

I'm really good and deeply interested in this topic. Yeah, I am too. I've been very energized by it recently, just so people know at the beginning of the episode. This is one of those things that I've been thinking about a lot, so there's a chance that I'm just going to kind of go didactic here and like chatter away for a while, but I'll do my best to keep it conversational and keep it interesting for people. So before we get into it, I want to give you a quick reminder about Rick's five-week online rumination course. It's going to start on March 29th.

and it focuses on helping us learn how to let go of repetitive patterns of thought. Rumination is a big pain point for a lot of people. It's a great course, and you can learn more about it at rickhansen.com backslash ruminator. And if you get there and you decide that you want to get it, hey, you can use coupon code BEINGWELL25 to receive a 25% discount.

So how about we start with me just kind of like giving my thesis about this data, and then you can offer any commentary on it that you want. Oh, I'm here. I'm here to learn. This is great. Okay, great. So I think that as I've learned about all of this stuff, and this is inspired in part by a podcast episode that I did recently that you also listened to where I did my kind of short guide to life, what I've learned so far from all of these episodes of the podcast that we've done. I think that there's kind of no better place to apply the 90-10 rule than to ourselves.

Because achieving success in anything isn't actually about maximizing our niche knowledge. It's generally about figuring out what the fundamentals are and then applying those basics consistently over time. And a big part of that is not letting ourselves get distracted by the shiny object, whatever the shiny object might be for somebody.

So in other words, doing the kind of simple, boring, sometimes difficult, but often right things is what tends to consistently move the needle for people. And the basics tend to matter for us a lot more than the details. So if you want to sleep more, you could probably try going to bed earlier. If you want to build muscle, you got to lift weights most days. If you want to improve your relationships, hey, be mostly warm toward other people, maybe particularly the person you're in a relationship with. Now, this advice is not tremendously novel or sexy.

And maybe that's why we kind of lose sight of it. But I think that for most people, applied consistently, it would make a huge difference for them. And then so we get into this really interesting question of like, why don't we do that? And a lot of this is taken from my own life. I've just found that the more that I've learned

the more I've been able to make things simple. And it's in the making it simple that I've been able to actually apply it. When these ideas were complicated and had a lot of intricacy and there were layers on layers on layers, I would just get stuck in my own mind a lot of the time. It was kind of like there was a problem with self-awareness. I knew too much to actually do anything with any of it. I don't know if that's been your experience, Dad, but it's something that I really bumped into the first couple of years of doing this because I just felt like I was drinking from a fire hose out there.

Yeah, so Forrest, why do you think it is that we don't follow the standard maxims along the lines of stuff like, well, if you're going to fill up a bucket, put the big rocks in first? Yeah, this is kind of the big rock theory of personal growth. Yeah, totally. That's right. Why do you think we don't do that? I think there's a lot of reasons. For starters, just the kind of, this sounds a certain sort of way, but the capitalistic reality of the self-help industry, you know?

If I want to make a living by producing content, I need to kind of convince you, the person listening to this podcast, that there's something novel in this podcast episode.

You know, there's a reason for you to listen to it. If I want you to buy my book, I have to convince you that there's something in my book that's worth reading about. And I think that that kind of marketing language sort of inherently leads us towards the prioritization of smaller and smaller and smaller slices of the pie because we've already kind of talked about a lot of the big slices of the pie. So I think that's a factor in all this. I think people get bored with the basics.

There's a kind of allure to complexity in general, and particularly with psychology and mental health stuff. You know, the brain is a complicated place. Our minds, our lives are complicated. Happiness seems really complicated. And this kind of makes us think that the solutions have to be complicated too. If the problems are big and complex, then that probably necessitates some kind of big and complex solution.

For me, I think that that big and complex solution is mostly figuring out how we can implement the simple stuff consistently inside of our lives. That's not always easy, and it can require a lot of effort.

But I'm not sure how complicated it is, if that makes sense. Maybe that's a distinction. So those are two things that kind of come to mind for me off the top, Dad. I don't know, you've been in this field for a long time here, as I often tease you about on the podcast. What do you think about this? I'm reminded of this very, very celebrated Zen master whose name escapes me right now in Japan who, toward the end of his life, highly admired and highly accomplished, was asked

what he made of his life, looking back on it. And he thought for a moment, kind of smiled ruefully, shook his head and said, one mistake after another.

And there is something about- It does feel that way sometimes, yeah. Yeah, looking back, there's something humbling in this inquiry. And there is certainly the tendency of the mind to complicate. There's this, for me, lovely mouthfeel-sounding word from a key language of early Buddhism. The language was Pali. The word is papantya, papantya. It means mental proliferation. And

And I think of it as a little bit like a rainforest in speeded up time-lapse photography where suddenly you see the vines swirling around rapidly and creatures moving around. The mind is a lot like that. It tends to generate complexity and proliferates. And there's a lot of wisdom in the contemplative traditions about becoming more aware of that proliferative process and disengaging from it.

disidentifying from it and coming home to something simpler and quieter. So I think that's part of it. A second factor that I'm struck by is that it takes a kind of humility to surrender to the most important things, because that's what we're talking about, giving yourself over to the most important things, the small things that produce big results.

When done consistently, you got to surrender to it. And there's something in us that, so I think a fair amount of what generates the proliferation into the 90 that only produces the 10 that we care about is related a lot to self, me, myself, and I, my own thoughts, my own plans, me, me, me. But on the other hand, when you recognize what really matters most in your innermost being, there's a little voice that's telling you,

you know, the short list of what really matters most for you these days, when you surrender to that, there's much less sense of self.

in the room or in the mind. I really appreciate that, dad, particularly the story about the Zen master because the whole notion of somebody who's spent their whole life pursuing a level of mental clarity or feeling like they've gotten everything that they can out of this life to still kind of get to the end of it and be like, so many mistakes, man. For starters, I just think that's kind of validating because that's people's experience a lot of the time. And it's nice to have a reflection from somebody who has done so much work and kind of still feels that way.

I also think that a piece of this is there's a lot of appeal to feeling like you've already done the 10 that gets you the 90 and you're kind of in that last 10%, right? Now we know that people can have an objectively really good life. And you've had clients who have walked into the room and been like, hey, Rick, I'm trying to figure out what to do with the reality that my life is really pretty good and I still don't feel good. So yes, absolutely. That group of people totally, totally exist.

At the same time, my personal experience, having been doing a little bit of coaching work with people, is that a lot of the time people come into the room really thinking that they've done the 10 that gets them 90, and it turns out that they just haven't. Or they tried it for a few weeks or a few months and then they stopped because it didn't totally solve the problem even though it actually was working for them.

And it was when they stopped that they went, oh my God, everything's falling apart. Now I should go talk to somebody for whatever reason. Because sustaining that 10% that gets us to the 90 still takes effort. It takes, to your point, a kind of dogged day after day of keeping on doing the dishes, tidying up the house, tidying up the mind, however you want to kind of think about that. So I think that's a piece of it too, that

there can be kind of an allure to thinking, oh, I've done it, so now it's time to move on to the next thing, when the reality is that you still need to keep on doing it. This is a funny anecdote. This may or may not be relevant, but I took a dance lesson recently. I've been kind of getting back into my dancing a little bit more seriously after recovering from a hip injury. And I took a lesson with somebody who

And it was a really, really good lesson. And part of what was great about it was that I was dancing with this person. I'm a fairly advanced dancer. And they were like, okay, I think you should really think about kind of straightening your legs more.

"Straighten your legs more" is a piece of advice you give to somebody who's been dancing for like 30 minutes. I've been dancing for 15 years. And he was like, "Hey, yeah, I think you should probably think about straightening your legs more." I was like, "Well, yeah, great." And then we did that, and then he was like, "Yeah, maybe try shortening your length of stride." Again, you would say this to somebody who's been doing this for like maybe six months. "Okay, yeah." And then we did one, and then we did another, and then we did another.

And by the end of the lesson, my dancing had kind of come back together. Wow, how magical, because I was applying the basics. I knew the basics, but I had stopped applying them because I knew them. And I think that there can be something there that's really real in our lives as well. What do you think about that? I feel like this topic, Forrest, is particularly profound. And so it's taking me a while, and I'm wanting to give my mind a while, to really wrap around it and

We're getting at this. We're appreciating identifying, let's say, the things, whatever they are, your settings, your actions, and especially what's happening inside your mind. We're going to focus mainly what's happening inside your mind. Those factors, we'll call them, or steps that have big effects. In the language of clinical psychology research, we would think of them as having big effect sizes. They produce big results for you.

Okay. And sometimes it really is something like, well, straighten your legs while you dance, you'll dance better. I think that's really true. I think it's also true that people tend to try to solve their problems at a level that is two to 10 stories above the root of the problem.

Yeah, no, totally, totally. And I mean, I could absolutely attach that to the dancing analogy here. I think it's right on. Yeah, absolutely, totally. Okay, well, let's play with that. So your teacher there identified three specific things you could do at super. And so then we might ask ourselves, what's the root beneath them? And what might they have in common as, let's say, common sources of the good would it be?

or common sources of the kind of clunkier ways you were dancing, let's say. You know, let's just say hypothetically that underneath or a common source of those three forms of not great skillfulness that were corrected in this lesson, say, was you're just maybe recently very preoccupied with lots of things that made it harder for you to be mindful of your own dancing. So that would be a deeper source.

Or maybe- Sure. Oh, okay. So you're kind of going to a meta level here. Yeah, no, I think you're right on. Or a root level. Yeah, yeah, totally. And that's what I'm listening for here. Yeah, this is great stuff that we're talking about. But I think a lot of people, they say, well, just change your life by eat right, eat real food, get enough sleep, don't drink so much, and exercise.

I think that's really true. But on the other hand, I'm aware of a fair number of people who are eating right, sleeping well, getting some exercise, and not drinking too much. And they're still fairly driven. They're not what I would be thinking of. Let's say we're talking about here a range from minus 100 to plus 100 on the well-being scale. If enlightenment is 100 on the plus side,

They're hanging out in the 60s and 70s kind of overall. So those behavioral steps are not getting at the root fundamentally. Or to your point, for a lot of people, they have an incredibly demanding job that makes it very difficult for them to do the things that you're describing. There's a lack of economic resources that make it hard for them to do what you're describing. Yeah, absolutely. No, great point. Yeah, yeah. So I'm...

particularly interested in your take about the root factors that really, really, really make a super big difference. Yeah. So let's talk about that a little bit. Let's talk about the 10 that gets us the 90. That's what we wanted to focus on today. So I think that there are kind of two levels that we can think about this at. The first level we can think about this at is what's the 90-10 for me as an individual? What's my personal 90-10?

And then the other level we can think about it at is, okay, if we were trying to create a prescription for people generally, if I didn't know anything about you, for example, if you're listening to this podcast and I don't know anything about you, what kind of general advice would I give? What tends to be true for people as a group? Because I think that both

Both of these things are really, really important for us to have a feel for, in part because it's kind of easy for us to get wrapped up in our own uniqueness. Not necessarily in a bad way, but I have a real experience for forest. I know forest pluses as minuses. I know it tends to trip them up, all of that. And just kind of knowing all of that can sometimes almost get in the way of

of applying these basic common sense ideas because I start to think, well, I'm kind of too special for that, basically. I am too unique for that to apply to me as a person. And so we can get it. This is another way where we can get kind of attached to the shiny object a little bit, I think, whereas a lot of the time people would still get a lot of value from applying the general principles. So, okay, we got those two layers. A way that I like to think about this is that one of the most important variables in a person's life is how they feel when they're going to bed at night.

Yep. So when your head hits the pillow, how do you feel? Do you feel basically good about your day or do you feel maybe not so good about it for whatever reason? And then we can think in terms of what are the things that tend to help somebody feel really good when their head hits the pillow? So for me, there are typically three things that I've found, and this is about figuring out your personal 90-10. First, how effective do I feel in my work life?

And for me, the big variable there is how many hours of meaningful work did I do in a day? If I did more hours of meaningful work, I am more likely to feel good when my head hits the pillow because I'm a directed person that way. It's a thing I care about. Second, do I feel connected to other people? Most importantly, my partner, Elizabeth, but also just my social life in general. Do I feel like I've left the house, like I've interacted, like I've been sociable, all of that.

And then there's this third circle that's a little vaguer, and I'm going to call it just kind of the fulfillment bucket. This is all the stuff that makes me feel like I'm living a good life. I have a kind of overall sense of purpose and meaning. I feel kind of energized by the stuff I'm doing in my work. I'm engaging with my hobbies. Maybe I'm going to the gym. I'm taking those dance lessons, you know, whatever it is. When I'm talking to other people about this stuff,

really being able to boil things down to those essentials is often really helpful for people because we can get really taken by a lot of complexity. So, okay, how do we return to those basic ideas over and over again? So for me, it has been incredibly valuable to think in terms of those three circles and then every single day return to, hey, have I done something to pursue that feeling of meaningful work?

have I done something to connect with other people socially? Have I done something to fill myself up in terms of the overall feeling like I'm living a good life, things are going well, all of that? How do you relate to that, dad? Well, I'm personally glad for you that when your head hits the pillow, you can usually answer a big yes. Yeah, and that's changed a lot over time. It did not used to be the case.

And I think that one of the big things that's led that to change is that I've become more focused on these big targets, and I'm just throwing the dart at them as much as I can. So just to also ask you, there's this teaching from Tibet that we should take the fruit as the path.

So we take the ends as the means, if that makes any sense. So it's really okay that there's a kind of a mingling of causes and results here. If I were to think of this though a little bit, you want to be making efforts over the course of the day, okay? And you want to be feeling connected to people over the course of the day. And you also want to be doing things that feel fulfilling above and beyond making

making efforts in your occupation. Yeah, this could be fun. Sometimes you call this the play circle. I've heard you refer to it that way. Engaging with hobbies, doing things that just kind of bring some zest to life. Yeah, totally. So we can say here if I follow it, okay, great. So Freud had this line, you know it, "Liebe und Arbeite, love and work," these two major domains. He, of course, because he was pretty uptight, left out play. And

And also spirituality, I think arguably a fourth sector for many, many people. I think the third circle is important, but the first two, like work and relationships, are kind of in everybody's life. So they're good ones to use as baselines. Yeah, totally. So you're describing, if I follow you right, you're saying, hey, what really matters to me, the 10 that gives me the 90, is to make sure that these three circles are doing really well for me.

have something in them. Yeah. Pretty much every single day. Yes. Absolutely. So underneath it all, and here's where I'm going to hope, you know, I'm going to inquire and use you as an example, if that's okay. Sure. Yeah. What is on the really short list that produces big results in all three of those circles for you? We'll be right back to the show in just a moment.

A few years into doing the podcast, I put together a list of dream sponsors for the show. And at the very top of that list was today's sponsor, Headspace. Headspace is the app that has helped me and over a hundred million other people with their mental health and well-being with guided meditations, mindfulness practices, breathing and calming exercises, and so much more. Headspace combines the scientifically proven benefits of meditation and mindfulness with modern technology.

And whether you're a total newbie or have been meditating for years, there is always content for what you're going through. Rick and I have been on the Headspace podcast. We've worked with them in the past. And I've used the app myself for years. With over a thousand hours of mindfulness exercises, it's maybe the most complete meditation library that I'm aware of. And hey, also the people we've met who work over there are really good people, and that always helps too. Feel good and mean it when you say it.

For a limited time, get Headspace free for 60 days. You can go to headspace.com slash beingwell60. That's H-E-A-D-S-P-A-C-E dot com slash beingwell60 to unlock all of Headspace free for 60 days. Headspace.com slash beingwell60.

Did you know that Fast Growing Trees is the biggest online nursery in the United States with thousands of different plants and over 2 million happy customers?

They have all the plants your yard needs, like fruit trees, privacy trees, flowering trees, shrubs, and so much more. Whatever plants you're interested in, Fast Growing Trees has you covered. You can find the perfect fit for your climate and space. Fast Growing Trees makes it easy to get your dream yard. Order online and get your plants delivered directly to your door in just a few days without ever leaving home.

Their Alive and Thrive guarantee ensures your plants arrive happy and healthy, and you'll get support from their trained plant experts, on call to help you plan your landscape, choose the right plants, and learn how to care for them. Elizabeth has wanted a magnolia tree forever, so when Fast Growing Trees reached out to sponsor the show, and hey, we have a yard now, it was a great fit. This spring, Fast Growing Trees has the best deals for your yard. Up

up to half off on select plants, among other deals. And listeners to our show get 15% off their first purchase when using the code BEINGWELL at checkout. That's an additional 15% off at fastgrowingtrees.com using the code BEINGWELL at checkout. Now's the perfect time to plant, so use BEINGWELL to save today. Offer is valid for a limited time. Terms and conditions may apply. Now, back to the show.

Actually, maybe we could talk about this a little bit. This might actually be really interesting for people. So I really appreciate your focus on the root. And I'm going to engage in a second.

When I was putting this material together, part of my thought is that the real value here was in making this as simple and prescriptive as possible and operationalizing things in the world. We've got these three buckets. I do a thing each day in these three buckets either out in the world or in my mind. Makes it very clear, very linear, very simple.

trying to pull down to that depth level can be simple, but it can also feel a little complicating for people, I think, because I don't know what's going on. Wow, what are the deep root causes? And then all of a sudden you're spiraling off, right? So I guess I feel a kind of inherent tension even in discussing this topic in between like, are we really staying in the 10 that's creating the 90 or are we starting to... Do you know what I mean? So anyways, what do you think about that? Well,

Well, it's really good. And you're describing these three areas as both fruits and paths. In other words, you're basically saying these are outcome variables. Yes. Right? But they also suggest processes, to your point. Exactly right. Yeah. And I'm kind of toggling back and forth with that. I'm also imagining a person who might say, well, okay, that is simplifying. Probably many, many people would say that and say,

I'm not sure that they would say that their global sense of well-being is our primary outcome variable here. Is that great? They're okay. Sure, sure. Yes. And if you've gotten to good enough, you're doing pretty well for starters. Just

period. Most people are not good enough. Most people live in really hard lives. They're having a really tough time. They're beset with anxiety. They're stressing out a lot. They've got various variables in their life that are really going sideways. I think that if you're in a position to be like, you know, my life's actually going pretty well, but oh, I haven't dialed into enlightenment yet. Wow, you're killing it. You are firmly in the world to figure out the other 10%. Yeah, that's my personal view. This is really interesting for us.

So it's your experience just as a person and a coach that for many people, they feel not satisfied in the area of work and or relationship and or broad fulfillment. I think it's unbelievably uncommon to be satisfied in all of those three circles, yes.

I believe that if you are satisfied in two out of three of them, you are already well ahead of the curve. If you're satisfied in three of them but they're not quite perfect, you are killing it. In effect, what you're saying for us is really actually you might not realize how actually radical it is. In effect, you're asserting essentially, "Hey, folks, just get these three areas of your life together enough so that you're

fine with them when your head hits the pillow, that's the 10 that's going to give you the 90. Done. Drop the mic and just stop there. And for me, that's actually a really kind of radical, interesting thing to say. And in a way, it kind of ends the conversation too. It's like, well, what else is there to say? Just get those three areas together. And I'm like, wow,

That's really interesting. I'm kind of supporting you and going all in on your kind of notion here. So my notion is that this is a great place to start. Including your view that many people don't have those three areas together. Yes.

So I think it's really radical what you're saying. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you're right. I guess I am kind of saying that. I hadn't really thought through all the implications of that. If we were to summarize the dialogue on this, Forrest says, hey, the three that gives you the 90 are these, just get it together in these three circles. The rest is kind of details. And I'm saying, what is...

That's all it is for most people? And you're saying, yeah, that's all it is for most people. Well, all right, I'm going to put a slightly finer point on it. That's what it is for me. For me, Forrest Hansen, that's been transformative. I am not saying that for you, the listener, that's going to be transformative. I think it might be, but I'm not declaring that it will be because I don't know you. But I'm saying that this is a process a person can go through. What are the three circles for you?

Are your three circles my three circles? Maybe. Maybe you've got three different circles. I think it's really important to keep it to three or less. So if I'm working with somebody and I'm trying to figure out what's going on inside of their life, we have a kind of conversation. That conversation often includes a lot of complexity.

And we try to take this big complicated thing that is a human personality, that is human life, and we try to boil it down as much as possible and be relentlessly simplistic, over simplistic if possible. Because we like simple targets that we can repeat consistently like, "Hey Forrest, straighten your legs more." That's a great piece of advice because anytime that I'm dancing, I can do it. I know how to implement that piece of advice.

And so I think that having those simple directives is profoundly useful for people. So we try to take this big complicated thing that is a person and condense it down to, oh, this thing, A, is a big deal for me. That means that I would be really benefited, and here's the Rick Hansen root cause, by this thing. What's the root cause that I would be really, really, really benefited by? What if doing it more would really help me get more of A?

And then we ask some kind of a question. Well, why haven't we been able to accomplish that? And most of the time, what we find is that there's some reason that the person hasn't been able to accomplish it. And then we go, okay, what are three practices that you could implement consistently that would help you get more of that, right? And so, for example, I'm somebody who tends to overthink. That makes it really difficult for me to make choices. It would be really, really helpful if I could commit to doing something before I felt like I knew everything there was to know.

That's been really, really hard for me. So here's what I'm going to do. And then we figure out three things. You could give yourself a time budget where you say, I'm going to think about this for only an hour or two before I make a choice about it. You could work on connecting down more to your feelings, which might help give you some more clarity about your thoughts. So we've really found kind of some simple actionable things that a person could do.

then you just sort of notice what happens as you go through that process. For most people, they get to the end of it and they are filled with yeah buts, a million yeah buts. That's how the brain gets you. That's kind of my core thesis here. My core thesis is that's how the brain lies to you. All the yeah buts are the avoidance mechanism. They're the distraction. They're taking your eyes off of the prize.

The prize is the three circles and then the things that you're doing day after day after day to get yourself to those three circles. And that's the 10 that ends up producing the 90 for most people. In the back of my mind is the usefulness I think of maybe addressing a kind of yes but in the minds perhaps of some people

Go ahead, raise it. Yeah. Which would be something on the order of, well, okay, yeah, my life would be better if I had it more together with work and relationships and fulfillment. Thank you, Captain Obvious. Everybody tells me to do that. And I'm stalled out at work. I'm single and don't want to be. And yeah, I don't feel very fulfilled.

Like, ugh. And I've read all the books. I've subscribed to all the podcasts, and I'm still dead in the water. Sure. What? Yeah. Okay, so I'm just... But I'm saying this not as an objection to what I think is actually...

you're really onto something here about the simplicity and radical kind of clarity of the three circles. And for other people, they might name them differently. - Have their own. Yeah, totally. - But I just want to kind of acknowledge, okay, how do we respond to a sort of yes, but that sounds great, but the problem is I can't do it.

There's a yes but that I'm open to and a yes but that I'm not open to. And you have described the yes but that I'm open to. So that's the one I think totally. How do we implement in those circles can become quite a complicated question.

the value of implementing in those circles cannot be questioned. So that's the distinction that I'm drawing here. What I mean is that if the yes buts that the person surfaces are, well, sure, those things are important, but what about all of these other things? And will my life really improve if I just improve those things? Because I've got, I live a complicated life. There's all this stuff going on. I don't care. I do not care. I'm not paying attention. I'm tuning it out.

where I'm being very polite about it,

But we are returning relentlessly to, okay, that's nice, honey, and let's pay attention to those three circles. I love what you're doing with this for us. I love how you're just cutting the, forgive the metaphor, the legs out from underneath, complexification, and you are advocating for these three circles, which I have to say, from the standpoint of general human psychology, much as we need to get a balance of protein, carbohydrates, vitamins, and minerals every day,

We need, humans need some version of love, productive activity, and fulfillment in some broad sense. Yeah, and you're going for it. And I want to be really clear. I think that those circles are great circles. They've meant a lot to me. Your circles might be different. Those are mine, but find out your own. Figure them out, whatever it is to you. Whatever your version of this is, I'm down for it.

I think you ought to take a stand in your three circles. They're awesome. And I think a lot of people putter around and putts around because they're not dealing with those three circles developmentally. Sure, sure, sure. You know, a little earlier I said to you, a little bit lost in my own world, hey, you know, now that people have taken care of work and they've got a good relationship and they feel kind of fulfilled, eh.

"You know, is that really it?" And you said, "Dad, you don't realize that for many, many people-" - I think we're really moving the needle at that point, man. - They don't got it. And I'm like, "Whoa, okay."

The reason I'm a little wishy-washy about it is because this is the part that I think of as figuring A, yes, but B, because this is kind of the personal 90-10. And we're going to talk more about my general prescriptive for most people 90-10 in a second. I want to hear Feisty Forest. You know, the Feisty Forest that says, folks, the problem for many people- We're getting there in a second. We're getting there in a second. We're almost there. Is that they don't have their shit together in these three major areas of life.

Well, dad, that was my problem. It might be somebody else's problem too, but that was my problem. I'm speaking from painful personal experience here. So okay, so let's, because you are really interested right now in the general 90/10, let's talk about that a little bit more. And also because I think it's a place where you're going to have a lot of good advice.

So if I didn't know somebody, or if you didn't know somebody, what would we kind of give them as the 90-10, as the 10% that produced the 90? And I think that there are maybe three to five things that I would offer most people. The first one of them is definitely in the world of root cause. It's defining what actually matters to you. What do you care about?

Not what your mom cared about, not what your friends care about, not what society tells you to care about. What do you actually care about? Life tends to get better when we feel like what we do is connected to who we are. Our actions are flowing from our values, from what we actually care about. So how does somebody go through that process? A lot of content out there about how to go through this process, some of which gets quite complicated. This kind of three circles approach that I'm talking about is one way of defining what actually matters to a person.

I have defined those three circles for me: relationships, my work, and a general sense of fulfillment, engagement, and life. If I'm checking those boxes, that's what really matters. And so I pursue that as my north star. I have figured out my north star. That's it for me. I personally would assert as a clinical psychologist that these three domains—the

are absolutely fundamental to both hedonic and eudaimonic well-being and how people manage those domains. For example, someone who is a celibate monastic is managing the relational aspect or the relational domain in a different way. That's a very different approach, right? And you could say the same around work and also fulfillment. But I would assert that those three domains are really central.

So what do you think your circles are? Do you think they're the three circles or do you think that I named or do you think they're different? Personally, I would call out spirituality as a meaningful fourth circle. And I think for many people, the domain of play and creative expression and spirituality is not very meaningful for them. It's not really salient, but it's hard to have a human body and not inherently care about the domain of relationships and the domain of

productive effort. Meaningful effort. Yeah, which for many people actually shows up as raising a family. So there's an integration. Totally. It does not have to be a job. Yeah, I want to be really clear about that. Work doesn't have to be a job. Yeah.

For sure. Great. Yeah, so that's yours. You were like, "Okay, I like your three circles and also I got this fourth circle." I would nudge most people to stay away from having too many circles. That's kind of part of what we're describing here. But I think four is fine. I think even maybe for a person, five could be fine. Once you're getting up to six, I'm raising my eyebrows. I'll put it that way. Yeah. And I agree with you about simplification here.

So know what you care about, particularly within each of these domains. And I think we're making an argument here, which I think is really important for people to realize if they take stock of their life, that it's important to fertilize the field, plant good seeds, till the soil, and harvest good crops. Water the fruit trees in each of these domains.

Certainly, the two primary domains, love and work, for many people, actually, creative expression is so central to them, even almost ahead of love and work. So that, for them, particularly, is a very important domain. And for many people, spirituality is preeminent, actually. It's much more fundamental even than the others. The others are secondary. They're in the service, if you will. But yeah, so I think for people, it's really good to take inventory and to ask yourself, hey, how are you tending?

How are you tending to the causes in each of these four domains? And guess what, buddy? You beat me to it because that's the second piece of general advice I would give most people. What are these simple, sustainable, and key word here, daily practices that you are doing in support of these different domains? So we tend to think that extraordinary people

give extraordinary efforts. You hear that a lot, like radical commitment to work, they're doing the 16-hour-a-day thing, whatever it is. By and large, this is not true because people who work that way or produce that way usually burn out.

Some people are truly exceptional in this regard. I think actually, dad, you're fairly exceptional in this regard, where I saw you do 12 hours plus a day for essentially my entire childhood. And you were able to kind of do it and do it with a smile and be okay. And you might have had some soft burnout every once in a while, but okay, you took a couple of days and then you just got right back to it and you were okay. But for most people, it just doesn't work out that way. Extraordinary people do ordinary things for an unusual period of time.

That's what they do. They do ordinary stuff day after day after day. They are deliberately boring. So an example of this for a person could be some kind of daily movement practice. It could be journaling, it could be time in nature, it could be when you go to bed, when you wake up. Those have been key variables for me when I go to bed and when I wake up. Another key variable for me is how much recreational screen time do I engage in? So what are these simple things that you're doing day in and day out to tend to the fields, to use your analogy here, Dad?

I think that's lovely. And it's so helpful to appreciate that. I'll give you a little example here. And you know, I tend to have conversations with waiters and people on the bus about how they really ought to write a book, you know? And then people do love to do this, stare me in dismay. And I found myself saying to people who truly do really want to write a book, I'll ask them, well, can you write two pages?

And they'll pause, they'll go, "Yeah." I say, "You know, it's about 500 words. Can you write 500 words?" And they go, "Yeah, I can do that." And then I would say, "Well, if you do that 100 times, you've got a solid draft of your first book." It's a small thing done again and again and again and again. You know, if you spend 15 minutes a day meditating,

your state of being will shift. Speaking of state of being, you'll be calmer, more relaxed, less triggered, better regulated, brighter outlook, your mood will improve, 15 minutes a day. So yeah, I love what you're saying here about the law of little things. And this is classic Rick Hansen. The name of your newsletter is just one thing.

You know, you got a program called Just One Minute. This is your thing is what can you do day after day after day? Because the Trojan horse in all of this is that you do one minute and it normally turns into two, it normally turns into five, and you go from there. But it's just the commitment to the little thing done consistently. I like don't break the chain. There are a bunch of different productivity versions of this. This really stands out to me in my life in terms of how I went from

feeling like I was kind of listless to feeling like I was really going somewhere big picture. And a huge part of it has been this commitment to consistent activity. Yeah, that's great. So another point, basic common sense advice, the 10 that gives you the 90, really invest in your relationships. We already talked about this. This is that circle, right? Maybe the single biggest general variable in a person's life is who they surround themselves with. Particularly if you end up with a life partner, who that person is really, really matters.

If you can, shrink the relationships that make you feel small, make the relationships that make you feel big even bigger. Can you do that inside of your life? And a lot of the time when people face that, it gets very, very complicated because relationships are very, very complicated. The practical how of shrinking a relationship

with, say, an aunt and uncle or cousin or something who is stressing you out. That can be very complex. But again, this is about the simplification down to the concept and to hold the concept in your mind and think and act to some extent from the concept. How you implement around it can be much more complicated, but don't let the complexity of the implementation keep you away from seeing the value of the core idea.

Well, I love this one and I'm reminded of some wisdom about when people look back on, let's say college or that period in your early 20s, which for many people is a very, talk about a 10 that creates a 90. A lot of choices get made, age 18 to 23 right in there that really make a big difference. One way of thinking about college is who were your five? Who were the five people that made the most difference for you in college? That's what you really remember. That's what had the real impact for you.

So yeah, those people really, really do matter. And you're very familiar with the major research on health and happiness over the lifespan that highlights for most people in general, quality of relationships. Quantity and quality of good relationships is probably the single leading factor on average in terms of many kinds of outcomes.

What I'm then left with is, I like your word, invest in high-quality relationships. And that means, one, as you get older, keeping up with people, the people who matter to you. It's really easy to let friendships fall by the wayside, and sometimes they need to, but often you really don't need to let that fade. And as you get older, there's just no replacement

for long-term friendships. They have a special value. So be thoughtful about that. I've let some friendships fade, but I really wish I knew where those people were today. And if only just to connect once a year briefly to keep the pilot light lit for them.

The other thing is the importance of repair. We've talked a lot about repair. Entropy never stops, rust never sleeps. And it's always important to put energy into relationships to keep repairing them if you want to have good, high-quality relationships over time, the investment of repair. Totally. So we've got those three things, right? We've got investing in our relationships, doing things day after day,

and then the basis of all of that, figuring out what actually really matters to you. From there, there are two things that stand out to me in essentially every conversation we have ever had about this stuff that just come up over and over again as these really key variables that

affect a person's ability to do anything else inside of their mind, inside of their psychology, or in their life? The first one of those is a basic level of self-regulation, which is what allows us to be resilient. Stress is inevitable. Life is hard. I have some email correspondence with some people who deal with

incredibly severe chronic illnesses and their lives are really constrained by them. It is not fun. The harder that life is for you, for whatever reason, the more essential it is to have some practices that you can fall back on when things are tough.

And being able to do this then supports us in doing essentially everything else that we want to do in life. So what are those for people? The ones we talk about on the show a lot are mindfulness or focus control of different kinds. In other words, being able to apply your attention where you want to apply it. And then basic self-compassion. Those are going to be two tools that most of the time are going to really support a person's ability to do this.

As a general point that we also talk about all the time on the show, holding on to our feelings, pushing them down, bearing them, being tight around them tends to really lower our ability to regulate ourselves, which then makes us more susceptible to feeling overwhelmed. And so some kind of an experiencing out practice, whatever that is for you,

A little artistic expression, screaming into a pillow. I mean, really kind of take your pick here is a great, great tool to have as well. So that's the first one that I would name, that kind of basic resilience. That's a really great one. And of course, we wrote a book about it. So there's more to it than we can just cover here. I would like to think that it's an important one. Yeah. Yeah. A few minutes here. And what's the other one?

The other one that is disidentification. You actually mentioned that at the very, very top of the episode, I think by accident. But it was learning how to get some space around your thoughts. This has been huge for me. Single biggest thing I've done in terms of a personal development standpoint is learning how to disidentify from my thoughts. Pardon me, time out. I just want to note- One with a bullet, one by a mile. That this is

a 10, if not a 1, that has given you 99 for you, disidentification, space around the thoughts. And I'll just say in passing, this is an example of what I mean by your state of being. Yes. Yeah, yeah. This is a state of being thing. So learning in a deep and felt way that I did not have to believe everything that I thought was transformative for me.

Just because there is a feeling or an emotion that shows up in my brain doesn't mean it needs to occupy my attention. Doesn't mean I need to give it the time of day. And you see this in essentially every serious approach to therapy. They talk about it in different ways.

but it's pretty much there in all of them. The mindfulness-based approaches, thoughts and emotions are not facts. They're just experiences. This lets us be psychologically flexible, big target and act. Cognitive behavioral therapy, we're challenging our cognitive distortions. What's a cognitive distortion? It's a thought that we don't have to pay so much attention to. Okay. Psychodynamic therapy, you could even kind of apply it with unconscious patterns. The mind's made up of these competing desires. You don't have to give

all of them the time of day. Self-compassion, separating out the critical voice from being who we are. Even like stoicism, like Viktor Frankl, stimulus and response, there is a space and in that space is freedom or whatever the line is. IFS, you're made up of many different parts. Those parts are all competing voices, but those parts are not self. These are all examples of disidentification. How cool is that, right? That there's this thread that just kind of runs among all of them.

And again, this is one of those things where teaching somebody how to disidentify with their thoughts can be a long, nuanced, complicated process.

But just holding the overall target, like holding the container of, oh, this is a thing that matters, so I'm going to care about it, is just incredibly valuable to people as a starting point. 10,000%. Yeah. Yeah. And obviously, this is like your whole thing. So you're so there for it. You're too. It's really true for me, Forrest, with clients. My rule of thumb, loosely, is...

If a person can, in effect, step back from the movie that's running in their mind in which they are identified and sit back 20 rows with popcorn, witnessing it with interest and compassion, just that act alone accomplishes probably 50% of the total journey. Yeah, no, I am so right there with you. And so those are my five. That's my general prescription.

I'm sure that as I think about this more, I'll come up with more. But those are the five right now. We'll be back to the show in just a minute, but first a word from our sponsors. Creating a truly great retail experience is hard work, especially if you're juggling in-person storefronts, online sales, staff, shipping, inventory, the whole deal. It can get complicated fast. But with Shopify's point of sale system, it doesn't have to.

Whether you're running one store or a thousand, Shopify's POS is like a unified command center that brings all of your operations together, in-store and online, so your customers get a seamless experience and your team gets the tools they need to close the sale on time.

Businesses using Shopify POS report up to a 22% better total cost of ownership and an average 8.9% boost in sales compared to similar businesses. So if you're building something meaningful and want to create a better retail experience, Shopify is where you start.

Want more? Check out shopify.com slash beingwell, all lowercase, and learn how to create the best retail experiences without complexity. Shopify.com slash beingwell.

But a box fan, happily yes.

A day of sunshine? No. A box of fine wines? Yes. Uber Eats can definitely get you that. Get almost, almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. Order now. Alcohol in select markets. Product availability may vary by Regency app for details. Now, back to the show. So I gotta ask you, Dad, what are yours? What do you think? What do you think is the 10 that does the 90 for people? I would say first that the factor that could matter most is the one that's most missing.

So for example, of these five- This is an extremely Zen koan of you here, Dad.

What is the factor that matters? The factor that is not there. Yes. Yeah, yeah, exactly right. So I just want to... I've been reflecting on this about how people often know what they ought to do, but there's one thing that's missing. It's the broken link that blows up the whole chain. And the link itself could be very modest. It would never show up on any list of the seven habits of highly effective people or the four invitations or the...

you know, the Eightfold Path. It just won't be there anywhere schmancy, but it's the one thing that's missing. And so for them, that's kind of the most important thing.

Maybe I'll do this a little bit as an inquiry for us and how you think about this. So first of all, before you move that, I just want to speak to kind of what you just said just really quickly. This is kind of an example. This is a different way maybe to think about what really matters to a person. And in that process of what really matters, seeing in the what really matters is the most not addressed right now. That could be kind of a way of figuring out what the missing link is for them. Yeah. Anyways, go ahead. Yeah.

So a couple of things that sort of stand out for me, I wonder how you think about them. One is integrity, even more broadly, a stance of benevolence, kind of moral commitments.

that one honors. You're probably familiar with, I believe it's Kohlberg's levels of moral reasoning and the reasons why we do things. And I could maybe argue that for many people, their well-being goes up as they sort of center themselves increasingly in integrity and

you know, virtue, which sometimes involves restraint, morality. You know that in Buddhism, there are these three, the Buddha had multiple lists and each one of them was unto itself. But one of them is, you know, the three fundamental pillars of practice or foundations of practice are sila, samadhi, and paññā. You know, sila being virtue, essentially, a lot around morality and restraint, non-harming. And then samadhi being mental training and paññā being wisdom.

Okay, so I'm just wondering what the first of these in your model, what's the role of integrity and morality and virtue?

I think that that can be a huge circle for people, to put it a certain kind of way. This notion of being in alignment is a phrase that people will use sometimes. I think it kind of speaks to what you're describing, that sense of inner integrity or like they're committed to the things consistently that really matter to them. Yeah, absolutely. No, I think this is a great indicator. I know that some of the times where I have felt the worst in my life

have been when I felt like I did a thing that I shouldn't have done and when I was out of integrity, particularly out of kind of moral integrity with myself. Yeah. So it's a huge indicator. Like if falling that way had such a negative impact on me, then that really suggests that it's something to pay attention to. Totally. Yeah. Not to push Buddhism, but to draw on a very interesting angle. Basically, the Buddha laid out these various admonitions and

you know, ways of being in the world, but they're not framed as moralistic injunctions from some higher power. They're framed pragmatically. You know, if you want to be happy, don't make others unhappy.

That idea, if well-being is an outcome variable for you, if you're running roughshod on other people, maybe your intent is not particularly mean, but your impact is pretty consequential on other people. In the old definition, I love this definition of karma as hitting golf balls in the shower. That's from Steven Gaskin back in the day. If the impact radiating out from you is harmful for other people in some significant ways,

Well, arguably that, besides the moral questions, that's going to wear down your own well-being. Maybe that would be one. I'll tell you another one that's probably in here somewhere, but is top of mind for me recently. We accumulate what's called allostatic load as we move through life based on the underlying biological machinery of craving. In other words, which generates stress for us. Allostatic load is wear and tear.

And sometimes we accumulate that allostatic load that we're in terror just by virtue of being pressured and driven and goal-directed and chasing the molecule of more, as it were, dopamine, in other words. One of the things I've been really reflecting on recently is how much it serves people to give themselves absolution or blessing.

for what they've accumulated in their history retroactively. To imagine really letting it land inside, I did the best I could. I still need to live true to myself. I still need to honor my commitments. I still need to face my mistakes. And on the whole, I bless you.

yourself. I absolve you. Yeah, I think this is great, yeah, because it's that ground factor. Yeah, it's what kind of lets you get to the other stuff totally. To let go of the ballast.

I think that arguably is a factor. Like here you have all these positive, well, mainly positive factors you have here. But part of what I think promotes wellbeing is letting go of the ballast and the friction, the grit. The allostatic load is like sand in the clockworks. And it's the grit we carry with us. If there's some way to just show, you know, absolve yourself of all that in a way that feels intimate,

which I've been experiencing recently and I think is surprisingly available for people, that can be a big factor too.

Just like that general feeling of is the hand clenched or is the hand loose around our experiences broadly is I think a big part of what you're speaking to. Yeah. And what can we do to kind of lighten up about them? Yeah. So I'll leave it there. But I'm fine with the forest five. I'm good with them. I think those three are great. So you spoke to a deliberate process of figuring out what's missing.

Yeah. And this is something I've heard you talk about in the past. What's your vitamin C? What is the big N that would help you really change things in your life? Great inquiry. The second, the integrity aspect. Do you feel in alignment if you like that language? Do you feel like you're behaving morally in the world if you like that language? Non-harming in general. Yeah, non-harming, sure. And then the third, broad practices of letting go and particularly focusing on the letting go

of, God, even what you were saying, a kind of self-judgment for things that you may or may not have had any control over because they were happening when you were a much younger, much different person. That kind of absolution I think can be a really beautiful thing for people that can really allow them to access everything else that we're talking about here. It's a great list.

I've been reflecting on myself that the dynamic, which is so prevalent these days in our culture, and I'm definitely a poster child for, of goal-directed pursuit. So here you are, and for all kinds of good reasons, you're trying to accomplish various goals, ranging from finish the dishes to send off the email to get a PhD. You're trying to accomplish these goals.

What's typical as you drive toward them, often with a sense of contraction, pressure, insistence, craving in the second noble truth to some extent, maybe you're not particularly unhappy, but you're still accumulating allostatic load, including the sense of you're falling short until you cross the finish line. Then when you cross the finish line, maybe if

You read my book, you actually take a moment to take in the good, great. And then boom, it's the next goal in which the predominant experience is I'm still falling short until I attain the goal with a sense of pressure and drive and discontent, dissatisfaction, something missing along the way. And that sense of not being yet content, of falling short until you attain the standard, you meet the goal,

becomes emotional residues lodged inside you as a kind of allostatic load. And I'm broadening the notion of absolution for yourself, a blessing for yourself to be applied not just to, we could say, moral faults, but the almost intrinsic side effects of goal pursuit, particularly in a conventional way.

And I think people carry that with them. It drags down their well-being and their mood. It's in the background. They don't even notice it. It's almost cellular. And yet we can be released of it. This is the whole category.

which is admittedly a complicated category, but it is a very critically important category of what do we do with the bad stuff? What do we do with the past negative experiences? What do we do with the bad shit that we dealt with when we were a kid? What do we do with all of this stuff? And that's the stuff that often brings people to therapy. That's the stuff that gets them in the room. And so I think that it's great that you're including that as part of this model,

For me, there are ways where that's almost a different category. Maybe to your ground point, that is kind of part of the ground for a lot of people is feeling like they can release themselves of that before they're able to... If we think about kind of like a Likert scale, like minus 10 to plus 10, a lot of that is the kind of like, how do we get from minus 10 to...

minus three or minus two or whatever it is. And then a lot of what I've sort of focused on without really realizing that I was doing it during this episode is how do we get from like minus two to plus eight or plus seven or something like that, which makes sense because the psychology is medical model. It's about the treatment of pathology. It's about, hey, you're at minus seven. How do we improve that? Whereas a lot of the stuff that we talk about during the podcast and kind of the focus of the content that I create is much more about, okay, how do we move from like

eh, to doing pretty good. And so I think it's kind of natural that we've sort of oriented towards those different sides of the coin here. Oh, you really broadened my take about it. Yeah, I think this is great. This is super good. Awesome. So we've done all of this 90-10 stuff. We've really boiled it down. We've made it as simple as we can, even understanding that as simple as we can may not actually be that simple for a person because minds are complicated, lives are complicated, all of that.

This stuff only works in the way that I'm describing if we're able to stick with it. The whole power of it is that you do it day after day after day. It is really hard to do things day after day after day. So we get to this other question, really, really important question. How do we stay consistent? How do we do that? What gets in the way? What helps us be more consistent? I've got some ideas about this, Dad, but as somebody who...

whose whole job was essentially helping people figure out how to answer that question. I would love to actually just start with you. What do you think really supports people here and what do you think gets in the way? Just like big picture. Well, the first thing that came up were the two sides of the coin on one side of which is being on your own side.

And the other side of that coin is what drags people down and they feel somehow that they're not worthy or they don't deserve or they don't matter enough to sustain caring and loyalty toward themselves, without which they're just not going to keep going. Yeah, I think that's a great observation. And I think a second thing is that the attraction

of what they're seeking to grow, let's say in their two to four domains here, the two to four fields.

it needs to be really lush and luscious and delicious and powerful and alluring and attracting to keep on going. And I think very often people frame their motivations, as Maslow would put it, in terms of deficiency needs, what they're trying to move away from. And one of the things I've really appreciated you emphasizing a lot is to emphasize what you're moving toward and making it really vivid and attractive for yourself.

Yeah, I think this is a huge one. And that's a great way to put it, that sometimes how we've talked about this in the past is the idea of like a pursuit mindset. How do we move toward a fundamental orientation inside of ourselves that we're going after something as opposed to running away from something? Because both of those actions could move you in the same direction, but they move you with very different tones. And one of them is easier to sustain than the other. So yeah, I think that's a great example. If I could offer a third example,

It's very powerful, and many people don't really think about it initially. It's the idea that I'm engaging in these practices that make my life better for the sake of others as well.

As I become happier, as I reap more of a harvest in the area of my occupation, the blessings of that, the benefits of that will radiate out to other people too. And to really feel it, not as a kind of platitude, but to actually feel okay when you get up and one part of you

doesn't really want to make the efforts today that you know so-called you should, is to just pause for half a minute and bring to mind beings you care about, you love, and bring to mind, oh, how it will benefit them to walk your path today. That too can be really effective in helping people stick with it.

I think that's great. I really love that one. I hadn't actually thought of that. That's not included in my little cheat sheet that I got over here that I refer to occasionally. Yeah, I think that the things that I would lay on top of what we've said so far is first, everything we've done on the show about changing your internal narrative.

How do you think about yourself? Do you think about yourself as the kind of person who can be consistent, who can stick with stuff? Or do you think about yourself fundamentally as being somebody who cannot do that, who doesn't do that, who isn't that kind of person? And then, okay, what kind of a process can we go through to encourage you to think of yourself increasingly based on real evidence, because you really do do it, of being the kind of person who can make those sorts of changes? I think that's a huge one for people.

Another one is sort of a kind of joining with the defense, I would say. A lot of the time, there are motivations that we have internally for why we don't do stuff. There's a reason that we're not being consistent. There's something going on inside of us because being consistent is uncomfortable. We don't want to change in that way. We're sort of seeking homeostasis. This is part of probably a much larger conversation. But a lot of the time, we have something in us that is stopping us from doing this thing.

So what can we do to figure out what that is and then see if we can go, okay, I see the objective you're trying to accomplish. Is there a way for us to accomplish that objective, but in a way that doesn't have so many costs associated with it or that allows me to get these other benefits? Can we do some internal negotiation as part of this process? I think that can sometimes be helpful for people. I know we're approaching the end, and I wanted to say for us that

I think this topic is phenomenal and I've really appreciated your insistence on decomplexifying, cutting through. Like Alexander the Great had the Gordian knot. Gordian knot, baby. Gordian knot. Seriously.

It's really helpful. I appreciate that. Yeah. And it's in the spirit of what's on your short list. I was thinking when we were kind of getting ready to do this, that a heuristic, a generative question for someone would be, what's one thing that happened in your mind that changed your life? One thing.

It might have started with an event around you, a challenge or a person or something, but what really changed your life was how it landed inside. What was it that landed inside you that changed your life? That's, for example, a 10 that creates a 90 or a one that creates a 99. So that inquiry here is fantastic. Yeah. And how can we get more of that? How can we make it more consistent? How can we access that more regularly? Yeah, totally.

We can even really prod people to say, okay, if there's just one thing that you're allowed to keep in mind as a guiding principle in your day, what's your one thing? How would you say it? And if you get two, what would they be? And even if you get three, but probably no more, what would that be? That's an awesome way to think about it, Dad.

We could conclude with this, maybe. I'll just share something that's very alive for me recently as essentially two things I've been reflecting on. A client of mine asked me recently, or actually a friend, who's just frazzled and fried and running on empty and who's really getting irritable and cranky, including with their young child who

this person adores and is treating really well. That's why they're concerned about this. They were asking, how can I regulate myself better? And there are all these top-down ways to regulate yourself, but if you're fried, it's hard to use them. Plus, even if you're not fried, they're vulnerable to willpower fatigue and we get tired. Bottom-up, bottom-up forms of regulation, self-regulation. And two just kind of came to me that have been actually really quite meaningful for me.

One is to go wide, to widen your view, to get a sense of the bigger picture, to feel your own mind opening out. And so you're kind of disengaging from the part of the stream of consciousness that you're fixated on in the moment.

to just going wide. And as we go wide, we start breathing more gently, the heart rate slows, we calm, we're more regulated. And that's a bottom-up form of ongoing regulation, going wide. And then on the heels of that very often comes a sense of a kind of an upwelling of lovingness living through you.

fundamental kindness, a fundamental benevolence moving through you out into the world, which is also, of course, regulating you as it arises and moves through continuously. For me to boil all of this down, if we could try to 90-10 this 90-10 episode, I think a huge piece of it is just the idea of one thing at a time. Yeah.

And the more that we let ourselves get overwhelmed by all of these different ideas, all of these different concepts, all of the stuff that's out there, that might be great content. And certainly if you're trying to solve a specific problem, having a lot of specific solutions out there in the world is nothing but a benefit.

But a lot of the time what happens, as we talked about at the very beginning of the episode, is that there's a kind of allure to that specificity and that pulls us out of the big picture stuff that tends to really make a difference for us. So the more that we can think in terms of, just like the lesson I talked about, straighten your legs one thing at a time. And we do that one thing for a little while and we go, okay, I feel confident in that one thing. And I feel confident that when I take my attention off of it,

it's still going to kind of be there. It might not be there quite as much, but I've integrated around it. I've paid attention to it. I've checked that box and I can add this other thing too. That then becomes the focus of my attention. I don't let the first thing drop. Maybe it goes from being 100% to being 90%, but then I take this other bar up and I pay a little bit more attention to it.

Great general principle and sort of the 90-10 of this 90-10 episode. There's something sacred about that. If we really let that land to imagine looking into the eyes of someone and saying, you really can do this one thing that you know, you, the other person, you know, would make a big difference for you. And what is it like to be on the receiving end of someone who has faith in you that you really can do the one thing?

Well, thanks for doing this with me today. I really loved this one. I thought this was such a rich one. I definitely talked a lot more during this one than I typically do during our conversations, but I was just so captured by the topic. I hope people enjoy it and they got some value out of it. Really enjoyed this episode where I talked with Rick about the 90-10 rule and whether or not we can apply the 90-10 rule to mental health, personal growth, and all of the topics that we explore on this podcast.

And I think I probably should have mentioned something like that very early on in the episode. I'm not sure that this is how it works.

But I do have a suspicion that there is some amount of things, whether it's 90/10 or it's actually more like 80/20 or 70/30, whatever it is, where most of our outcomes here are controlled by a fairly small set of variables. And by focusing relentlessly on those small variables, we really can go a pretty far way in life without getting so focused and caught up in the details, the complexity,

all of the things that often get in the way of us actually doing anything, because that's really been my experience here. When I'm wrapped up in the complicated stuff, when I'm having a tough time piecing apart all of the little things that are going on inside of my life, and I'm really buried in that complexity, it's very hard for me to do much of anything at all.

But if I can just have a couple of maxims where over and over I can return to, hey, Forrest, it really helps you. It really improves your life when you feel good about the work that you're doing. It really helps you when you feel content about your relationship with Elizabeth, your fiance. It really helps you when you feel like you're going somewhere in general, when you feel like there's some kind of a path or a trajectory that you're on and you're going after it.

Those are the things that really make you feel good about yourself when your head hits the pillow at night. And that's a major target, I think. How do you feel when your head hits the pillow?

I think that most people have a couple of circles. I identified two that I think almost everybody has, which is their relationships and their work. Your work doesn't have to be a job, but it's how engaged are you with your life in a kind of productive way. Those are going to matter to most people. And feeling like things are going well in those two circles are going to make a big difference. And then for me, I've got a third one. That's kind of my creative activity, overall sense of fulfillment, purpose and meaning, all of that stuff. Am I aligned with my values? Like that kind of an inquiry.

Rick talked about how for him, the spirituality circle is a really big and important circle. And I've definitely seen that about his life, that when he feels like he's really engaged with his meditative practice, he just feels a lot better. So what's it for you? What are those circles? Then in addition to the specific things that might matter for an individual person, if you're having a hard time figuring out what those are, wow, it can be really helpful to apply some general principles. And so we spent some time trying to figure out what some of those general principles might be.

First, can you define what actually matters to you? In other words, can you figure out what those circles are? What matters to you? Not to somebody else, not to your parents, not to society as a whole. What do you care about? And can you get yourself to care about the things that that part of you really cares about? Second, what are the sustainable practices that you can commit to on a day in, day out basis? You are doing these 90% of days.

And this means that you really need to think in terms of what am I actually going to do 90% of days? What can I truly commit to day after day after day, regardless of whether or not I want to do it? And then the third one, can we invest in our relationships? What can we do to make the social aspect of our lives go a little better? And a big part of that is disentangling ourselves from the people who tend to bring a lot of chaos or disruption or just drama into our lives.

I then added two more. I think that those first three are really the meat and potatoes that works for just about everybody. The next two are more psychological skills that just come up over and over again. The first one of these is a basic sense of resilience, which is based on self-regulation. Mindfulness, which is a practice of focus control, is a huge aspect of self-regulation. So is self-compassion. Can we be kind to ourselves even when it's tough to do that?

And then the next one, which we spent a little bit of time with, is disidentification. Can we get some space around our thoughts, our feelings, what's going on inside of the mind? And this ability, the ability to kind of take a step back

is present in pretty much every serious approach to therapy. Rick then added three more that I liked a lot. He talked about a deliberate process of figuring out what's missing from your life. In other words, taking a look at those different circles that maybe you identified and going, oh, that one right there, yeah, that's the one where I'm having a bit of a tough time. Second, he talked about integrity. Do you feel like you are aligned with your values? Do you feel like you're acting in a moral way? You know, whatever that means for you.

And then finally, he talked about the ability to let go. I thought this was a really interesting one because for many people, the pain in their life is based largely on past experiences, based on a kind of preoccupation with the things that happened before. And that pain then can really get in the way of doing things after, right? In other words, taking on new activities and new behaviors that might help them feel a little bit better.

Now the catch here is that this only works if we're able to stay very, very consistent. If we're able to stay focused on the 10% of our effort that gets us the 90% result, as opposed to getting kind of distracted by the 90% effort that gets us just 10% of the result.

So really important question, how can we stay consistent? And Rick had some ideas here as well. He talked about being on your own side, emphasizing the reward of our activities, and then appreciating the ways where supporting yourself can also support other people.

To simplify all of this down, life is complicated. I'm not trying to be excessively reductive here. I'm not trying to make it sound easier than it actually is. Doing the things that we described during this episode could be extremely difficult for somebody, and you could require a lot of nuanced knowledge about yourself in order to implement some of these practices. But my experience over and over again in talking to people is that one of the biggest impediments to doing anything is

is actually knowledge, which is really weird and kind of messed up and makes me think a lot about what I want to do on the podcast in the future. Because just knowing more stuff doesn't seem to help people very often. The question isn't how much knowledge do you have? It's how able are you to implement what you already know? To use the example from the dance lesson again, can you straighten your legs consistently?

It's not revelatory information, but it is essential to what you're doing. And it is so easy to get seduced by all of the complexity out there, all of the cool ideas, all of the neat stuff. And a lot of that stuff is great. It's what we talk about on the podcast all the time. But does it pull you away from the 10 that creates the 90?

And even as you apply all of those interesting ideas, all of that cool stuff, can you return over and over again to the fundamentals, the long levers that move your life in the most meaningful ways?

I hope you enjoyed today's episode. I'm really interested in your feedback about it. I'm really curious about what the comments are going to be on YouTube, about the emails that we're going to get. That's contact at beingwellpodcast.com. If you liked the episode, if you could leave a positive rating and review on places like iTunes, that would really help us out.

And if you'd like to support the show in other ways, you can find us on Patreon. It's patreon.com slash beingwellpodcast. And for just a couple of dollars a month, you can support the show and get a bunch of bonuses in return. Also, quick reminder, Rick has his five-week online rumination course that's starting on March 29th. You can find it at rickhansen.com backslash ruminating and use the coupon code beingwell25 to receive 25% off. So until next time, thanks again for listening, and I'll talk to you soon.