Four, The GOOD Method

Well, hey there! So glad you made it. By now you should feel pretty amazing knowing that you have a solid grounding in the Feel Good Mindset, including an arsenal of quick and effective practices to help you shift your mindset for good. In this section, we’re going to focus on creating simple systems to help you commit, find consistency, and get the results you’re looking for.

A (Better) System for Results

So now maybe you’re wondering, What exactly is a system anyway? That’s a very good question, as it’s often a lack of effective systems that causes things to begin to fall apart in your quest for results. I mean, think about the last time you tried to change something in your life. My guess is that you probably tried to create a new habit or start a new routine or strategy. Perhaps you decided to start working out, or eat better, or become more productive. But after a few days or weeks, you fell into your old ways.

If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone—this scattershot approach to change is all too common. The problem is, it simply doesn’t work. The reason? There was no system in place to help support the change you were seeking to make. Essentially, a system is an organized method to achieve a result, or a set of things working together in an interconnected network to accomplish a goal. It’s this connection of parts working together toward an outcome that makes systems so effective.

This is the reason that focusing on habits or strategies absent other factors rarely works. So much wasted effort, with so little payoff at the end. That’s why I’ve created a system that takes into account the major players when it comes to change and organizes them together to get the results you desire. It’s the synergy of habits, strategies, and mindset working together that’s so powerful. Let’s take a look at each part.

Habits: What

Habits are the specific actions you take—your tasks and routines. Remember when I told you that habits make up 45 percent of your daily behavior? Think of them as the “what,” or what you do every day.

Strategies: How

I like to think of a strategy as a collection of habits working together toward a result. Strategies, then, are the “how,” or how you take action.

Mindset: Why

As you now know, mindset is the way you think—your specific thought patterns. Within this system, then, think about mindset as the “why,” or why you take specific actions.

Taken collectively, you can see why it’s the system of all three—habits, strategies, and mindset—that has the potential to move the needle in a very big way. Trying to adopt a strategy without having the mindset in place is a scattershot approach; without supporting thought patterns, you’re bound to repeat the same old actions, ending up with the same results. Similarly, trying to add new habits without strategy means the habits have nothing to stick to. And mindset without strategy and habit ignores that “how” and “what” of real life. That’s why in this section we’ll put it altogether; using the Feel Good Mindset and the GOOD Method to get you the results you’re after.

How the GOOD Method Works

The GOOD Method is a set of four science-based, life-tested habits and strategies designed to work with the Feel Good Mindset. Together they create a system to support the results you want in life; to help you prioritize what matters, to make better decisions, and to automate better habits. And while plenty has been written about prioritization, habit, and decision making, the goal of this system is different. It’s designed to support a purposeful, feel-good life. Working synergistically, the Feel Good Mindset and the GOOD Method create a system of small shifts that amplify each other, creating long-term, sustainable results.

Goal Flip

Goal Flip is a strategy to support the prioritization and automation of specific habits that get results.

Outlast

Outlast is a strategy to support the prioritization and automation of specific habits to help you persist and be consistent long term.

Optimize to Satisfice

Optimize to Satisfice, or pursuit of a satisfactory outcome, is a strategy to support better decision making through the identification of trade-offs.

Decision Diet

Decision Diet is a strategy to support better decision making by reducing decision fatigue.

Making the Most of the Method

At a time when much wellness advice takes the form of prescriptive diets, detailed workouts, and predetermined plans, the GOOD Method is specifically designed to offer flexibility and customizability for your life. It’s not another fad diet, a gimmicky workout, or a get-happy-quick scheme. Instead, it’s a solid framework to help you make small shifts for big change. It allows you to figure out what actually works for you, in your life, and with your own set of preferences, circumstances, and values.

That said, if you’re used to following rigid programs, doing the work to customize a system might feel uncomfortable at first. Believe me, I know that it can be tempting to want someone to give you an exact plan. I understand, too, that trying something new, learning to listen to your life, and trusting yourself can be challenging. But hear me out. This is going to be worth it because prescriptive programs simply do not work over time. If you’ve already tried quick fixes that haven’t worked for long, I hope you’ll give this alternative system a try. So as we dive in to this next section, I invite you to do the following.

Allow yourself room to be a beginner.

Treat this like an experiment, to create feedback loops in your life about what works, and what doesn’t.

Make small changes that will enable major shifts.

Think of these small changes connecting to something bigger—a constellation of actions that together will lead to health, happiness, and feeling good.

Start where you are.

Take what you need; leave what you don’t.

You are absolutely capable. And that small voice in your head that whispers what’s best? It’s about to get a whole lot louder. Are you ready? Let’s start by figuring out your feel good.

Make It Happen Exercises

I begin each episode of the Feel Good Effect podcast by encouraging listeners to “make it happen.” Making it happen means taking action, because while it’s great to learn new things, it’s taking action that actually propels you forward. Located at the end of the following chapters in this section, you’ll find Make It Happen Exercises, designed to help you put the information you’ve learned into action. Know that the exercises are meant to complement and amplify one another, so start with one and add on as you go, thereby creating a powerful upward spiral of momentum. You’ll also find a game plan to get started as part of the challenge outlined in chapter ten.

Vision

In 2017, I created the Feel Good Effect podcast to answer a simple question: What does it really mean to be healthy? This question arose because as I looked around at the health and wellness industry, the answer didn’t seem exactly clear. Did “healthy” mean adaptogenic smoothies? Gurus and meditation retreats? HIIT workouts and spin classes? Or, I wanted to know, was there more, a deeper meaning to the humble word?

Over the years, I’ve posed this question to more than a hundred guests on the show, all health and wellness visionaries and innovators. After I ask the question, almost inevitably, they pause, sometimes caught off guard or struggling to come up with a succinct response right away. After some reflection, however, most give an answer that sounds a lot like this: “Healthy” means feeling good, in mind, body, and soul.

These answers inevitably reach beyond the specific types of food we eat or the workouts we do. Instead, they get to the core of the question—that healthy is about feeling good. Which, of course, begs the follow-up question: What does it mean to feel good? What I’ve learned over the years is that there are as many answers to this question as there are people to whom it’s posed. And that’s the point.

It’s your personal definition that matters. When you define “feeling good,” you can then adopt specific strategies and habits to align with that definition. That’s why I created the Feel Good Vision exercise (see below), to help you create a specific vision and definition of what feeling good means to you.

Make It Happen Exercise: Feel Good Vision

This exercise is a variation on a more traditional values exercise, which I’ve adapted to allow you to define your unique vision of feeling good. Crafting this specific, personalized vision will allow you to utilize it as a guiding star, something to orient toward, align with, and use as you navigate the remaining chapters in this book and beyond.