how to make every day a good one

got a short & sweet one for you today.

what is a good life?

i asked myself that question a while ago, & the best answer i had was:

a good life = a life with more good days than bad days.

which led me to the next question:

what is a good day?

it sounds simple, but the only answers i had were vague & hard to act on:

• a day that i feel happy

• a day that i have energy

• a day that i don’t want to end

those are all directionally correct, but i wanted to know what actions i could take to reliably create good days on purpose.

so for the last several months, i’ve been tracking my time, paying attention to how i felt, & looking for patterns along the way — & i think i finally cracked the code:

liam’s good day checklist

1. get out of bed & go outside ASAP

2. phone-free morning, algorithm-free life

3. 1h+ doing meaningful work

4. exercise with friends

5. eat enough whole foods for energy

6. quality time with loved ones

7. go to bed on time

bonus: talk to strangers, journal, meditate

that’s it.

i know it seems too good to be true, but when i go through that list & just do the things on it, every single day is a good day.

but your list will probably be a bit different than mine.

so here’s how to make one for yourself:

1. every day for 2 weeks, write down what you did & how you feel

2. look at your best days & ask ‘what did i do?’

3. look at your worst days & ask the same thing

4. look for patterns

5. make a list of things to do more

6. make a list of things to do less

7. combine the lists to make 10 (or less) rules to follow

8. test it out, make adjustments as you go

give it a try & let me know how it goes!

some things i learned

1. the purpose of life is a life with purpose
   a study from the University of Michigan tracked ~7000 adults over 50 & had them rate how purposeful their life felt on a scale from 1 to 6.
   
   4 years later, they found that people with less purpose in life were dying at more than double the rate of those who felt a strong purpose.
   
   anecdotally, i’ve seen this happen with older people so many times. when we don’t have a reason to live anymore, our bodies tend to agree.
   
   so, job #1 as a human = find a good reason to wake up every morning.
   
   it might literally be life or death.

2. the equator doesn’t split the world in half
   of the ~8 billion people in the world, at least 7 billion — 87% of them — live in the northern hemisphere. that leaves ‘only’ 1 billion people in the bottom half. pretty nuts.

   

3. 6 core beliefs that explain how biased you are
   psychologists have studied hundreds of cognitive biases over the years, & now there’s a new paper arguing that they might all boil down to 6 core beliefs:
   
   1. my experience is a reasonable reference
   2. i make correct assessments of the world
   3. i am good
   4. my group is a reasonable reference
   5. my group is good
   6. people’s attributes (not context) shape outcomes
   
   if you believe any of those statements, it could be a strong source of bias. this is important, because your biases shield you from the truth.
   
   we’re dumber than we think. the dumbest people are the ones who deny it.
   
   SIDE NOTE: the main belief i hold from that list is #6 — basically, ‘my actions matter more than my circumstances.’ even though it’s not always true, believing otherwise has never served me. intentional biases???? woah.

cool stuff i found

1. an author’s letter to students
   in 2006, a high school teacher had her students write to a famous author & ask for their advice.
   
   Kurt Vonnegut was the only one who responded, & i love what he said:

   

2. a designer who deserves a raise
   the Amazon Rainforest’s official website just got a cool rebrand, where the letters in its logo were created from satellite images of the Amazon river itself:

   

3. one of my favourite videos ever
   when a wildlife cinematographer found an elk who had just died in the wild, he took the opportunity to set up cameras & film what happened in the next few days.
   
   the result was this video, which is honestly one of the most (weirdly) beautiful examples of the circle of life that i’ve ever seen. i first watched this several months ago, but i still think about it every now & then. impactful.

anyways, that’s all for this week!

quick update:

i’m gonna send out a test email from a new mailing software in the next few days, because Substack hasn’t been hitting your inbox as reliably as i want.

don’t worry though, nothing changes for you! i’m still gonna upload these newsletters on Substack too, if you prefer reading them here.

as always, thank you so much for being here.

go make yourself proud this week!

~ liam (:

PS - a few of you have asked me how best to support this newsletter, & there’s 1 good answer: share it with other people who might like it! i write these because helping people makes me happy, so helping me help more people is the best gift i could ever ask for. seriously — it goes a long way.

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