Are You Spending Your Life on Things You Actually Enjoy and Care About? | Jonathan Fields
Jonathan Fields, author of SPARKED, discusses discovering your "sparketype" for work that makes you come alive and how to navigate the uncertainty that comes with making life changes. He covers meditation, community, meaningful exercise, and practical strategies for embracing the unknown.
Deep Dive Analysis
14 Topic Outline
Introduction to Life's Big Questions and Uncertainty
Jonathan Fields' Journey from Wall Street to Wellness
Defining Sparketype and the Feeling of 'Coming Alive'
Self-Discovery: How to Figure Out Your Sparketype
Understanding Your Sparketype Profile: Primary, Shadow, Anti-Sparketype
Strategies for Aligning Your Life and Work with Your Sparketype
Addressing Privilege and the Inclusivity of Sparketype Work
The Human Aversion to High-Stakes Uncertainty
Meditation and Attention Training for Navigating Uncertainty
The Power of Rituals and 'Certainty Anchors'
Building Your 'Hive': The Role of Community in Uncertainty
Making Exercise Meaningful for Mental Well-being
Managing Money Worries and Financial Uncertainty
Jonathan's Tinnitus Journey and the Practice of Abandoning Hope
8 Key Concepts
Coming Alive
This feeling is defined as the overlap between five component states: a sense of meaningfulness, energy and excitement (engagement/passion), access to flow states, the ability to express one's full potential, and a broader sense of purpose in life.
Sparketype
A set of 10 identifiable impulses or imprints that exist across all people, which, when engaged, give an individual the feeling of 'coming alive' in their work. Each sparketype represents an archetype with repeatable patterns of tendencies, behaviors, and preferences.
Primary Sparketype
The strongest and leading impulse within an individual's sparketype profile. This is the core driver that, when engaged, most consistently makes a person feel alive and energized.
Shadow Sparketype
A strong impulse that typically lives in the 'shadow' of the primary sparketype. Individuals are often skilled at and enjoy this work, but they frequently engage in it to support or enable the work of their primary sparketype at a higher level.
Anti-Sparketype
The work or activity that, for no obvious reason, feels like the heaviest lift, requiring the greatest motivation and recovery. It represents the opposite end of the spectrum from one's primary sparketype.
Normalizing Effect
A psychological phenomenon where being surrounded by others who are also experiencing or stepping into high-stakes uncertainty makes the situation feel less isolating, vulnerable, and risky. This reduces the fear of social judgment and allows individuals to operate more easily in uncertain spaces.
Mind-Body Unity
The concept that the mind and body are not separate entities that connect, but rather a single, integrated system. This implies that physical activities like exercise have profound and measurable effects on mental and emotional states, and vice versa.
Abandoning Hope (Buddhist context)
An interpretation of a Buddhist concept that suggests finding grace and freedom in accepting that something will not change. This allows an individual to be present in the current reality and engage in the work needed to deal with 'what is,' rather than being consumed by the desire for a different outcome.
8 Questions Answered
A sparketype is an identifiable impulse or imprint that makes you feel 'alive' in your work. Understanding your primary, shadow, and anti-sparketype can help you assess how well your current activities align with what energizes you, guiding decisions about job crafting, career changes, or how you engage in non-paid life domains.
You can reflect on activities you loved doing as a child that took effort but felt intrinsically rewarding, and look for common threads across different life domains such as leisure, paid work, learning experiences, and primary roles or devotions.
No, while economic circumstances affect decision options, the sparketype framework is inclusive. Even in challenging situations, individuals can reframe their purpose, make tiny tweaks to how they approach work, or find ways to engage their sparketype in non-paid aspects of their lives like parenting or volunteering.
Humans have a negativity bias and a survival mechanism that causes the amygdala (fear center) to light up when faced with decisions lacking perfect information, especially when the outcomes matter. This aversion is significantly amplified by the social context, as people fear being judged or outcast if their uncertain choices lead to negative outcomes.
Mindfulness meditation trains you to persistently return to the present moment, pulling you out of anxiety's 'spin cycle' and doomsday narratives. It teaches 'thought dropping' (letting go of unconstructive thoughts) and enhances metacognition, allowing you to observe your mental state and choose to focus on what's helpful.
Shift your focus from clinically effective workouts to activities that truly engage your mind and body, making them feel like play rather than mundane tasks. Engaging in collaborative activities with people you enjoy can further elevate the experience and provide a 'group flow' state.
For irrational fears, practice metacognition to identify and challenge the underlying stories you're telling yourself, and reframe them with more objective and accurate narratives. For rational fears, 'chunk' the risk by breaking down big goals into tiny, manageable steps, gaining data and proof of possibility along the way to reduce anxiety and paralysis.
It's not about being fatalistic, but about finding grace and freedom in accepting that something will not change. This allows you to be fully present with 'what is' and then do the work to deal with that reality, rather than being consumed by the desire for a different outcome.
30 Actionable Insights
1. Embrace Uncertainty for Possibility
Develop practices and skills to accept high-stakes uncertainty as an inherent gateway to possibility, rather than becoming paralyzed, pulling back, or rushing through it.
2. Align Life with Your Spark
Actively work to align your life with what you truly care about, and prepare to manage the inherent uncertainty that comes with making significant changes.
3. Discover Your Unique Sparkotype
Take the free ‘Sparketype’ assessment at sparketype.com (10-15 minutes) to discover your unique imprint for work and activities that make you come alive.
4. Reflect on Childhood Passions
Reflect on your childhood (around age nine) and identify activities you loved doing, even if they were hard, that left you feeling energized and fulfilled, to uncover your innate ‘spark’.
5. Broaden Your ‘Work’ Definition
Broaden your definition of ‘work’ beyond paid employment to include leisure, learning, and devotions (primary roles), and seek your ‘spark’ across all these domains.
6. Evaluate Work by ‘Coming Alive’
Evaluate your work and life experiences against five states of ‘coming alive’ (meaningfulness, energy/excitement, flow, expressed potential, purpose) to gauge your fulfillment.
7. Address Underlying Fears to Act
After discovering your sparkotype, identify and address underlying fears (e.g., fear of judgment, loss of status, insecurity) that prevent you from taking action.
8. Practice Seated Mindfulness
Practice seated mindfulness meditation to train yourself to consistently return to the present moment, thereby breaking the spin cycle of anxiety and regret associated with uncertainty.
9. Cultivate Loving-Kindness/Compassion
Supplement mindfulness with ‘Brahma Viharas’ or ’loving-kindness/compassion’ meditations to cultivate friendliness, compassion, equanimity, and sympathetic joy, enhancing acceptance and relationships.
10. Build a ‘Hive’ of Peers
Actively build a supportive ‘hive’ of good relationships, including advisors, mentors, and especially ‘parallel playmates’ who are navigating similar uncertainties, to normalize your experience and empower your journey.
11. Engage in Meaningful Exercise
Engage in regular exercise not just for physical health, but primarily for its profound and measurable positive impact on your mental state and ability to handle anxiety.
12. Abandon Hope (Surrender/Acceptance)
Embrace the concept of ‘abandoning hope’ (surrender or acceptance) that a difficult situation will change, as this frees you to be present with ‘what is’ and actively work to deal with the current reality.
13. Reframe Stress as a Signal
Reframe stress as a signal from your body that you are engaged in something meaningful and important, rather than solely a negative experience.
14. Create Certainty Anchors
Create daily rituals and automate non-essential decisions (e.g., eating the same meals, wearing similar clothes) to build ‘certainty anchors’ that provide stability and free up mental energy for high-stakes, uncertain creative work.
15. Make Subtle Job Shifts
If a job change is not feasible, focus on making slight tweaks to how you approach your current work, changing your ‘mode’ to align more with your sparkotype.
16. Reframe Work Purpose
Reframe the purpose of your work, even mundane tasks, to connect it to a larger, more meaningful contribution (e.g., being part of a ‘care team’) to increase meaning and purpose.
17. Dedicate Time to Spark Activities
Dedicate small, consistent blocks of time (e.g., 15-30 minutes daily or on weekends) to engage in activities that align with your sparkotype purely for the joy and fulfillment they bring.
18. ‘Chunk Down’ Risks for Goals
When facing real financial constraints or big goals, ‘chunk down’ the risk by breaking the ultimate goal into many tiny, manageable steps, reducing anxiety and making it psychologically feasible.
19. Start with Side Experiments
For career changes, start with low-commitment, low-risk side experiments (e.g., reading, talking to experts, workshops, small experiments with friends) to validate interest and capability before investing heavily.
20. Choose Mentally Engaging Activities
Choose physical activities that inherently require mental engagement and presence, transforming them from mere ’exercise’ into ‘play’.
21. Engage in Collaborative Activities
Enhance the joy and flow of physical activity by engaging in it collaboratively with people you enjoy, elevating it beyond individual exercise.
22. Practice Thought Dropping
Use mindfulness to identify unhelpful ‘doomsday’ thoughts, acknowledge their possibility, but then intentionally ‘drop’ them if they are not constructive or likely, to reduce mental clutter and anxiety.
23. Develop Metacognition
Develop metacognition (awareness of your own thought processes) through meditation to observe your mind’s state and determine if your current thoughts are helpful or not.
24. Consciously Reframe Money Fears
If you have financial security but still experience irrational money fears, use mindfulness and metacognition to return to the present moment, question the objective reality of your fears, and consciously reframe your internal narrative to a more accurate and calming story.
25. Willingness to Learn from Ground Up
Be willing to take a significant step down in status or pay to learn a new industry from the ground up if it aligns with your rediscovered interests.
26. Question Fears Internally
Engage in an internal process of questioning your fears to understand their roots and diminish their power over your decisions.
27. Ask Sparkotype-Aligned Interview Questions
During job interviews, ask specific questions to determine if a new opportunity will allow you to engage more with your sparkotype and less with your anti-sparkotype.
28. Identify Your Anti-Sparkotype
Identify your ‘anti-sparkotype’ – the type of work that feels most draining and requires the most effort and recovery – to understand what activities to minimize or delegate.
29. Persist in Challenging Practices
Persist with challenging meditation practices over months or years, even when anxiety-provoking, to gradually habituate to unwanted sensations and learn to coexist with them without being consumed.
30. Use Past Struggles as Motivation
Use the potential re-emergence of a past struggle as a powerful motivator to remain committed to your practices, understanding that consistent effort maintains well-being.
6 Key Quotes
It's not uncertainty by default that tends to shut us down. It's uncertainty combined with stakes that are meaningful to us.
Jonathan Fields
When we become the protagonist and the stakes are actually high for us, that's when uncertainty absolutely destroys or has the potential to destroy us.
Jonathan Fields
If we want the possibility, we also have to accept the uncertainty.
Jonathan Fields
The day where I think I don't feel any of that is the day where I ask myself, like, am I making something that I really just don't care about? Because I should feel something.
Jonathan Fields
The difference between exercise and play is that, you know, it's generally those two factors. One is that the fundamental nature of the activity requires your mind to be present in the activity.
Jonathan Fields
The thing that makes it a sound and not just some brain stimulation is the fact that my attention is drawn to it. When my attention is not drawn to it, for all intents and purposes, the sound doesn't exist.
Jonathan Fields
4 Protocols
Discovering Your Sparketype (Self-Inquiry)
Jonathan Fields- Look back at your late single-digit years and ask: What did you love to do that took effort, but you wanted to do it for no other reason than the feeling it gave you?
- Identify the underlying impulses or feelings behind those activities, not just the superficial actions.
- Look for through-lines or commonalities across these different activities.
- Broaden your inquiry to different life domains: leisure interests, paid work, learning experiences (what you learned for intrinsic enjoyment), and devotions (primary roles or caretaking).
- Identify common threads across all these domains to reveal your core impulses.
Aligning Your Life with Your Sparketype (Reality Check & Action)
Jonathan Fields- **Reality Check:** Assess how well your day-to-day tasks, processes, and activities align with your primary and shadow sparketypes.
- **Assess Anti-Sparketype Exposure:** Determine how much of your current work involves tasks related to your anti-sparketype. High exposure here can lead to depletion and burnout.
- **Make Subtle Shifts:** If misaligned, identify small tweaks to do more of your primary/shadow work and less of your anti-sparketype work within your current role (job crafting).
- **Consider Reinvention:** If subtle shifts are insufficient, explore bigger changes or new opportunities, asking questions during interviews to suss out alignment with your sparketype profile.
Managing High-Stakes Uncertainty (Internal Process)
Jonathan Fields- **Identify Underlying Fears:** Acknowledge the fears stopping you from taking action (e.g., fear of being outcast, judged, loss of status, security, or stability).
- **Question Fears:** Internally question these fears and their validity in your current reality.
- **Accept the Unknown:** Recognize that uncertainty is a gateway to possibility and must be accepted to achieve desired outcomes.
- **Develop Practices:** Engage in long-term practices like meditation to rewire your brain for equanimity in the unknown, allowing you to breathe through difficult moments and make decisions.
Navigating Risk and Uncertainty (Chunking Strategy)
Jonathan Fields- **Identify Ultimate Goal:** Clearly define the larger, potentially anxiety-provoking goal (e.g., career change, starting a business).
- **Chunk Down Steps:** Break the ultimate goal into the smallest possible tiny steps.
- **Focus on First Tiny Step:** Concentrate solely on the immediate, low-risk first step, holding the ultimate goal in the distance.
- **Accumulate Knowledge & Validate:** With each tiny step, gather more information and validate or invalidate your path, adjusting as needed.
- **Build Proof of Possibility:** Continue taking small, validated steps to build confidence and demonstrate the increasing possibility of achieving the larger goal.