Simple Ways to Have a Good Life with James Scott Henson

We go through life feeling like we have to do a lot of things we don't want to do, but when we step back and look at things we realized that we are actually choosing to do a bunch of things we don't want to do. Sometimes this is necessary to have the life we want to have, but other times we are doing things without really questioning whether they are necessary or not.

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If you enjoyed this episode, you may enjoy the Simple Ways to Have a Good Life newsletter. It goes out every Friday morning and is full of things intended to help you live your best life, all for free. Sign up here, unsubscribe without any hassle. I don’t share names or email addresses with anyone.

This is the first episode in the new series where we will be talking about the things that clients have most consistently told me were useful to them over the years.

The idea that we are not our thoughts is easily one of the most important things that we can recognize. We talk about that in this episode, along with three simple exercises we can use to help recognize this whenever we need to.

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If you enjoyed this episode, you may enjoy the Simple Ways to Have a Good Life newsletter. It goes out every Friday morning and is full of things intended to help you live your best life, all for free. Sign up here, unsubscribe without any hassle. I don’t share names or email addresses with anyone.

As we wrap up season 3 I'm taking the last episode to answer a few of the questions I've gotten over the last few months:

Why don’t you tell more stories about your life?

What are your hobbies?

Favorite things?

What are you working on in yourself?

What motivates you?

We’ll get started on season 4 next week or the week after. Thanks for listening.

If you enjoyed this episode, you may enjoy the Simple Ways to Have a Good Life newsletter. It goes out every Friday morning and is full of things intended to help you live your best life, all for free. Sign up here, unsubscribe without any hassle. I don’t share names or email addresses with anyone.

There’s power and freedom in minding your business. The world will bring you plenty of problems, it’s unnecessary to go out of your way to find more. There are plenty of things you are well-informed about, there’s no reason to have an opinion on the things that you don’t know much about.

So many of our human problems arise from our opinion of things we have no control over. Acknowledging this allows us to address everything with intentionality and purpose. By staying in our lane, we are able to put our time, energy, and awareness toward the things that matter most instead of unconsciously relinquishing control by chasing things that have nothing to do with us or are beyond our influence.

Thanks for listening. Send me an email.

This is another simple one. I'll talk about the things that concern me with the primary role our phones play in our lives, and I tell you about a few things that have helped me change my relationship with my phone for the better.

Thank you for taking the time to listen, take care.

This one is fairly self-explanatory. Taking a break or permanent vacation from social media can improve your life. There are a bunch of studies that document the harmful effects of social media, especially on young people, not to mention the time suck and fragmentation of awareness that comes with the territory. 

I don't think you have to be militant about it and you can choose how and when you do it, but introducing some intentionality into your relationship with social media will not hurt you. That's what this episode is about.

This episode is pretty simple. I mentioned that I think taking cold showers has been really good for me, a lot of people asked me questions, so I did a bunch of research and I talk about it on here. I wanted to keep it short and concise, so it's not exhaustive but it should get you started.

This is a sort of interlude episode while I fight my way through what has become a deep dive with lots of reading and listening to other podcasts to learn about the benefits of cold showers and the benefits of ditching social media. I'm excited about both of those topics so I wanted to put a little more work into them.

In this episode, I talk about one of the most important things I've learned working with people for the last 20 years: no one is perfect, no one should be on a pedestal, and it's not fair to ourselves or to them when we do that to people. The more that we can let everyone be fully human the happier we are, the deeper our relationships are, and the more honestly we can live our lives.

As always, I'm deeply grateful for everyone who takes the time to listen to these episodes, and I love hearing from people. You can always shoot me an email at [email protected] if you have an idea for a topic, or if there is a situation in your life that might be helpful to discuss on the podcast. I appreciate your time

This episode was inspired by one of the questions I got most frequently over on Instagram: “What should I look for in a counselor?”

This isn't an exhaustive exploration of this question, but we touch on things like the relationship, scope of practice, and professionalism in the counseling field and I think it will at least point people in the right direction in finding a good therapist.

If you're looking for a counselor right now, Psychology Today and Better Help seem to be really good online resources, and a quick Google search will probably point you towards different agencies or people in private practice in your area.

This episode is in response to a valid criticism someone recently shared with me: this podcast claims to be about simple ways to have a good life, but I spend a lot of time talking about things like awareness and the ego. Not everyone knows how to take those concepts and turn them into actual change. I realized the person who told me this was right, so I took some time and thought about the 10 most concrete and actionable things that made a difference in my life.

They are:

1) Meditate

2) Take Cold Showers

3) Ditch Social Media

4) Put Your Phone Away

5) Drink Water

6) Prioritize Sleep

7) Get Out of Bed

8) Limit or Avoid Alcohol

9) Stay in Your Lane

10) Help Others

None of these is a one-size-fits-all answer. Some people will have an easier time incorporating them than others, but even one or two might make a difference.

Thanks for taking the time to listen, take care.