Today is National Chaos Never Dies Day. It's a real thing. November 9, every year.
Today is National Chaos Never Dies Day. It's a real thing. November 9, every year.
When Jana told me, my first thought was that we should put a little sticker on every day of the calendar. Good morning, it's Chaos Never Dies Day again. Again. Because it never dies.
That's the whole holiday, really. Not a celebration. A reminder.
The garage
For a long time I've told Jana, and she's told me, some version of the same sentence. When life calms down a little, then.
When life calms down, then I'll clean the garage.
When things slow down, then we'll take the trip.
When the season's over, then I'll rest.
On the episode, I said I wasn't cleaning the garage until life calms down. Jana asked the obvious question. What if it never does?
It won't. Life is built to be loud and exciting and full. That's not a flaw. That's the deal. Which means if your peace is waiting on the quiet, it's going to be waiting a long time.
Every life coach we've ever had has pointed out the same pattern. We set up little stepping stones in our heads. When I get the promotion, then I'll buy the car. When I buy the car, then I'll be happy. When I'm happy, then I'll take the road trip I've always wanted to take. There's always one more stone.
Last week I wrote about feeling good now instead of waiting for your circumstances to change. This is the same trap with a calendar attached.
Jana's version is the one I use. "I'll work out when I get the energy." It's backwards. Work out, and then you'll get the energy. Moving is what makes the energy. You don't wait for it to show up first.
I grew up in abundance
So why is everybody so tired and so overwhelmed? Part of it, I think, is that we have too many choices.
Jana grew up in Belleville, Kansas. If you blinked, you'd miss it. At the grocery store there were two kinds of peanut butter: Skippy or Jif.
I grew up in Quincy, Florida, which was a lot bigger. We had Skippy, Jif, and a third option. A plain white label with black letters that just said PEANUT BUTTER. No brand. No picture. Just the facts.
Three choices. I grew up in abundance.
Now you walk into a grocery store and there's an entire aisle. Creamy, crunchy, natural, organic, no-stir, almond, cashew, vegan, protein, honey. God forbid you go into one of those health food stores. By the time you've picked one, you're tired, and you've only bought peanut butter.
That's what too many choices does. Every little decision costs you something, and they add up over a day until a grocery list feels like a job interview.
We have our own version of this at home. I'm the cook in our house, and for a while Jana and I ate pork chops and salmon so often that she finally said, "Please, never again." So one night at the grocery store I asked what she wanted for dinner.
She said pork chops.
Fewer choices, more room
What helps is making some decisions once, so you don't have to keep making them every day. Not all of them. Just the ones that don't matter much.
Pick your peanut butter and stop looking at the aisle. Eat the same breakfast most days. Set the alarm for the same time. Make the default the decision.
That's not settling. That's saving your attention for the things that deserve it.
If this part hits home, it's the whole reason I wrote The Decision Matrix. Four minutes every morning, before the aisle gets to you.
Sheila with her copy of The Decision Matrix.
Thank you, Sheila.
A reader named Sheila holding up a copy of The Decision Matrix by Jason Shelfer, its back cover listing "eliminate mental clutter and decision fatigue."
Link to Sheila’s thoughts on the book: ( https://youtu.be/0lpDcPPiV_M?si=puJLRHGaFaHPCnwa )
Living Lucky® Practice
Cut Your Peanut Butter Aisle
Small decisions to make once, so you stop making them every day. Check off the ones you'll set this week.
Checkboxes reset when you leave the page. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.
Arizona
This past weekend I was out in Arizona at the Ritz for our mastermind. The kind of place where you'd think the noise would finally stop.
It didn't. It came with me.
The noise for me right now is the business. The podcast, the coaching, the speaking, all of it growing at once. And balancing that growth against the life I've chosen, which is supposed to be fun, easy, luxurious, exciting, joyful, and full of love. Some days those two things pull in opposite directions.
So in between sessions, I did the thing I told you to do last week. I found a few beautiful places and sat down with my journal. A rock under a palo verde tree. A lounge chair by the pool with a coffee. The balcony, looking out at a whole hillside of saguaros. Thirty minutes at a time.
And I noticed something I've noticed before and never really asked about.
Whenever I get away and I'm somewhere new, I want to go on a walkabout. I walk around and scope the place out. I want to feel the dirt and the sand under my feet, or the terrain under my mountain bike tires. I want to smell the air. It's like the trip itself fertilizes something in me.
So why does it take an out-of-town trip? And what do I do with that seed when I get home, where the dirt is the same dirt I see every day?
I don't have the answer yet. I'm going to be exploring it for a while.
Setting my intentions and expectations for the day while the coffee is brewing.
The quiet space
I wrote a whole book about this, The Quiet Space. It opens with the sound a radio makes when it's caught between two stations. That hiss and crackle, a little music underneath, a voice you can almost make out, none of it clear.
That's what chaos feels like from the inside. Not one loud problem. Everything, partway, all at once.
What I learned writing it is the reason this holiday makes sense to me. You can't turn the static off. Chaos never dies. The world is going to keep broadcasting on every frequency whether you like it or not.
What you can do is set your own station.
Our morning questions, the 4-Minute Luck Activation Formula, are how we do it. What do I want to experience? How do I want to grow? How do I want to contribute? How lucky am I? Asking them doesn't make the world quieter. It tells you which signal is yours. And it tells everyone around you what you're tuned to, so the right people can come along.
Jana said it best at the end of the episode. When she gets still and focused on what her soul actually wants, it's easier to tune into that instead of everything outside. Be still and know.
Then at night, the evening questions, the 4-Minute Reflection Formula. What did I do well? What MIGHT I have done differently? How will I be more effective or efficient tomorrow? How lucky am I? Morning and night together are the Living Lucky® Loop. There's no wrong way to run it. On a whole day, in the middle of a mastermind, or in the peanut butter aisle.
The Living Lucky® Practice
Exercise: Write down every "when-then" you're currently living by. When the kids are older, then. When the business settles down, then. Pick one, and do the "then" part this week anyway.
Reflection question: What am I waiting for life to calm down before I do?
Journal prompt: Where do I feel most like myself when I'm away, and how could I bring a little of that home?
Action: Make three small decisions once this week so you never have to make them again.
Finding a quiet space to Create My Luck on a mid-morning walk in Tucson, AZ.
Questions people ask about this
What is the "when-then" trap?
It's putting off your happiness, rest, or peace until something else happens first. "When I get the promotion, then I'll relax." The problem is there's always another "when," so the "then" never comes.
What is National Chaos Never Dies Day?
It's a fun calendar holiday on November 9. The idea behind it is simple: life is never going to calm down on its own, so stop waiting for it to.
Why do too many choices make me so tired?
Every decision, even a small one, takes some of your attention. Make enough of them in a day, like forty kinds of peanut butter, and you run out of focus for the things that matter. Fewer small choices leaves more room for big ones.
How do I find energy when I'm too tired to start?
Start small and move anyway. Energy usually shows up after you begin, not before. A five-minute walk often does more than an hour of waiting to feel ready.
How do I find peace when life won't slow down?
Stop waiting for the outside to get quiet. Get clear on what you want to experience, how you want to grow, and how you want to contribute, and tune into that. The noise is still there. You're just not following it.
What is The Quiet Space about?
It's a short book by Jason Shelfer about tuning out the static of a distracted world and setting your own station, using the 4-Minute Formulas as the daily practice.
If you want help setting your station in the middle of a loud season, that's what our coaching is for, at livinglucky.com. The Quiet Space, our other books, and our journals are on Amazon under Jana and Jason Shelfer, and at livinglucky.com. And subscribe to our YouTube channel for more of this.
Hear the whole conversation on the Living Lucky® Podcast with Jana and Jason Shelfer, Season 11, Episode 57: "How the 'When-Then' Trap Is Secretly Ruining Your Life."
As for the garage, it's still a work in progress.
But it is in progress.
We Create Our Luck®.
