Finding Balance and Joy in the Midst of Chaos

What if chaos wasn't your enemy, but your ally in creating a balanced and fulfilling life? With my personal journey as a guide, we unravel how to harness the power of chaotic moments to boost productivity and bring back the joy in living. Breaking down overwhelming situations into bite-sized tasks, and focusing on self-care and your breath, you'll discover fresh perspectives on stress reduction and anxiety management. 

In this journey, I've developed a meticulously designed 12-week plan to balance the five pillars of wellness. Through the lens of my own experiences with chaos, you'll learn the importance of embracing the outdoors, carving out me-time, and making a conscious choice to thrive even when the going gets tough. So, whether you're neck-deep in chaos or just looking to balance your wellness better, this episode is your call to action. Come, let's learn to not just survive, but thrive amidst the chaos, together!

Transcript

Todd: 0:00

You can decide whatwalk to do. I know I have, I know you have um. How do you survive that? How do you not just survive when everything is crashing, but how do you thrive in it? Now, narcissists tend to thrive and come alive in the midst of chaos. Not telling you to become a narcissist, that's the exact opposite opposite of what I would like you to be. But we are all going to experience moments of chaos in our lives, and when you have the tools and the abilities to deal with it, your stress levels don't go through the roof and you can actually thrive during that time and not just try to survive.

Todd: 1:19

So quick story when I was younger, I worked at a Mexican restaurant and Friday, saturday nights, the dinner rush was a madhouse. You know. You had seven people working the line and things going back and forth. It was chaotic, to say the least, and I loved it. I had so much fun, and because I had fun, I was able to handle two to three times more orders than the other, the other servers on the line, and it wasn't that I was any better than them. It's just that I learned how to thrive in that chaos. It didn't slow me down, it sped me up. It sped up my thinking, my movements. It sped up all of the my reactions because of the chaos, and my goal today is to teach you some things you can do to not narcissistically thrive, but to actually thrive when going through chaotic times.

Todd: 2:38

Now, chaos. We can define chaos as times where you have no control over the events going on around you, where there are more things for you to see, do accomplish than you actually have the power and capability to do. Chaos can even be just that there's 50 people talking at once and family can be chaotic. Thriving in chaos, like I said, does not mean going slow. It does not mean stopping and only taking one thing and just trying to get by. No, what I mean when, when I'm talking about thriving in chaos, it's to teach you how to enjoy yourself even in those chaotic moments of your life. How do I do it?

Todd: 3:46

Okay, so one of the main things I learned is to break down the chaos, the overwhelm, because that's why you're feeling the chaos, that's why you're stressed, is because you're feeling overwhelmed. There's always a thousand things going on at once in everybody's life, but we only feel like we're going through chaos when we're overwhelmed. So how do you overcome the overwhelm? Well, you break down everything going on into small, manageable bites and then you take them on one at a time. So if you've got four projects due, or you're in school and you've got four classes each requiring you to do 14 different things, how do you do it? How do you get by?

Todd: 4:46

Well, you can make a list. You break it down into step-by-step order of what needs to happen, and then you just tackle each line item on the list. You break it down into small, manageable bytes. Now, if you don't know how to break down something into a smaller byte, take a good long, look at it and see where its priority falls. If there are other things that you can break down into more manageable bytes, do them first, if something else is not a higher priority. Why? Because each little success you have calms your mind. It calms your spirit and gives you that boost of adrenaline that you need to help you pick up the pace, focus, and it gives you that sense of esteem that you need to realize that, yes, you can actually do this and get through this. Every time you cross something off a list, it's a win, and that's why we actually tell people to make a list of things, even if you're not a list person, just so that you can cross them off, because that sense of accomplishment, that feeling of accomplishment, helps you to thrive in chaos. So that's one of the first things that I recommend is to break down all the things that you have to do into manageable bytes. It does not mean you have to take a ton of time to do it. It does not mean that you have to go slow Sometimes you do not have time but it does mean if you do it, even quickly, you will find that you can speed up going from one thing to the other and look back on the day and realize how much you were able to get done. So some recommendations. Maybe that one doesn't work for you.

Todd: 7:03

Another way when you're struggling through chaotic events things going on, chaos erupting, events are flying, you never know right Return to yourself, even though the world around you has changed drastically. You can find strength in your identity, your uniqueness, and come back to self-care. You know I'm not saying focus on yourself and be selfish. What I'm saying is look inside and see what's causing that overwhelm. Then you can take a deep breath, breathe. That's another way. Focus on your breath If you're feeling overwhelmed. It's too chaotic. Focus on one thing Again small, manageable bytes. Focus on your breathing. Four counts in, hold it for four counts, breathe out for four counts, hold for four counts and do that for five minutes and your stress level will diminish, your overwhelm will diminish, your anxiety levels will diminish and you'll be able to handle more because you will have diminished that cortisol in your body which is causing your stress fight or flight response and you can lower that with a Good good. And in my head I'm counting the whole time One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four, one. You're counting and you're focusing on the numbers and it lowers your stress. Focusing on the breathing lowers your overwhelm. It lowers your anxieties.

Todd: 9:29

You can establish routines. If this is a chaotic time period in your life, that's not just a one day or one hour or a short time period thing. Establish a personal routine. When you can make a routine, it can help you to handle a lot more and you're able to get through things and enjoy it. The whole point of thriving in the midst of chaos is so that you can enjoy life even when going through unpleasant circumstances. We're not all going to go through happy circumstances all the time You're going to have hardship and heartache and stress and maybe your job fires you, maybe you have an accident, maybe all sorts of things can happen. But building a personal routine helps to strengthen your resilience because you can always go back to your routine when you get bounced out of it by the chaos going on around.

Todd: 10:50

Resilience is a good word. It's an important word, because I see so many people today that lack resilience. I mean offended by a word. Offended because somebody said something to you, chaos because of the worries of what's going on politically or locally or at work, so many things. We get offended and don't have the mental fortitude to realize that it's just a game, it's just life. We can take it either positively or negatively. How you take it will bring more back into your life of that positive or negative, because the world around us reflects your internal world. It really does so.

Todd: 11:55

This is a solution that I have been loving while I've been living here in Florida, and it's get outdoors, get in the sun, take off your shirt, go lay at the pool, relax, go to the beach, relax. Get outdoors, go walk in the woods, go walk on the beach, go get outdoors, get some sun, some fresh air, get off the electronics and get back to nature. That is one of the best ways to overcome overwhelm, anxiety and thrive when life is chaotic around you. And then, lastly, you can continue listening to things like this Learning. The more you learn, the better that your mind develops mental, emotional resilience. That's why we do personal development, why we study, we do self, we look at self help, we listen to self help books, we listen to podcasts like this, in order to grow and build that resilience. Help us to design the life that we want to live right. The world is going to happen.

Todd: 13:25

Other people's actions and world events will cause things to happen around you, but guess what? You are the master of your own universe on how you react to those things around you, and without becoming a narcissist where you make everything about you and you try to control others. What I'm teaching you is how to control yourself by controlling your mind, your thoughts, your emotions, no matter what is going on around you. It's as simple as breathing and it's as simple as forming habits, forming routines, building resiliency. It's a daily occurrence, daily event. I know you can do it. That's the coolest thing about it is I know you can do it. Why? Because these are tools that I use in my own life and I've had to do it.

Todd: 14:40

Chaos is kind of a norm in the life that I've lived. If you've listened to this at all, you know that I have lived through a lot of chaotic things and I love it. I don't always love it, but I do have a great life that I really enjoy, and why I do this is to help you to be able to figure that out as well. Get outside, get some sun. The sun is so good for you. So here's my final thoughts. My final thoughts for today are that you can do this. You need to remind yourself that you determine whether you're going to be stressed out and anxious during chaotic events, or you can make some effort One manageable bite at a time, as simple as crossing things off a list to start to thrive and enjoy your time, because the chaos will be there. Overwhelm will be there. That's just a part of life. You get to choose how you live and how you thrive.

Todd: 16:12

This is Todd Talks. I would love for you to subscribe. Of course I would. I mean that's Every podcaster wants you to subscribe and listen. If you want, you can subscribe. Support the show. If you need coaching on all of this, I have a 12-step plan. Another 12-step plan I have a 12-week plan on balancing the five pillars of wellness to give you the tools to start that you can then work on balancing the five pillars of wellness, balancing your life so that you can thrive in this life. This has been Todd Talks. I hope you enjoyed. If you are interested in hearing more about my 12-week plan and coaching, shoot me a message. The link is in the show notes for how to get a hold of me, how to get involved and request, how to make an appointment. There's a Calendly link in there. So, that being said, you've got this. You Can Thrive in Chaos without being a narcissist and, as always, have a blessed day. This is Todd Talks. I'm signing out.