Fierce Encouragement

Finding Stillness in a Storm of Choices

• Mark Walker • Season 2 • Episode 39

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Indecision keeps us stuck. In this episode, I unpack a conversation with my son, share a 5-step mental reset tool, and offer a fresh look at why slowing down — even for five minutes — can change everything.

You’ll hear insights from Heroic, Phil Stutz, and Dzogchen teachings, plus a practical reminder: your clarity lives on the other side of breath, solitude, and presence.

Speaker 1:

Hey there, welcome to Fierce Encouragement. This is a podcast that's about training your mind, strengthening your spirit and showing up with more courage in the moments that matter in your life. So my name is Mark Walker, I'm a life coach, I'm a strength coach and I'm also the founder of the newer Awareness Lab. And I worked in IT for over 25 years, but now I help people like yourself create more clarity, build up that discipline and reconnect with what matters most in your life through presence, breath, somatic work and bold inner work as well. So each episode here is a reminder You're not broken, you're just busy, maybe too busy, and now it's time to come back to the center. So let's train, let's practice and let's live on purpose. So thanks again for being here with me today and just to intro this podcast today thinking about the still point in the storm podcast today. Thinking about the still point in the storm Now.

Speaker 1:

I was talking to my son the other day, truman, and I asked him what he thought is the hardest thing in his life right now. Well, he paused and he's 20 years old for context but he paused for a moment and then he said to himself indecision. That caught my attention and then I kind of kept exploring. I asked him why that was showing up or why that was popping in his mind right away this morning, and he said it makes him feel a little panicked or anxious on the inside and he doesn't know which way to go. And then he doesn't want to go at all. And that hit home for me. Obviously, I'm his dad, so I feel a little sadness or I want to help him. But indecision is more often than not what keeps all of us stuck. It's not the wrong decision, but it's freezing and not deciding at all. It's that mental fog, or even, you know, stuck on the ladder kind of as an image, or even stuck on the ladder kind of as an image. It's this low-level anxiety that I don't know about you, but I feel like I have carried it as like a second layer of myself. So that's what I wanted to talk about today, if that sounds interesting to you.

Speaker 1:

The first thing is the paradox of too much choice. So we live in a world that is saturated with decisions. Should I eat paleo or Mediterranean diet? Should I read a book or should I scroll Instagram for a little while? Should I start a business or should I go after that new position or new job. It always seems like there's another podcast. I don't know about you. You're here listening, but there's always one more podcast or one more book or one more training session we need to sign up for, or one more possibility or one more path. But more choice doesn't always equal more peace in our minds, and Barry Schwartz called this the quote paradox of choice unquote. The more options we do have, the harder it becomes to feel at home and good about any of them.

Speaker 1:

Even my coach, brian Johnson from Heroic, has talked about this endlessly and he says that when we reduce that decision fatigue, we can free up energy, mind, energy, body, energy, inspiration for our higher self. Discipline is freedom, he says. So architect your days in advance and plan them out so the best part of you wins the day before the other part of you even gets started. And you know what I feel. I know he's right. I've needed structure in my life. The past five, 10 years Rhythm and ritual and structure has helped me so much and it's even funny. In that discipline that I'm building up, I can feel the resistance. We are going to feel the resistance when we start to try to go towards a little more structure and rhythm, but we don't need more stimulation. We don't need more and more and more stillness. Even though I believe in meditation as a practice, we don't need to sit still all the time. A hundred years ago life was really slow, I mean, just think about it. People went to bed with the sun, right? They didn't have electricity and the screens that we do now. They maybe sat with a book after work was done or after dinner was done. They didn't have five tabs, ten tabs open on their phone or on their screen. They knew the rhythms of their own lives, and we have lost that in modern times. Mental training here is the antidote.

Speaker 1:

Phil Stutz, in his beautiful documentary that Jonah Hill helped create, he said something that has stuck with me to the point. I wrote it in my notebook and I reference it a lot Quote you don't need to feel good to take action, you take action to feel good. Unquote that's the game. We're not waiting to feel right or feel perfect. And that's the struggle sometimes with myself and the people I help. Sometimes we get in the habit of waiting for certainty and that doesn't help. That doesn't help us at all.

Speaker 1:

But training our minds and thinking with deliberateness and kind of coming back from the fight or flight mindsets we might get in, we actually are training our body and our mind at the same time. We can do it with a really simple practice, breath by breath, moment to moment, and I really again, I kind of mentioned it, but I struggled with focus most of my life. I wasn't diagnosed with anything, but I know what it feels like to be in that endless loop where I start something and I get distracted and then I start something else and literally days go by and weeks would go by in that fog for me. So what really helped me? Well, mental training, presence and that one small tool that I've gotten from Heroic and Brian called Flip the Switch. So here's how it works.

Speaker 1:

And if you're out moving about, that's fine, but stand tall or sit tall, really tune into your posture for a moment, make that space for your belly, and I want you to take five deep belly breaths with long exhales, while you listen and say something kind to yourself, something that a kind friend or an encouraging leader might say to you, and even take in this next moment a call to your higher self or to God, or to that inner warrior, and as you kind of ground yourself in this moment, breathing deeply, saying something kind and calling on your higher self. Ask yourself what is the next best action you can take Now? See yourself taking it. Flip the switch, sit tall, five deep belly breaths. Say something kind, call on your higher self and then take the next best action in this next moment. Very simple, powerful mental training tool. Get good at that. Plug that into your day once, twice, ten times. When you do this, it will help ground that paradox of decision and ground it into a deliberate action that you really want that comes from a better part of yourself.

Speaker 1:

Dzogchen teachings from my teacher, kachap Rinpoche. He reminds us constantly that awareness isn't something we create. It's already there. You just have to remove the obscurations and notice it constantly. And when you notice it, I believe that's where emotional intelligence kicks in. So, instead of reacting with anger or shutting down with sadness, we start to breathe. We're not perfect, but we start to see who we are and we start to act from a place of clarity.

Speaker 1:

In this next part, I'd like to talk about the power of creating sacred solitude for yourself. So solitude isn't isolation, but it is sacred, and this is the place where we can create or forge a clarity that comes from us, that awareness that we just spoke about. But we can have more of that in our lives. So 10 pages of reading or five minutes of silence and prayer, maybe 15 minutes of deep presence with your kid, with no phones or no screens and distractions this is where the magic in your life can live, and you just have to go towards it in small moments, like flip the switch and creating solitude moments without devices on. Brian Johnson calls this quote the deep work on your soul, unquote. And it isn't about productivity for productivity's sake. It's more about presence, and it seeps into our work and our relationships and our life.

Speaker 1:

So ask yourself here where are you overstimulated right now in your life? What choices are pulling you down or drowning you right now? And take a moment to think or to journal on. How can you just simplify? Where can you simplify? So, to wrap this up, I just want you to remember this and thank you again for sharing your listening time with me.

Speaker 1:

But remember this indecision is a symptom, it's not a disease, and the root of the problem is the noise that we get from our phones and in our life. So it's a symptom. Don't critique yourself. Just get more clear, and the antidote is that clarity of training, not perfection, but practice every day, flipping the switch, making a few moments in your day just to settle. And you already have the tools, so use them. Practice what we talked about today. So try, flip the Switch tool this week, today, maybe right now, after you get done.

Speaker 1:

Find moments of solitude, even five minutes, no phone, stand bored in the grocery line, just you, just your breath. Or connect with those kids, or connect with the best version of yourself. And, honestly, if you need more support, that's what I've been doing in the Awareness Lab with the people that are subscribed there Weekly sessions, tools, breath, work, real practice with real people. You don't have to figure it all out alone. Either Reach out if you want to have a deeper conversation about my one-on-one work, or come join the lab Until next time. Again, this is Mark Walker. Stay strong, stay kind, be kind to yourself, train your mind like it matters, because it does. Have a great day, have a great evening wherever you're at, and we'll catch you next time on Fierce Encouragement. All right, be well, bye-bye.