TGIM: Controlling the Chaos

Welcome back to Thank God It’s Monday!

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tl;dr Life will always come in waves of chaos. If you don’t plan for the inevitable chaos, then you are at fault for not being as prepared as possible. Life is unpredictable, but that itself is predictable.
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Chaos is woven into the nature of the world like a stitch of a garment. It can provide both a welcome relief from the monotony and a looming sense of overwhelm. What i: currently going on in your life that you associate with chaos?

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Everyone has a different tolerance for chaos. Some live in the day-to-day chaos of an unmade bed and dirty dishes. In contrast, others have jobs working in the chaos of unstable hospital patients and unpredictable elementary school children. We all have certain chaos we’re willing to deal with.
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But the universal truth of chaos is that it will occur. Life is unpredictable, but at least we know to predict something will happen when we least expect it!

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We know we can’t be prepared for everything life will throw at us. That is the nature of growth: we figure out how to handle new situations as they arise, even when we feel like the challenge might be insurmountable. But challenging ourselves to stretch and rise to each occasion as they are presented will help us not feel quite so overwhelmed when chaos presents itself.

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Last week was the most chaotic week I’ve had in a long time. Thankfully, it was all good things, like starting a new job and celebrating one of my best friends getting married! But I lived out of a suitcase all week, stayed in three different hotels, worked out in three different gyms, slept in four different cities, drove over 700 miles, and started a new job, meeting new surgeons. Phew! My watch told me my stress was pretty high the entirety of the week, no wonder why haha.
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Even knowing they were all good things, the body still reacts with a sense of fight or flight mode to chaos. Think about when you are preparing for a vacation and planning airport transfers, packing, itineraries, currency exchange, and pet care. It’s all in the name of relaxation, but it’s hard to tell yourself to relax in the moment!

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Humans like routine because it’s predictable (aka evolutionarily advantageous). So anything that interferes with said routine can be perceived as a threat. Unfortunately, trying to avoid chaos altogether would be a fruitless effort, and increase stress trying to accomplish the impossible. Instead, it’s most useful to optimize (not perfect) your surroundings to buffer for when the chaos strikes.

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How can we set ourselves up to be best prepared for chaos?
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1. Limit the chaos within your control– turn off your notifications and prune your email!!!!! We are constantly surrounded by input from our phones, the news, and the media. It may seem trivial, but when they chronically light up your phone with bad news and fleeting dopamine hits, they add up. Turn off all of the notifications that aren’t absolutely essential to give yourself more bandwidth to deal with the rest of the world.

2. Refine your systems– most of our days can be optimized to operate within a set of rules. On work days, you wake up at the same time, work out at the same time, prep your meals in the same way… if you have systems in place to make these automatic, you limit the chaos and effort needed in your day-to-day.

3. Balance– balance chaos with structure. If you know you have a stretch coming up that will entail chaos, adhere to a stricter schedule while you can. I knew last week my schedule was going to differ from my normal routine (workout, sleep, and learning wise), so the week prior and after, I set up to buffer for that. While it doesn’t make up for true consistency, it mentally helps to know you did your best surrounding that schedule.

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We’ll never be able to avoid chaos completely. But we also know chaos is inevitable and cannot use it as a chronic excuse for why we’re not reaching our goals. What chaos in your life can you better prepare for?
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If you found some value in this, please share it with a friend you think would enjoy it! And let me know if you’d like to be added to get TGIM.​
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This week, my podcast recommendation is new from Science Vs. “Memory: How to Boost It.”

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With that, good luck making it through the chaos this week!

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Until next time,
Shannon