My Journey From Complete Chaos To Complete Clarity

I’ve always been interested in self development.

Since I can remember myself, I had a strong curiosity for almost everything. How things work, what they do, what this or that is, how do you apply it, where, in which way – literally everything. And although it might sound great, it gets super overwhelming.

Why?

Because your mind becomes a chaotic storage.

Which as a result means – your life (at times) becomes chaotic.

You start losing or lacking – clarity.

You get distracted by any new information that sparks dopamine in your brain.

Don’t get me wrong, having a curious mind, is one of the best things you can have.

You get to learn and know a lot of stuff about a lot of things.

But if you are not careful, what you also get is – thousands of TBs of information stored in your brain (hard drive).

Most of you might not have this problem.

But I am willing to bet you are battling the chaotic rhythm of life – in one way or another.

Because, let’s be honest, these days, everything and everyone is fighting for our attention.

From the moment our alarm goes off in the morning, the world starts bombarding us.

Emails.

Friends.

Neighbours.

Postman.

News.

Colleagues.

Clients.

Social Media.

Kids.

Spouse.

etc.

Everybody and everything are fighting to get our attention.

That chasing AND running, if you don’t take conscious measures to protect yourself – it’s exhausting.

That exhaustion creates chaos.

And that chaos, of course, leads to a lack of time, clarity, and pleasure in doing anything.

We have become a slave to our own life (and calendar).

No surprise we don’t have time (or energy) to read a book, meditate, take up a new hobby, or learn something new.

So how do we fix this?

How do we go from chaos to complete clarity – and most importantly, to a life lived in flow?

The answer is – systems.

Before having systems, my life was a chaotic mess (most of the time).

I went from a life where I was:

• Feeling distracted.
• Always having a scattered day.
• Always fatigued because of the chaos in my life (and business).
• Always felt like life was getting in the way.
• Always was reactive rather than proactive.
• I didn’t know how to build a habit that ACTUALLY sticks.
• And any attempt to build discipline and consistency in my life – always failed.

To a place of complete clarity.

All until I started implementing – systems.

Having systems in my life, allowed me to have structure.

It allowed me to not only be more proactive but also to buy back a lot of my time.

Systems were the missing link to connect my ideas to actions.

Before I continue, let me say this.

You don’t need to be an engineer, or have any technical knowledge to build (and implement) systems in your life.

And no – systems are not just FOR business.

To build systems in your life, you’ve got to first understand where you are right now, where you are heading and what you are trying to achieve.

And the best way I found to do this is through a simple three-step framework I’ve developed for myself.

The beauty of it is that it’s so simple and effective; it can be applied to literally any area of life.

The 3-step framework is:

• Pause
• Reflect
• and then – Act.

To know what to act upon, you first gotta – Pause.

Take a break and just breathe for a moment.

Like become truly and fully conscious of your breath.

Be in the ‘here’ and the ‘now’ for a moment.

Don’t focus on anything else except your breath.

Ground yourself for a moment – and come back to your centre.

Most of our problems nowadays can be traced back to the fact that we have just left our centre.

So take a moment to – pause.

Once you’ve grounded yourself, now it’s time to – Reflect.

But don’t start right away with your current situation.

Because the chances are that your current situation is very scattered. It’s a mess.

So you have to reverse-engineer the process and work backwards.

Start by assessing where you are trying to get to.

What is the goal you are trying to achieve?

What is the challenge that you are trying to tackle?

What does that ideal life look like?

Either draw a mental picture in your mind, or write it down in as many details as possible.

Once finished, you can then go back and assess your current life.

If it’s hard to do it – take a week in which you track every single thing you do throughout the day.

• What time do you wake up?
• What’s the first thing you usually do in the morning?
• What’s the second?
• What does your morning routine look like?
• What do you eat?
• When do you pick up your phone for the first time?
• How much do you spend on it? (still – just in the morning)
• What time do you leave home?
• How long is your commute?

Literally everything.

Do it for a week.

Imagine if there were a filming crew following you every day for a whole week.

What would that movie look like?

Track everything.

Write down every single thing.

That will give you a detailed blueprint of how you currently spend your life.

You’ll be able to assess AND understand where you are losing your time (and energy) the most.

Once finished, you now have a complete map of your day (and time spent).

Remember – we all get the same 24 hours a day.

The reason it feels like some people have a much easier ride through life, is purely because they are better at managing that exact amount of time that we all do.

That’s all.

Now from the insights you’ve got from your tracking exercise, identify what is currently holding you back.

• Is it endless scrolling on social media?
• Is it a lack of preparation for the day ahead?
• Is it unclear priorities?

In the beginning, start with only one area/thing you want to improve (systemise).

One that you feel would significantly impact your life.

For me, it was my morning routine.

Because I knew that every single time I had a proper consistent morning routine (in the past), I always felt great.

I achieved a lot with much more ease, and my whole day always felt like a success.

I still believe that for 95% of people, the #1 missing link lies in the way they start their day.

But you can pick any other area or thing you want to systemise.

• Your morning routine.
• Your productivity at work.
• Your evening relaxation.
• Or even your weekend activities.

Just pick one.

Once you are clear on what area you want to systemise, now it’s time to – Act.

Now it’s time to design a simple system around it.

Let’s go back to my morning routine.

Every time I didn’t have a proper morning routine, my life (and day) felt chaotic and reactive.

So I went through the exact same process.

Pause

I took a day off to assess what I am currently doing and how I currently spend my mornings.

I did a short 10-min meditation to ground myself, so I can better assess it with a clear mind.

I wrote down on paper everything I currently do from the moment my alarm goes off.

Reflect

I then designed and defined what my ideal morning would look like.

How I would love it to be.

For me it was:

• Wake up at 5 am.
• Take a cold shower.
• Do 3-rounds of Wim Hof breathing exercises.
• Meditate for 40 min – 1 hr.
• Journal for 5 min.
• Do a visualisation exercise aligned with my goals.
• Hit the gym.
• AND – DO NOT PICK UP THE PHONE UNTIL 9 am.

Act

I then set practical steps to implement immediately:

– Go to sleep earlier the night before.
– Switch off Wi-Fi around 8:30 pm – allowing myself 1.5 hours away from blue light before sleep.
– Put the phone away from the bed. Place a bottle of water next to it (that way I have to get out of bed to turn off the alarm. I then immediately switch on the lights and drink a glass of water right away – to wake myself up).
– From 8:30 to 9 pm, have my evening hygiene routine (shower, face, teeth, etc).
– By 9 pm be in bed.
– Turn on the red light. (*Red light therapy helps regulate your body’s circadian rhythm and helps your body naturally produce more melatonin. This makes it easier to fall asleep and stay asleep.)*
– Journal for five minutes.
– Read a book until falling asleep. (always something light – never motivational, business, sales, etc. – I don’t want to get my brain pumped again)
– By 10 pm (sometimes even earlier) my brain is drifting smoothly towards sleep.

That’s my morning/evening routine.

That’s my system.

It’s the exact same process I use to systemise my morning, afternoon and evening (as well as all the things in-between).

From here, I can either leave it as it is, or go as granular as I want.

Now go and test your designed system for a week.

Whatever it may look like.

And at the end of the week, pause again, reflect on what worked and what didn’t, and then iterate.

Remember, the power of systems lies not in their complexity, but in their simplicity and adaptability.

I am always in favour of simplicity.

That’s why I love systems.

By implementing small, manageable systems, you will soon realise that clarity and calmness become your new norm.

You will realise that chaos doesn’t have to define your life.

Systems can help you:

• Have more time for what you love – whether it’s a hobby, project or friends and family.
• Reclaim your energy – so you can finally work ON the business rather than IN the business.
• Become the CEO of your life – rather than its Manager.
• Escape the rat race AND get rid of the Groundhog Day syndrome.
• Get to be proactive with your life rather than reactive.
• Get a good dose of good dopamine and less cheap dopamine.
• Have more freedom.
• Move away from feeling overwhelmed to achieving complete clarity.

So go and start today.

Because clarity isn’t found, it’s built.

One intentional step at a time.

And remember, your ideal life is just one system away.

So – Pause. Reflect. Act

P.S.

If you are interested in finding clarity in your life, consider signing up to my newsletter.
When you do, as a signing bonus, I will send you my Pause. Reflect. Act. mini-journal. It will help you find clarity by self-reflecting through questions.
It’s a thoughtfully crafted guide packed with over 30+ powerful self-reflection questions. – I’ve collected these questions over a period of 8 years.