Navigating Chaos in Our Lives
What is my secret for engaging chaos with hopeful outcomes?
“Chaos is like the flying debris that swirls around inside our lives and the lives of those we connect with. You can either stand still and be overwhelmed, or you can reframe your situation and make something happen.” — Shay D. Potter
You can learn a lot from war. I certainly did.
As an Iraq and Afghanistan veteran, I saw firsthand chaos on a grand scale — war. My job was to study billions of raw data and forecast the opposing force’s reaction. I would soon learn that human behavior is fickle at best and unplanned surprise was imminent.
War theorist Karl von Clausewitz, studied chaos and coined the phrase ‘friction of war’ which he defined as those unpredictable and random events that happen on a battlefield. With closer study, one may note similarities between what war theorists call ‘friction of war’ and the sudden chaos we sometimes encounter in our daily lives. Both can often paralyze and render us despondent in the cloud of chaos.
So, how can everyday citizens learn to deal with and overcome the chaos presented in their lives?
We have all been there. You are casually going about your life and then… bam! You are thrown off balance. Boom! Pow! It suddenly feels like the debris of chaos and uncertainty fills your life and things begin careening out of control.
It is not lost that we all know chaos is a living phenomenon that everyone experiences if they live long enough. Like Clausewitz, we have learned several truisms of chaos.
Chaos is inevitable and ain’t nothing that a mere mortal can do about it.
Chaos is often unexpected. But you can control your reactions and get yourself through life turbulence.
Chaos is relative. The person closest to its epicenter will experience the greatest sensation of turmoil than a person miles away from the destruction.
I can hear you now, “Okay, that’s great. But that doesn’t sound like anything ‘secret’.”
I agree. But what if I tell you that even though chaos is inevitable and often out of our control, there are specific actions to affect better outcomes in your situation.
During planning, military practitioners are taught to develop ‘What if” plans that allocate reserve forces for unexpected attacks and losses. It is the age-old adage that warns of overcommitting all of your pieces without shaving something in reserves.
Additionally, military members are taught to aggressively scan our environment, identify new threats, and methodically focus on eliminating that threat. Let me break this down in a manner that can be applied in your life.
When chaos strikes and you find yourself struggling to make sense of what to do next, consider taking a three-part approach I learned from my career in the military — sense, simplify, and structure.
Sensing. Zero in on your environment and identify the source of chaos or turbulence that is disrupting your life pattern. Sensing should happen immediately once you sense uncontrollable disruption. Instead of hyper-reacting, you are consciously slowing down to read your environment — the people, their activity, noise levels, smells, your pain levels…everything. The idea is to stay calm and ground yourself. The source, you may discover, may not always originate from your external world but from inside you. For example, your negative feelings, self-talk, and other self-sabotaging behaviors are provoked from within. If that is the case, be prepared to make the necessary adjustments to lessen the mounting chaos.
Simplify. Simplify your life as much as possible while you are in the throes of chaos. We need to be most intentional about simplifying our responsibilities in the moment of survival. When you are experiencing the downward spiral of chaos, the weight of a full plate of obligations will only paralyze you and cause you to feel like you are losing ground. Simplifying down to only what is critical for us to survive, could mean placing yourself first and rendering self-aid. It is allowing yourself to stand still and take a moment to reflect. It is dumping the weight we have convinced ourselves we must carry. It is tending to your pressure points by seeking out self-care, mental therapy, medical attention, rest, and even a leave of absence. I learned, one day, that if I came upon a comrade on the battlefield with a chest-sucking wound, the best thing I could do was not cause more damage. Simplifying is akin to us stopping ourselves from causing any more chaos, and that often translates to reducing the requirements swirling around us and creating the draft of chaos. It’s not that we don’t know about simplifying our lives, but it’s disciplining ourselves to do it when unrelenting chaos strikes in our lives.
Structure. Set a habit-forming daily regimen. I’ve found that the more chaos abounds, the more structure is needed. Structure helps us create momentum, and eventually allows us to move out of the chaos surrounding us. You can establish structure by creating a routine or regimen. A regimen gives a sense of predictability, reduces decision fatigue, and sets an intentional purpose. It is the easiest way to retrain the mind’s eye to get forward progress and to stay locked in on the most important things. It allows you to focus on the most important action at the moment and mass your precious energy on that one thing. Lastly, a regimen gives you observable metrics to track progress and determine new steps. It’s about moving through the chaos and not getting stuck in it.
These are by no means new concepts but they help you analyze and adjust your perspective, mindset, focus, faith, etc. Secondly, they help you create momentum and not feel stuck. I wish I could say this is a surefire three-part method that would get you major results every time. But life is never that simple. However, I believe in the power of our thoughts, attitude, and behaviors. There is one thing that would allow us to endure chaos in our daily lives — to push through on will alone.
That secret is disciplined optimism!
Disciplined optimism allows us to attack chaos with confidence and enthusiasm. Clate and Martineau state, in Conquer the Chaos, “one must practice disciplined optimism which is confronting the problem and doing something about it dutifully is part of the equation. But then you must attack the problem with confidence and enthusiasm.”
In short, after you’ve determined an approach (eg., sensing-simplify-structure) then attack the problem with enthusiasm and confidence. We’ve all seen stories of strangers and acquaintances that were able to persevere through chaotic experiences because they often held a degree of optimism.
The military was my life for over 20 years and I’ve learned so much about dealing with the hard things in life. Chaos is no different and doesn’t have to consume you to paralysis. The next time you feel overwhelmed try applying the three actions — sensing, simplifying, and structuring. Then attack with disciplined optimism.
Be confident and more importantly enthusiastic that better days are near. In war, Clausewitz taught the military practitioners to be prepared for chaos and to set aside reserves. He knew ‘friction of war’ just like chaos was inevitable, but that with a trained and adaptable commander at the helm, they had a chance at a better outcome. Clausewitz was definitely onto something. Chaos is inevitable, but it is how you handle it that matters most.
Thanks for reading!
How have you handled unexpected chaos in your life? Tell me in the comments.
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