Ever had one of those weeks where you just throw all your routines out the window and dive into a pile of chocolate digestives and romance novels?
Well, that’s exactly what happened to our fabulous host, Heather Masters!
On this Fail Forward Friday, she shares how trading her usual productivity guru habits for some good ol' escapism led to a surprising transformation in her life.
Spoiler alert: embracing chaos and letting go of the rigid routines turned out to be a path to creativity and self-discovery she never saw coming!
So, grab your biscuits and settle in as we explore how sometimes, breaking the rules can actually break us through to new possibilities.
Get ready for a wild ride through the messiness of life, because who knew a billionaire CEO could teach us about abundance and joy?
What's Inside:
- The "unconscious unravelling": from morning meditations to chocolate digestives for breakfast and 2am romance novel binges
- How her perfect 18-month routine had become automatic motion without presence or awareness
- The moment "something just snapped" and she walked away from all the musts, shoulds, and have-tos
- Five romance novels in one week: "proper escapist rubbish" about billionaire CEOs and their secret babies
- The unexpected discovery: how billionaire fantasy lifestyles expanded her limited financial worldview
- Secret philanthropist heroes reprogramming her relationship with wealth—from survival to service and impact
- Day 12 breakdown: scattered, brain fog, questioning every decision since 2020
- The plot twist realization: trying to run a 2025 business with 2023 systems
Three Life-Changing Lessons:
- Sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is stop doing powerful things—when discipline becomes comfortable complacency, it's time to consciously deconstruct
- Your system knows what it needs before your mind does—the chocolate digestives weren't self-sabotage, they were her system saying "this version of discipline has become a prison"
- Strategic unconsciousness beats forced consciousness—while everyone else maintained yesterday's routines, she was discovering tomorrow's possibilities
This Week's Challenge: The Deliberate Dropout Exercise
Choose one routine that feels automatic rather than intentional. Give yourself complete permission to ignore it for seven days. Notice what wants to emerge in that space instead. Ask yourself: "What would I choose if I weren't trying to be good at this?"
Chapters:
- 00:23 - The Unraveling of Routines
- 01:04 - The Unexpected Transformation
- 05:02 - The Transformation of Wealth and Impact
- 06:51 - Lessons from Reset: Embracing Change and Discovery
- 09:32 - Trusting the Process of Change
Takeaways:
- Sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is just stop doing powerful things.
- When your routine becomes too automatic, it's a sign you've stopped growing.
- Trust your body's signals, even if they seem like self-sabotage; they might be wisdom.
- The mess in your life could actually be the key to your greatest transformation!
- Dropping your usual habits can lead to unexpected insights and creative breakthroughs.
- Sometimes chocolate digestives are exactly what your soul ordered—who knew?
Connect & Share:
- Share your own discipline-gone-wrong stories with us @ChoosingHappyPodcast
- Tag someone who needs to discover churn vs. flow
- Leave a review about what "prison discipline" you're ready to abandon
- Visit www.choosinghappypodcast.com for more stories that choose
