Choosing Your Path In A World Of Too Many Choices

The "Welmed" Dilemma: Choosing Your Soul’s Path in an Endless Aisle 🛒✨

Ever feel paralyzed by "infinite potential"? In this birthday episode of Living Lucky®, Jason and Jana Banana tackle the pressure of a decade in personal development. As awareness expands, choices multiply—making FOMO louder than ever. We trace the evolution of choice from a two-jar grocery store to the endless modern aisle. Discover why the antidote to overwhelm isn't more data, but a return to the "Now."

In this episode, you will learn to:

• Navigate Awareness Friction: Why higher consciousness makes decisions harder and how to simplify.
• Beat Shortcut Sabotage: Why AI polish can't replace the "roots" of your lived experience.
• Escape the FOMO Trap: Stop chasing every open door and find the one that "opens you."

Nuggets for Soul-Aligned Clarity:

• The Peanut Butter Principle: Abundance is a cognitive tax. Limit your frame to find your peace. (Believe in your circumstances).
• Love the Work, Not the Result: Craft is your compass. If you love the process, you're immune to lagging results. (Believe in yourself).
• Authenticity is Non-Transferable: Your path is built by the rhythm of your feet, not an algorithm. (Believe in the people around you).
• The Power of "Now": You can't backlog aliveness. Creation only happens in the present moment. (Believe in a higher power).

Stop spinning at the crossroads. Hit play to simplify your choice and start Living Lucky® today!

 Self-help, personal development, mindset, positive thinking, life coaching, decision fatigue, Overcoming FOMO and social pressure, how to choose your career path, dealing with spiritual awakening overwhelm, authenticity in the age of AI, moving from perfectionism to presence.

• "How do I choose the right path when I have too many options?" Reduce "awareness friction" by narrowing your focus to values-aligned choices. Ask: "Would I love the effort required for this on a dull Tuesday?" If the answer is yes, trust the process over the outcome and commit to the next small step.
• "What is the Reticular Activating System (RAS) in mindset?" The RAS is a bundle of nerves at our brainstem that filters out unnecessary informati

Transcript

Welcomed Into Living Lucky

Jana Shelfer 0:00

Are you ready to create a life you crave? Let's spin that doom loop of negativity into an upward success cycle and start Living Lucky®.

Jason Shelfer 0:14

Good morning.

Jana Shelfer 0:15

I'm Jana. I'm Jason. And we are Living Lucky®. You are too. I've had a morning. I'm just gonna be real.

Jason Shelfer 0:24

I almost slap Jana. Having a morning is better than not having one.

Awakening And Self-Development Journey

Jana Shelfer 0:28

Oh, it sometimes is hard to be real in this reality that I've created. We always talk about you create your reality. You recreate your reality. And 10 years ago, if you have been following us, you know that I went through a spiritual awakening. I started opening my awareness, raising my consciousness. I immersed myself with personal development. I have had so many mentors, teachers, coaches, coaches. I have read hundreds, hundreds of books, and I really felt like, you know what, I've got the answers. I'm get I am learning. I am learning. I have opened the key to a room that why hasn't someone told me about this room before?

Jason Shelfer 1:23

And when we have those aha moments, it's a it it changes the game, which also creates a complexity in the game.

Birthday Reflections And Feeling “Welmed”

Jana Shelfer 1:32

I woke up this morning. It's my birthday. I'm 51 years old today. I woke up this morning and in my meditation, it felt like I was so welmed. That's the word I like to use, not overwhelmed. I was so welmed with options and opportunities. You call them opportunities. However, you know, by not acting, you're making a choice, right? Yes. And there was something I needed deeper than the opportunities. I know the opportunities are there. I needed to know exactly what my soul wanted.

Jason Shelfer 2:12

Yes.

Small-Town Choices To Endless Options

Jana Shelfer 2:13

And where to go. And it that has been a problem for me all along. Is you know, I was telling Jason before we started this podcast. When I was younger, I grew up in a very small town, and we were very lucky to have a grocery store. In fact, other small towns would drive to our town because we had the food mart, or as we like to call it, the mood fart. Yeah.

Jason Shelfer 2:41

And this is not a big grocery store. It's a very small, this is probably to maybe 2,000 square feet.

Jana Shelfer 2:48

Now you would go to the grocery store and there would be two kinds of peanut butter. There would be jiffy and skippy.

Jason Shelfer 2:55

Skippy and skippy.

Jana Shelfer 2:56

And if you went on a certain day of the week, one of those was gonna be out, mostly jiffy. And but you had two choices, right? And then if you went later in the week, the jiffy was gonna be gone and you'd have to have skippy. Like the choice was made for you.

Jason Shelfer 3:13

Right.

Jana Shelfer 3:14

And really, you would you would still be happy though, because I got to have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches every morning for breakfast. Right. Which was my go-to until I was about 18. I love it. Then as time went on, you know, like when I turned nine, 10, maybe even 11, they started coming out with extra crunchy peanut butter.

Jason Shelfer 3:36

Yeah, super creamy, fat-free.

Jana Shelfer 3:38

Super creamy, low fat, whatever. No sugar at it. There were so many, I'm like, wow, there's a lot of variables of Jiffy. Then when I went to college, there started to be this new mix that came out where they would actually put the jelly inside peanut butter.

Jason Shelfer 3:58

Yeah, so in camps for me, when they mixed the peanut butter and jelly and slathered that on some wonder bread, okay.

Jana Shelfer 4:06

I loved it. Jason's salivating over here.

Information Overload And Health Confusion

Jason Shelfer 4:09

It was just because I didn't have it wasn't the dryness that I often found in peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but I'm I'm getting off topic because of it.

Jana Shelfer 4:16

Because, right, we're losing the point of my story. My point of the story is now I go to the grocery store and there's almond butter. There's probably a thousand peanut butter. The peanut butter aisle has now become a whole aisle.

Jason Shelfer 4:31

At least a whole universe within itself.

Jana Shelfer 4:33

Half. Half of a whole aisle at public.

Jason Shelfer 4:37

You can't even walk down to the thing, it takes forever.

Jana Shelfer 4:40

And I'm like, I don't know what I want. So I start trying to read the back labels. What's and there's so much, I don't know what these words mean. There's so much to read. And I think, okay, well, maybe I want Martha's peanut butter. Right. Or Martha's almond butter. Uncle Eddie's. Maybe that would be healthier for me. However, they have now convoluted the names of the ingredients that I don't even know what's good for me anymore.

Jason Shelfer 5:10

Right.

Jana Shelfer 5:10

I don't know what is healthy and what isn't. People say eat healthy. I don't even really know what that means.

Jason Shelfer 5:18

What am I putting in my body?

Paths, Roads, And Decision Fatigue

Jana Shelfer 5:20

There's so much information out there, and half of it is true. My whole point is that as we open our awareness, it almost feels like I have developed some sort of ADHD. Well, I think because I attention, I have this attention deficit because there's so much to pay attention to. And it almost feels like a weapon that the advertising companies and the politicians, the news, it almost feels like a weapon that they are using on my subconscious mind, throwing so much information at me that I don't even know what to pay attention to anymore.

Jason Shelfer 6:07

Yeah, well, there's that there's a whole thing around that. And I think what happens is when we open up our awareness, we see more paths. Like even back when early settlers came to the United States or the Americas, they would go west and they would take a trail. Like somebody blazes the trail. Right. And then everyone else follows that trail. There's one way. There's really one way to get to the West where you like, okay, it's safe. Somebody's done it before. I'm going to follow that trail. Then you create a road system. And now there's all these different paths that are possible. Now you have to start making decisions and choosing, okay, which path do I want to take?

Jana Shelfer 6:49

I am welmed with possibilities.

Jason Shelfer 6:51

And that's the thing.

Jana Shelfer 6:53

I am welmed with the term infinite potential.

Jason Shelfer 6:57

Yes.

Standing Out, FOMO, And Social Pressure

Jana Shelfer 6:58

I am welmed with the AI technology that is developing to where it feels like the world is becoming more and more autonomous. We are becoming more homogeneous. And yet it feels like opportunities are available to anyone and everyone.

Jason Shelfer 7:21

Yep.

Jana Shelfer 7:21

So it's harder and har it's becoming harder to make your own unique individual path. And that could just be a limiting belief that I am experiencing. But that is what I'm feeling right now.

Jason Shelfer 7:34

So it feels harder to stand out in a crowd, is what it what it turns out to be, is we have so many decisions to make, and also we've been ingrained with FOMO.

Jana Shelfer 7:49

Well, I I I would so agree with that.

Jason Shelfer 7:52

We like every commercial is sells you on FOMO. Like you're not going to experience this if you don't have what we're selling you. Or if you're feeling this and you want to change that, you're not going to be able to change it unless you buy what we're selling you. I mean, there's all this FOMO that's created. So now when we have all these paths, we're hearing FOMO about not going down a specific path.

Jana Shelfer 8:19

Yes. In fact, that's one reason.

Jason Shelfer 8:22

And our soul is saying, you have your own path.

Creativity, Originality, And Being Copied

Jana Shelfer 8:24

Yes. Oh my gosh, Jason, I'm sorry to cut you off. I just I am yes, anding you. Because many times you ask me, why aren't why aren't you doing social media? Or you're very good about you know allowing me to just go radio silent. However, I know that there's something inside you that says, if you just posted, just post. There's something about being on social media that brings up something inside me to where it almost feels like, and I know this is a limiting belief, but it almost feels like when I post something, then other people emulate it or take my ideas or take my individuality. It almost feels like I'm giving away my individuality, and I know that's not true.

Jason Shelfer 9:15

Well, in this, and I think this kind of because I'm I'm such a metaphor guy. This kind of goes back to that first person that cut the path through from the East Coast to the West Coast when settlers were here. Yeah. And that person's going, I just did all this hard work, and now all these a-holes are following, they're they're taking my path. Yes. And then now that I'm tired and I'm in Wyoming or something, they're like, they're passing me.

Jana Shelfer 9:41

Yes.

Jason Shelfer 9:41

So that's a feeling I think a lot of people get.

Jana Shelfer 9:44

No, I I went on social media the other day, and there's like three people in wheelchairs that are now trying to uh emulate my wheel covers. And I know that I mean it's it's a hubcap. Hubcaps have been around for in cars for years, right? However, I have really honed in and made this my special thing where I put my art and my work and my love into this.

Jason Shelfer 10:11

And it there's something that feels it makes me feel the the so I think what it is is other people take sh are taking shortcuts to catch up to where you are.

Loving The Work Over Chasing Shortcuts

Jana Shelfer 10:25

Yes, yes, I mean that's uh so there's two things that we're talking about today. There's so many opportunities, so many um infinite potential ideas out there. So it's filtering which ones that are really meant for my soul, and then secondly, pursuing those and knowing that I've put the work in.

Jason Shelfer 10:52

And I I think where you just said you put the work in, I think it's it's loving the work. Like it like find that thing that takes you down the path where you love the work. So the guy that was cutting the path west n had this urge to move and expand and explore.

Jana Shelfer 11:09

Yes.

Jason Shelfer 11:10

He it was hard. I mean, it's hard cutting a swath across America. Yes, it's it's a long way and it was not pretty, it wasn't tame, anything. But he had that need, he loved it, and he went until he couldn't. He but you have to enjoy that journey. It can't just be where like if he's going, where does this end? He's gonna go all the way.

Jana Shelfer 11:34

You are so speaking to my soul right now because I look back at, you know, I started really diving into video editing, and I have done so many classes, so much work, thousands of hours, hours and my money and my time of learning to edit and tell stories and to really put them out there.

Jason Shelfer 11:55

And now it feels like buy this app, type what in you type what you want in, they'll create it all. You don't even have you don't even have to go out and do the experience. We can make it look like you did the experience.

Jana Shelfer 12:07

Yes.

AI, Authenticity, And Real Experience

Jason Shelfer 12:07

And you're gonna you see a lot of that on social media. Is and that's where it's like, okay, well, and what am what am I looking at here? Is am I looking at my friends actually doing it? Because when did they do it? We've we've kind of hung out every single day.

Jana Shelfer 12:22

Yes.

Jason Shelfer 12:23

Or am I looking at what AI created for them to so it looks like they're doing it? Are they well? This goes back to people holding up a toilet seat and taking a picture on a jet. You know? Like I want to look like I'm famous, I want to look like I'm all this. You know, and it's okay. So for me, my soul says, let them like it's kind of like uh what's her name? Mel Robin. Thank you. Sorry, Mel. Says let them do that because I am I'm loving the journey that I'm on, and I'm having these experiences that are that I will find the beauty and goal and and the exhaustion, you know.

Jana Shelfer 13:01

But okay, so I love the journey as well. It just is feeling as I wake up on my birthday, my 51st birthday, it is feeling like I am just giving my 100. Right?

Fulfillment From The Journey, Not The Result

Jason Shelfer 13:20

And everyone's lined up to take a piece of it. Well, I don't want to feel that because you know, saying that out loud feels I just see other, I see so many opportunities, and I see other people uh taking these shortcuts and and getting well I'm 100% convinced that the people that are taking the shortcuts are still looking for a way to be fulfilled. They're still looking for if I get this, then I will have that. You know? Yeah, I think if we if we say, okay, well, what is it that I love about the journey I'm on? Like if we start saying, I'm gonna enjoy every single day, I'm going to, I'm going to feel that I am on my unique personal soul-driven path. And then we can enjoy that journey, that we almost bring that, we we bring that fulfillment to ourselves instead of having to say, I have to get over this next hurdle. I have to get over this next hurdle. I have to get to, I have to get to here so I can have so I can feel this, so I can experience this. And then we will always be creating a bigger, taller mountain on the other side of that.

Jana Shelfer 14:30

You, my soul, I'm weeping right now. That that was beautiful. I needed to hear that because there is this fear of being left behind or not being able to keep up with the world, and yet at the same time being paralyzed with perfection and uh potential. I know that sounds so crazy. Yeah, but uh it's like a weight paths. Well, it's a weight and not wanting to pick the wrong one. Yes, you know what I'm saying? Or or even more pressure in picking the right one.

Jason Shelfer 15:04

Uh, you know, like if I don't pick this, I won't have that. I that's a commercial.

Letting Go Of Perfection And Fear

Jana Shelfer 15:08

I want it, I want my my soul to serve its destiny, but when you just said we have to let go of all those external things and realize it's the journey, it's the process, it's enjoying what you're doing along the way, because that's what really matters.

Jason Shelfer 15:30

And like Eckhart Tolley says, it's the now is the only time of creation. Like the now is the time to experience it because if you say I'm going to, then you will always be going to.

Jana Shelfer 15:45

Yeah.

unknown 15:46

You know.

Jana Shelfer 15:47

Thank you.

Jason Shelfer 15:48

Thank you, baby. I love you. And happy birthday.

Jana Shelfer 15:52

Ah, now I get to go. Happy birthday. Thanks for joining us. Keep Living Lucky®. Bye-bye. If the idea of Living Lucky® appeals to you, visit us at LivingLucky.com.