When Success Creates A New Kind Of Stuck

The Post-Success Paradox: How to Break Decision Fatigue and Find Your Next "North Star"

Why does hitting a massive goal—like a World Championship or a Hall of Fame induction—sometimes leave you feeling more paralyzed than ever? In this vulnerable and high-energy episode of the Living Lucky® Podcast, Jason and Jana Shelfer pull back the curtain on the "post-achievement slump." If you are currently drowning in a sea of "What’s next?" or feeling exhausted by decision fatigue, this conversation is your liferaft.

We explore the reality of mental exhaustion—the hidden cost of playing "life chess" six moves ahead. Learn why having the best self-help tools doesn't always prevent the "fog," and why your soul’s need to grow, learn, expand, and evolve can sometimes feel like a heavy burden of choice.

In This Episode:

• Identify Decision Fatigue: Understand why your brain "shuts down" after a day of analyzing options and how to stop the cycle.
• Master the "12-Hour Walk" Principle: Use stillness and forward motion to clear mental static and surface the "signal" from your inner voice.
• Rebuild Momentum through Routine: How habit stacking and predictable schedules cut through the noise and restore your mental capacity.
• Reframe Recurring Patterns: Discover why "being here before" isn't a backslide—it’s a retest for a version of you that is now faster, cleaner, and better.

Living Lucky® Wisdom Nuggets:

• Don't Sit at the Feast Forever: Celebration is necessary, but the soul craves progress. If you feel stuck, it’s a sign you’re ready for a new "door."
• Pick a Door and Walk: Over-analysis is the enemy of clarity. Sometimes the "right" move is simply any move that creates momentum.
• The "Void" and the Signal: When you can't hear God or your inner voice, it’s usually because your "busyness" has created too much white noise. Stillness isn't a luxury; it’s a strategy.

Stop wondering if you've lost your edge and start trusting your evolution. Hit play to turn your post-success funk into an upward success cycle!

Personal development, self-help, mindset coaching, decision fatigue, post-achievement slump, positive thinking, Living Lucky, How to get clarity after reaching a goal, mental exhaustion from overthin

Transcript

A New Month And New Energy

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. Good morning. It's time to rise and shine. Good morning. Good morning. I hope you're feeling fine, fine, fine.

Jana Shelfer 0:24

I have no idea what key was in.

Jason Shelfer 0:26

Good morning. I'm Jason.

Jana Shelfer 0:28

No idea what Nodi start on, but it was so magically delicious.

Jason Shelfer 0:31

It was different.

Jana Shelfer 0:32

Thank you for that. Thank you for starting us off with a little pep and a little cheer this morning.

Jason Shelfer 0:38

I just feel the different energy today.

Jana Shelfer 0:41

I love that.

Jason Shelfer 0:43

It's a new month.

Jana Shelfer 0:44

It is. It's April 1st, and we're not all about playing any kind of April Fool's joke on anything.

Jason Shelfer 0:50

No jokey jokey. Okay, we kind of are a little joke. I'm a little jokey jokey sometimes.

When Winning Leaves You Stuck

Jana Shelfer 0:54

But you're safe with us today. Because what we're talking about, and we're gonna get really vulnerable today and very real. Jana has had this little funk this year.

Jason Shelfer 1:10

I can smell it.

Jana Shelfer 1:12

Oh, stop.

Jason Shelfer 1:16

April Fools, just kidding.

Jana Shelfer 1:18

I so we've been doing this podcast now for almost six years. I have been a proponent of self-development and in really deep diving self-development since 2015, once I left my career as a radio broadcaster. And before that, I look back at my upbringing, it's almost like this was my stars. It's been part of my life. My dad was a coach, and so he often was leading teams, and so I got to see some of those positive mental attitudes.

Jason Shelfer 1:56

You married a guy that was in sales and constantly going to Tony Robbins events and at least the power.

Jana Shelfer 2:01

It has just been part of my North Star. Now, this year, I know the tools, I have the tools in my back pocket. I'm married to one of the best mindset coaches in the world. And yet, this year, coming off of a world championship.

Jason Shelfer 2:19

I mean, the end of last year was getting inducted into the Olympic Paralympic Hall of Fame.

Jana Shelfer 2:25

I've had a very hard time in getting clarity. Almost to the point where it has paralyzed me. And that's a very odd word for me to use. But it has paralyzed me on which way to go next. Everyone keeps saying, What's next for Jana and Jason? And to decide that has been very challenging for me. Jason is more like, let's just pick a door. Pick a door. Go through it.

Jason Shelfer 2:54

Well, I get it though, because when I when I left corporate America, or actually it was it was probably four years, four or five years before I left corporate America. Yes, I had set all these really big goals for myself. Like goals that I thought were were monstrous.

Jana Shelfer 3:13

We call those wigs, wildly improvable. Improbable goals. However, we make them possible.

Jason Shelfer 3:18

Yes. And I'd hit them. And so because I'd hit them, there there now had come in this enormity of uncertainty, and also where do I go from here? Like what's like what's next? And this underlying current of I've arrived.

Jana Shelfer 3:38

Yes.

Jason Shelfer 3:38

So it's a it's one of these, it's a it's a lot mixed in here because A, there's a little bit of exhaustion in this undercurrent.

Jana Shelfer 3:47

Yes. I felt that.

Decision Fatigue And Mental Exhaustion

Jason Shelfer 3:50

And this feeling of quote unquote, I've arrived. So I really just want to kind of go in the backyard, raise a beer, like raise a toast to the arrival, and kind of just relax for a minute and celebrate myself and celebrate life and be grateful for the moment. But you can't sit at the feast forever. Correct. And because your soul is going, yes, more please.

Jana Shelfer 4:22

Yes.

Jason Shelfer 4:22

You know, and it's like, it's like, look what you've you have to kind of kind of go, look at what you've done, and look what look at what is available, and look at all this wonderment out here. Let's go.

Jana Shelfer 4:34

No, I think our number one job coming to this earthly planet is to grow, learn, expand, and evolve. Yes. I think that is our number one job.

Jason Shelfer 4:44

And sometimes we just get caught up in the in the maybe maybe it's the celebration, and it's celebrating's fine, but it's staying in it, and then also lack of or too many choices.

Walking And Stillness For Clarity

Jana Shelfer 4:57

Yes. For me, it's overwhelmed with choices. Which way do I go? Which way? And you know, up to now, everything's been so great. I I want to make sure I make the right decision. But they're all right decisions. But what I have what what I really wanted to talk about today in this podcast is that I have spent so much energy in finding mental clarity. I have spent so much energy to where the day ends, or you know, for me, like six o'clock rolls around, and I'm like, I am exhausted. I need to go lay down and go to bed. And it's because I've been spending my days analyzing choice trying to figure it out. It's like I'm playing chess with my life, and I'm I'm trying to figure out okay, well, if I make this move, that's because you play six moves ahead. Well, I do, I do, but I just I just want people to know that there is this, it's almost unraveling the yarn in some sort of thing.

Jason Shelfer 6:04

And looking at the knots, and yeah, it's it's really it's interesting. Well, you're an artist too.

Jana Shelfer 6:09

Yeah, like I've been doing this piece where I've been using this rugging technique, and I had to take a what do you call it?

Jason Shelfer 6:21

Is it I don't know what it's called, but it was a ball. It's a big old wall a wad. Is it called a wad of yarn?

unknown 6:28

Whatever it is.

Jana Shelfer 6:29

Someone someone listening is gonna know exactly what it's called. Um, my mind is going blank for some reason, but I had to take this yarn and then I had to put it into a ball before you could even start.

Jason Shelfer 6:41

So you kind of got to wind it into what you've got three hours.

Jana Shelfer 6:44

It took me from Don't drop it, don't drop it to Tallahassee to get it in a ball. So you do want to be. Jason had no idea what I was doing back there, but I'm like, I'm not getting very much problem.

Jason Shelfer 6:56

She's identifying as a cat right now.

Jana Shelfer 6:59

And it feels to me like I've been doing little things like that where I don't see much progress, and then I see how much energy I've expended in just trying to get mental clarity of what I want to do next.

Jason Shelfer 7:14

I think that's so there's a book that uh one of my coaches put me onto called The 12-hour walk.

Jana Shelfer 7:20

Yeah, that's right.

Jason Shelfer 7:21

And I think that's where um we allow ourselves to get into a place where we don't take a walk, or uh I've almost said walkmen. I don't I know walkmans don't really exist anymore. I just dated myself, but you don't take it's pretty fun to date you. Right. Well, there you go. Thank you. We don't take our cell phones, we don't take anything. I mean, you might take something for safety, but you turn off the world and you just go for a 12-hour walk. And in that time of aloneness and forward progression, your brain is gonna automatically start clearing out noise, clearing out some of the talking plugs.

Jana Shelfer 8:08

Mental static.

Jason Shelfer 8:09

The mental static and the mental just white noise that's just constantly rushing in. Yes, and it's going to start helping you move into clarity so it's not so mentally draining, pushing it out.

Jana Shelfer 8:23

Yes.

Jason Shelfer 8:24

It lets you walk towards it. Almost like in the Joe Dispensas walking the um meditations.

Jana Shelfer 8:30

Yes, I love those.

Jason Shelfer 8:32

So, and it's and it's a long walk. I mean, that's a it's I I would say it's not something you want to just go out and do right up front, that 12-hour walk. I did that in at the Camino de Santiago.

Jana Shelfer 8:44

And you had blisters and shin splints and a lot of tears.

Jason Shelfer 8:49

Yeah, so I would say you build up to it, but time spent alone, time spent in the stillness with yourself. A lot of people can't spend five minutes in stillness with themselves.

Routines That Cut The Noise

Jana Shelfer 9:01

Okay, so I want to piggyback off of that. Last night you went to your group that you go to on Tuesday nights. So I was here alone in the house, and I shut the TV off, and I actually climbed into bed, and I thought, you know what, I'm gonna do some meditations, and I'm really gonna just get into my void, is what what I call it. So I did that, and even in the void, it's like I'm having trouble hearing either my inner voice or God speaking to me. I'm having trouble um detecting the signal.

Jason Shelfer 9:44

Yeah. And and I think that is one of the so this is a a truth moment. So moment of truth in everything that we've had going on. So we've been extremely busy, we've adjusted our routines, and I think this is where practice makes progress. And I've uh I've created so much, I've put too much capacity into our schedule, or we have, that we haven't had a routine of our meditation, our own.

Jana Shelfer 10:17

Yeah, we've gotten a little out of the routine where we're trying to do that.

Jason Shelfer 10:21

And we do it different times of the day. Yeah.

Jana Shelfer 10:24

So one of the things that there's mental fatigue there.

Jason Shelfer 10:26

Yes. So when your brain knows, hey, this is what's next. This is the whole habit stacking and all that. That's there's something powerful in that because it cuts the decision fatigue down, right?

Jana Shelfer 10:38

Correct.

Jason Shelfer 10:38

And when we were doing that, we were like running on all cylinders, and it didn't feel so exhausting.

Jana Shelfer 10:46

Because we both had had we were in stake.

Jason Shelfer 10:49

Yeah, and we knew what was next. Yes, it was almost like we were.

Jana Shelfer 10:53

Sandwiches. Oh, sentences.

Jason Shelfer 10:56

So we knew we knew almost where, even if we were apart, we knew where to meet up again.

unknown 11:01

Yeah.

Jason Shelfer 11:02

Which was really cool because you could skip the phone call, or we could skip whatever, because we knew, okay, well, at as soon as this is done, we're gonna meet back at the meditation room, or we're gonna meet back at the podcast studio. Right. You know, wherever we're gonna be. So that made it almost simplified life and also created this momentum. So we kind of got busy again, like people do, yes, being busy, but also creating things in our lives.

Jana Shelfer 11:30

We we did. We got busy being busy, however, some of that busyness has been unraveling the yarn so that I mean in some ways it feels like we've taken a step and a half backwards. However, we're doing that so that we can maybe declutter, organize, and find clarity to move forward in a more efficient manner.

Patterns Repeat Until You Upgrade

Jason Shelfer 11:55

Yeah, and someone mentioned that, which is so funny that this is coming up today because we haven't talked about this, but it was mentioned last night that a lot of times in life we'll think we're taking a step back or it will look like we're taking that step back.

Jana Shelfer 12:07

Yes.

Jason Shelfer 12:08

But what's happening is we are seeing something again in our life because we've learned how to handle it differently differently and quicker and better.

Jana Shelfer 12:20

It's so weird. I sometimes find, I'm like, I've been here before. I I really have come to the this is a whole nother podcast, but I've come to the belief that that patterns of my life recirculate. And I'm like, I've been here in this in my lifetime, in this like 50 years on my life, I have had this exact scenario. There may be different characters in it, but this it's like the universe is saying, Okay, are you ready to handle this?

Jason Shelfer 12:52

Yeah, and so we'll tell ourselves this story of this this is the situation that beats me down, or this is this this is something I've already conquered once. I will conquer it better and faster this time. Oh my god. And that's that's a that's a different story.

Jana Shelfer 13:08

Oh yes, because we know the path.

Jason Shelfer 13:10

Yes, and we know the path.

Jana Shelfer 13:12

We may have not not navigated it very well, we may have fallen down the hill.

Jason Shelfer 13:16

Yeah, we may have skipped, we may have a scar from it from before, but we made it through.

Jana Shelfer 13:20

And we're gonna get a little higher this time because we know where to look for the pitfalls.

Jason Shelfer 13:26

Yes, 100%.

Jana Shelfer 13:27

Oh my gosh. See, I'm so glad I had this conversation with you. I am married to a brilliant man. Thank you, Jason.

Jason Shelfer 13:33

I'm married to a brilliant woman.

Jana Shelfer 13:35

Oh nuts.

Closing Thoughts And Where To Go

Jason Shelfer 13:37

I'm so glad you didn't follow that with April Fool's Day.

Jana Shelfer 13:39

Oh thanks for joining us. Keep Living Lucky®. Bye-bye. If the idea of Living Lucky® appeals to you, visit us at LivingLucky.com.