5 Ways To Improve Your Life Amid Chaos — Choosing Peace

 

Right now, you’ve not gotten it all together. You’re in a state of confusion, stress, anxiety, depression, and even self-hate. It feels like the world is against you, when you try to move in one direction, you’re pushed into another direction. 

When you decide to try new things, it feels like the worst decision. The people around you aren’t there anymore. You’re just hanging by a thin thread, breaking down at the smallest inconvenience. You’re always asking “What have I done to deserve this?” Sincerely, you’ve done nothing wrong. Life just has a way of tossing us about.

First of all, breathe. Now, always keep this in mind, “Everything you face now is just a challenge molding you for success. They’re just roadblocks. If you can pass through them, you will succeed.” The confusion, the people that come and go, and the packages that come with the chaos are all stepping stones to your big win. 

Have you ever noticed something peculiar about these challenges? They always teach you a lesson and help you grow. That’s your life taking shape. 

These five tips I will share won’t save you from chaos, rather; they will help you maintain peace during chaos.

1.Create a Routine: Having a routine is more than having a schedule, it’s a lifesaver and a game-changer. The question is how? A routine organizes your life and your everyday activities. It tells you when to wake up, eat, clean, take a break, and the list goes on. 

When you create a routine, you quiet the chaos and eliminate the one thing that robs you of peace — confusion. You know those mornings when you’re rushing everything, with no time to pray, or barely thinking straight. Or the days when you’re too lazy to do anything and the day ends without purpose, not because you have nothing to do, but because you’re too tired or unmotivated to do it. 

A routine helps you create a pattern for your life, even when motivation isn’t there, it builds momentum. Let me give you a perfect example. Boarding schools work with routines. Every day has its own activities and is carefully structured. Every minute is accounted for. If the break is supposed to end by 12 p.m, it won’t extend for a minute. Any defaulter gets punished. This might be strict but it is the structure that keeps the school running, saving them from confusion or chaos. 

The moment you choose to work with a routine, you’ve chosen peace. You’ve chosen to be intentional with your life and you’ve chosen clarity even in storms.

2. Control Your Inputs: The things you do daily have their own way of shaping or damaging you. If you’ve been on the phone all day, for example, the moment you drop that phone, everything turns blurry. You’re scattered. Nothing makes sense anymore and you might end the day unfulfilled. Your mind is a collector of information. If you feed it positive ones, you thrive positively. If you feed it negative ones, they reflect in your behavior. 

Your mind is like a sponge that soaks up everything around it. It collects everything you give to it, it doesn’t differentiate the good ones from the bad ones. Activities like scrolling through social media, getting caught up in negativity, talking ill about others or having toxic conversations or relationships drain you.

What you feed your mind matters a lot. You need to be intentional about it. Guard your input because your mind is always listening. Protect your mental health. Engage in activities like journaling, reading, meditating, listening to good music or podcasts, as they send positive signals to your brain. These activities shape your life, reduce stress and improve the state of your mental health. When you choose inputs that bring clarity to your life, such as praying, meditating, reading the Bible, or even silence, you create room for peace and stability in chaos. 

3. Stay Positive: Again, there’s one thing we overlook as unimportant or irrelevant — speaking positively. Saying things like, “I’m lazy, I’m unimportant, my life is messed up, I don’t belong here,” damages your mind. It stops any attempts to get better. It leaves you wallowing in self-pity and anger. Since you say you’re lazy, you leave everything unattended. Because you’ve assured yourself that you’re unimportant or that your life is a mess, you fail to make efforts to improve it.

It’s time to stop it. Start speaking positivity into your life. Speak to yourself and let positive words of affirmation be your friends. When you tell yourself that you’re hardworking, then find yourself drifting toward laziness, you are called to action by your subconscious self which alerts you when your current action contradicts what you stand for. 

Talk positively, walk positively and even dress positively, your life should be surrounded by positivity. Be ruthlessly intentional about who or what you engage yourself with and how you spend your energy. Whenever you find yourself in positions or environments that will stain or contradict this feeling, walk away. Positivity helps you amid chaos. It makes you view challenges as temporary obstacles to your success.

Positivity is a moving train, and you need to be on that train. Doing the opposite ensures you sink deeper into chaos and instability. You don’t have to join every argument or drama. Protect your peace as if it’s sacred, because it is. What you tell yourself becomes your life. Speak light, speak life, speak truth and speak strength into your life, and watch your circumstances change. 

4. Declutter your space: If you want all shades of goodness, here’s my advice: remove things that no longer serve you. That stack of papers? Select the useful ones and discard the rest. Those plastic containers stashed away in the kitchen? Throw them out. 

For you, it might not be a container. It may be an old chair, a wardrobe of old clothes or a dusty table no one uses, but for some strange reason, it feels like your soul is tied to it. Please get rid of it. Release it for the sake of clarity, productivity and peace. 

Decluttering doesn’t just end at removing unnecessary items, it’s also about creating an environment where your mind can breathe. 

A cluttered environment creates mental stress and noise, while a dirty environment is chaos itself. No wonder you feel scattered and unable to focus. Little things like this have the biggest effect on your life. Staying organized increases your productivity and reduces stress. Decluttering makes it easier to start small, stay consistent and organized, even when you see cleaning as a big task. 

Bonus tip: Give everything its place. When you take something out, you make sure it’s returned to its place. This simple habit keeps things organized, reduces mental fatigue, and the stress of constantly arranging items. 

5. Practice self-care: The biggest help you can offer yourself especially in chaotic times is taking care of yourself. Sometimes,  all you need is rest. Rest from your troubles, distractions, and noise. Close your screen, take a walk, lie down, let go, and take a deep sleep, whatever works for you. Just give yourself rest. 

Water has the greatest calming effect on the mind. It is one of the best healers. Sit by a beach, a stream, or a pool, if you can. If you don’t have access to this, look for sounds of flowing water, or rain. Listen to it, and don’t think of anything else; just immerse yourself in it. Breathe. Let your mind slow down. Let peace enter. It’s the best feeling ever. 

Self care is always about the little things. Eat healthy meals, exercise regularly and pray often. Dress well and smell nice to lift your confidence. Do this not for anyone else, but for yourself, because it reminds you that you’re worthy of all love, kindness, and care. 

Dressing well lifts your spirit. A healthy lifestyle grounds your body and structure brings order. When life brings chaos your way, these simple yet powerful practices help you rise above the storm. 

Don’t ignore any of these five tips; they’re simple, tested and trusted. They may not remove the chaos, but with time, you’re definitely rising above it. So, giddy up friend, and get yourself together. 

Choose peace, choose growth. Life may give you lemons, you either take it directly or make the best out of them. The ball is in your court. I wish you the best of luck.