Clickless in Costa Rica: What I learned from my non-existent epiphany.

I have a confession to make. I have never had that moment where everything "clicked."

You know the trope: I was doing x, y, z and burned out and exhausted and then, while sitting on a beach in Costa Rica, everything "clicked" and the meaning of life revealed itself.

Yeah, that never happened to me.

Instead, I tried stuff.
Sometimes the stuff worked. Sometimes the stuff didn't work. Sometimes the stuff worked for a while and then tanked hard. Never did the Costa Rican meaning-of-life-gods grace me with their insight. (Then again, maybe I just didn't stay in the ice bath long enough).

In the absence of divine intervention, I was blessed with extensive experimentation. And from those experiments, I learned a few lessons.

First, for many of us (dare I say, most of us), insight isn't instant. It comes in the reflection. In the understanding. In the unraveling and the rebuilding.

Second, lessons don't come with labels. It's our job to label them.

Third, when things didn't work it's not because they were bad. Its because they just didn't suit... me.
Or, at least, the version of me that existed at that time.

What's Your Decision Making Currency?

As I parsed through the lessons of my trials and errors, I noticed a common pattern. The choices that wore me out often looked good on paper but were ones I talked myself into.

• The job that paid great but was misaligned with my passion.

• The cut & color every five weeks like clockwork so I looked the part.

• The marathon I ran after my divorce to prove ... I don't know ... what does a marathon prove?

And when I looked at those choices side by side, I realized they all had one thing in common: they cost me more energy than they were worth. Even if I was paid well, even if I looked good, even if I held that finisher medal, they weren't worth the energy it took to get there.

Other decisions didn't suffer the same flaw. That week-long trial I'd conducted on five hours of sleep a night? I'd do it again in a heartbeat.
Routine pedicures even though no one ever sees my feet... yup, sign me up.
The marathon I ran to raise money for cancer research... bring on the post-race bananas!

So why the difference? Well, since I'd learned that lessons don't come with labels, I have to label it. The label I give it is "decision making currency."

When I took action based on external decision making currency--money, how I "should" look, what a marathon "proves," I might have succeeded, but I found myself exhausted.

When I took action based on internal decision making currency--work I'm passionate about, indulgent self-care, fundraising for a cause I care about--the exact same effort, sometimes even far more effort, not only generated better results, but also left me energized.

My "wins" had little to do with the choices I made and everything to do with the energy those choices returned.
With each win, I could point to a positive energetic ROI.

Energy as Decision Making Currency

When I started creating Stack the Deck, I knew the suits would reflect the fundamental areas of life (health, self, wealth and relationships). When I unlocked the idea of energy as decision making currency--a way to decide how to play your cards--it revealed something I didn't expect.

Last week, I talked about how a deck of cards represents both the finite arrangement of what is and the infinite possibilities of what can be. Other programs that I've worked with always seemed geared towards either optimizing the finite (money, appearance, titles) or accessing the infinite (woo-woo energy).

Energy as decision making currency is the bridge between the two.

At the end of the day, we cannot control or change the cards life deals to us. But, when we use energy as our decision making currency, we can change how we play those cards. Instead of responding with "what am I supposed to do with this?" we can get to a place of saying "I know exactly what I'm supposed to do with this."

And when you know exactly what you're supposed to do with the cards life deals you, you're free to just enjoy your time in Costa Rica.

No life altering clicks required.