Are we able to change our way of thinking, core values and world understanding after reaching 26 years of age? Yes. Does it become much harder and take more time? Yes. Can you keep the rate of change and development fast? Yes.

Getting older does not remove the ability to change, and while being older does generally slow down our ability to learn and develop, I believe this is an indirect consequence of becoming older rather than a genetic setup. Why?

Because generally, when we get into adulthood, our lives become much more stale and repetitive. We get into jobs that we pretend to care about, have similar routines with a smaller and smaller group of friends, our recreational hobbies shrink to a few if any, and the time or energy left for trying new things disapears.

Change without doing something new or adding chaos into your life is impossible.

I define chaos as anything that gives you more extreme feelings – the challenge of doing something difficult and new, excitement where your stomach turns, fear of failure but also eagerness of success, adrenaline and risk taking, passion so high that you cannot wait to wake up. We need chaos in our life.

Bad sources of chaos will harm rather help your growth

There are bad sources of chaos. The problem with many people is that they stay in their safety bubble and avoid chaos so much, that their craving for it leads them to bad lifestyles, habbits, and actions. For example, taking drugs or getting drunk on alcohol every weekend to feel excited and care-free. Gambling irresponsibly to feel risk-taking and adrenaline, cheating on your partner or staying in toxic relationships to feel fear and excitement that turns your stomach…

Too much chaos leads to burn out

There can also be too much chaos, even if it is all ‘positive’. Have you ever had motivation so high that you renew your gym membership, start a new business idea, become a mini-influencer, sign up to 3 new hobbies, and begin writing a novel? If you had been living a life with little chaos, it can be tempting to start many things at once. Sometimes in an attempt to ‘catch up’ or make up for missing time. This doesn’t work well and leads to burnout where you regress to old negative habits. Even if it works, it can set you up for a life where you have so much happening, that you don’t appreciate the journey.

So what is the right amount of chaos?

The boring answer is that the amount is different to everybody and depends on your circumstances. The way to bring more positive chaos in your life is to start with one main area of your life that you most desperately want to improve in, and then if you form the right habits, time management and self awareness skills to manage the tasks in that area well, you can add in secondary chaos activities.

For example, if your biggest pain point in life right now is feeling lonely or a pattern of getting into negative intimate relationships, then you can make your main point of chaos into improving relationships skills. This could be starting relationship therapy, taking new activities that either increase your chances of meeting the kind of person that is compatible with your desires or a place that improves your ability to be the perfect partner yourself. Becoming a better listener and communicator, opening up your ability to be vulnerable, practising flirting and being adventurous.

If you do this and start to notice that things are improving – you go on more dates and feel positive regardless if they go good or bad, being more confident around people you are interested in, then you can add a secondary source of chaos.

Adding in more chaos

Say that while you still have a lot to learn in relationships, you are doing as much as is possible on improving that side of life and you still feel you can manage more self growth. Forming habits around the primary chaos point by consistently doing the tasks associated for over 60 days makes it a lot easier to give yourself mental space for new chaos. An example of adding more chaos could be that you also want to imporve your health so you start a gym membership. You set a goal for going 3-4 times a week and you start slow to see how you feel.

The importance of additional chaos is that it should not affect your ability to focus on your primary goals. If it does, you need to reduce the effort and expectations from the secondary sources. If you start mixing in too many sources of chaos, then it will be harder to make progress and get the dopamine effect of seeing improvement. Without the feel good chemicals, burnout happens and you regress. So if you end up only going only once or twice to the gym but still manage to complete your relationship goals for the week, then that is still extremely good and you should not feel bad about missing the gym sessions.

Even more chaos

Now what if after a couple of months, you continue making positive progress on relationships skills and have made more positive habits of going to the gym 3-4 times a week. Gym workouts are now part of your weekly routine. You feel even better mentally and confidence is sky high because not only do you focus on relationship skills, going to the gym has made you feel better in your body. You actually wanted to go to the gym for the health benefits but you can’t help but notice that the confidence and look boost is also helping in the relationship goals too. You feel like you can take even more chaos.

So you start your own side hustle. You spend 1-2 hours a day after or before your job buying and selling antiques from ebay or public markets to make a profit. You have an interest in an certain type of collectibles and even though you are no expert, can often see some opportunities. This side hustle doesn’t make you much money at first but you don’t mind because you see yourself starting to notice trends of what sells and what doesn’t. Your sales and negotiating skills improve and you even learn a little bit about digital marketing. You feel like it might take a year or two but can definitely see yourself becoming an antiques dealer in the future because going to markets and finding bargains is exciting to you.

What next? Chaos turns into stable routine

If after a year, you have grown enough to get into a stable relationships where you love and feel loved and can see that it comes naturally to both you and your partner to help each other suceed. It almost feels automatic but still exciting as the first day you met. This opens up opportunities to change what your primary source of chaos is. Maybe now you can focus completely on that side hustle and accelerate your finances. Or you want to focus even more on health and start additional sport hobbies, maybe you need to become more sociable and better friend or family member. Either way, once your priorities change, so does the need to get more chaos. Don’t let success make you stale.

Reward yourself for your chaotic journey

That said, have periods where your routine and stableness gives you time to rest a little. Rely on your habits to keep you going but take a break from the strong emotions and just feel the progress you have made. Give yourself cheat day, go to a spa or have a relaxing holiday on the beach or mountains. Give yourself a reward and reason to chase more chaos.

Avoid chaos disruptors

During your journey of chaos, there will be what I call disruptors. Either people or things that can completely derail you from your journey, kill your enthusiasm and put you in a cycle of inaction. These can be toxic friends, family or activities that seem like progress but actually do not teach you any useful life skills. For example, even though there are people making money gambling professionally on say horse riding – you would need to be an absolute genius and have a significant interest in it to get to that level. Until then, you haven’t learned anything but can waste months if not years on something that has little transferable skills.

Similarly, if a friend or family member keeps dragging you down, even if it is of no fault of their own, you will have to make a choice. Either be limited by that person or slowly reduce interaction with them until you are free to focus on your goals. It can be really difficult and feel like abandoning people that may have been there for you in the past. But you need to have the self awareness and confidence to know when someone is no longer good for you. And maybe you will be able to help them better if you can help yourself first.