Hello and welcome to the Choosing Happy Podcast.

I'm Heather Masters and it is Fail Forward Friday and I need to tell you about a recent time when I traded Neville Goddard for Sherry Lowe and discovered something that challenges everything the productivity gurus tell us about success.

Now picture this.

Two, three weeks ago I completely abandoned every single routine that had kept my life together for the past two years.

Wasn't a conscious thing, it was more of an unconscious unravelling if you like.

My morning meditation was gone.

Evening worthy business books were gone, replaced with five romance novels in a week.

I actually finished all five.

The exercise routine that was a 10 minute workout that was gone and I was living on chocolate digestives for breakfast and staying up until 2am reading about fictional characters falling in love in exotic places.

And here's the plot twist.

It actually became the most transformational period I've had in years.

Stay tuned to find out why in today's Choosing Happy Podcast let me set the scene.

I was getting up early, writing my blog, making notes at 7:42am still in my pajamas with chocolate digestives for breakfast and after dark coffee from Taylor's waking me up.

And for 18 months before that, I had perfected a morning routine.

I had meditated, journaled, walked the dogs, read development books, tuned into my internal self and listened to my weekly anthem before checking in emails.

And it felt virtuous, productive and necessary to keep me going.

But here's what nobody tells you about discipline.

When it stops requiring effort, it's probably stopped creating growth.

And my morning routine had become so automatic I was going through the motions without any presence or awareness.

Then something in me just snapped.

I let myself drop every ball I'd been juggling so perfectly.

The musts, the shoulds, the haves, the have to's, the needs.

I walked away from them all.

Instead of reaching for think and grow rich, I found myself devouring romance novels.

Five in one week.

Proper escapist rubbish as well about billionaire CEOs and their secret girlfriends and secret babies.

And yet I felt more creatively alive than I had in months.

The romance novels weren't purely escapism.

They were my unconscious mind demanding creativity, pleasure and expansion in areas I completely neglected while being so disciplined and so focused on trying and doing.

And here's something I didn't expect.

Those billionaire fantasy lifestyles forced me to consider possibilities and move beyond my current limited financial view of what was actually possible for me.

Often the billionaire wasn't just wealthy, he was a secret philanthropist using his resources to transform lives.

And suddenly I Found myself thinking, what if money wasn't purely about security or survival, but about impact and service and what I could do beyond my previously limited dreams?

What if abundance was about what I could create for others, not just what I could accumulate or you could accumulate for yourself?

These silly romance novels were quietly reprogramming my relationship with wealth and possibility while I thought I was just escaping.

But here's where it gets interesting.

On day 12 of my routine rebellion, I had what looked like a complete breakdown.

Couldn't find anything.

Felt scattered.

Had brain fog questioned every decision and every choice I'd made since 2020?

But instead of rushing back to systems, I got curious.

What was this chaos trying to tell me what wanted to emerge from all of this mess?

And the answer hit me like a plot twist in one of those novels.

My business and energy had evolved beyond the structures that created it.

I was trying to run a 2025 business with 2023 systems and doing that while looking at AI.

But here's what I learned about resets.

They're not just about dropping routines.

A reset can create space for deep unconscious blocks to begin to break down and present themselves for resolution.

Whether it's the emotional journey of a book that sparks a long forgotten memory and pulls the plug on a bottled up emotion, or whether it's the bone weary tiredness that results in an emotional meltdown with when you find yourself crying for no reason and every reason, it's an invitation to let go and to surrender.

Once I did let go and surrender and committed to following a path more internally inspired than externally forced, I started seeing slow momentum towards change and transformation.

Really unexpected money began trickling in from unexpected sources.

A tax refund from two years ago that I'd completely forgotten about actually was completely unaware of.

I had a growing capacity for joy and self care.

A commitment to looking after my energy and my body like my life depends on it because that actually does.

And a deep understanding that everything begins within things started showing up in my world that were changing my path in ways I know I would have resisted before this romance reset and had nothing to do with romance.

There were job opportunities coming up, coaching calls that shifted me.

A general understanding that everything is really good.

Everything is great in fact, as long as I believe it to be and see it that way.

To see life as a gift.

The truth of choosing happy right there in the mess.

So what were the lessons?

Here's what my romance novel Reset taught me.

Number one.

Sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is stop doing powerful things when your Discipline has become comfortable complacency.

It's time to consciously deconstruct.

My willingness to let things fall apart became my competitive advantage.

Number two, your system knows what it needs before your mind does.

The chocolate digestives for breakfast weren't self sabotage, although I know it sounds like it.

They were my simple system's way of saying this version of discipline has become a prison.

Trust what your body and soul are telling you, even if it looks like failure.

And lesson three Strategic unconsciousness beats forced consciousness.

Well, everyone else was desperately maintaining yesterday's routine.

I was discovering tomorrow's possibilities.

Sometimes you have to stop trying to optimize everything, to access the insights that only surface in the spaces between.

This week I want you to try the Deliberate Dropout Exercise.

Choose one routine that feels automatic rather than intentional, even if it's running or exercise or what you're eating for tea.

Give yourself complete permission to ignore it for seven days and notice what wants to emerge in that space.

Instead, shake up your routine and ask yourself, what would I choose if I weren't trying to be good at this?

The breakdown might just become your breakthrough.

The mess might just become your message.

The shakeup might just become your salvation.

I'd love to hear about your own reset stories.

What happened when you finally gave yourself permission to drop the ball?

You can share them with us at choosing HappyPodcast on the social or pop over to Choosing Happy Dot Space.

And remember, sometimes the most successful thing you can do is to stop trying to succeed.

Especially trying.

Sometimes Sharilo has more wisdom than Neville Goddard, and sometimes chocolate digestives are exactly what your soul ordered.

The transformation you're seeking might be hiding in the very thing you think you shouldn't be doing.

Trust the process.

Trust the mess.

Trust your intuition.

Trust the reset.

Speak soon.

Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to this week's episode.

If you enjoyed it or think it would be valuable to others, please do share.

And if you really enjoyed it, please leave me a review.

It really helps the podcast.

All of the links are in the show notes and I look forward to seeing you next week on the Choosing Happy podcast.