The Joy-First Principle

Joy-First Blueprint: Reverse Your Success Mindset (Living Lucky® Podcast)

Stuck in a doom loop of negativity? 😩 Time to flip the script! This Living Lucky® Podcast episode is your mindsetblueprint to an upward success cycle.

The simple question: Which comes first—the smile or the joy? Stop waiting for external success. Start with the feeling you crave to attract the experiences you desire.

Quick Wins & Takeaways:

• "If-Then" Trap: The equation ("Get X, then be happy") breeds stress and limiting beliefs. Joy is the recipe, not the reward!
• The Recipe Change: Pressure/rigid expectations ruin the chemistry of your results. Stop changing the recipe!
• Passion Killer: External pressure killed a runner's joy. Shift focus from expectation to passion.
• Core Principle: Choose your feeling first (freedom, joy). This intentional state attracts aligning experiences and paradoxically boosts results.
• Universe's 3 Answers: Goals get "Yes," "Not yet," or "Something even better." Trust the feeling, not rigid control.
• North Star Alignment: Ditch unrealistic expectations. Align your actions with your inner North Star for true fulfillment.

Your essential self-help tool to let go of control. Start living a life guided by positive thinking—where joy is the foundation! 

• How to stop feeling stuck in negativity.
• The joy-first principle in life coaching.
• How to change your success mindset.
• Why is setting rigid expectations bad?
• How to attract what you want by feeling it first.
• How external pressure affects passion.
• The universe has three answers for your goals.
• How to create an upward success cycle.
• Overcoming the "if this, then that" mentality.
• "Which comes first, the smile or the joy?"
• "What is the key to creating the life you crave?"
• "How do you use feelings to generate experiences?"
• "Why does external pressure kill passion?"
• "What are the universe's three answers to your goals?"
• "How to stop setting rigid expectations."
• "What is the difference between goals and expectations?"

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The 4 pillars of Living Lucky
Believe in yourself
Believe in the people around you
Believe in your circumstances and
Believe that God is working through you, for you, and always conspiring in your favor.

*Previously Recorded

Chapters

• 0:00 Which Comes First: Smile or Joy?
• 2:20 The Runner: When Pressure Replaces Joy
• 4:52 The Feeling-First Life Hack
• 8:41 Setting Goals Without Expectations
• 12:07 The Universe's Three Answers

Transcript

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®. Good morning! I'm Jana. I'm Jason. And we are Living Lucky®. You are too. Which comes first? The smile or the joy?

Jason Shelfer: 0:24

The joy. The smile. The chicken.

Jana Shelfer: 0:28

I think both of them, really. But I feel like most people think that they can't smile or they can't laugh until they hear something funny. You're talking about Barry Manila.

Jason Shelfer: 0:38

I can't smile without joy. He said that I was like, you know, he's in town.

Jana Shelfer: 0:47

Stop. He's in town, we should go get tickets.

Jason Shelfer: 0:50

We should.

Jana Shelfer: 0:51

All right. Back to the topic. So which comes first?

Jason Shelfer: 0:55

I think it's just choose one. I think you can pick either one.

Jana Shelfer: 1:00

But when you get stuck thinking that it is one way, then you need to choose the other.

Jason Shelfer: 1:05

You need to get on the other side of the teeter-totter. I think a lot of times what happens is we keep saying, I can't find the door to either. So I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna smile. I can't find the joy, or I can't, I'm not gonna get either one of them. So we we get we get caught in these negative emotions.

Jana Shelfer: 1:24

We do, and it becomes who we are. Yes, and even then when people go, Well, you gotta just choose it, then people think, Well, that doesn't feel authentic. And then they're like, that's that doesn't feel that makes me feel fraudulent, which is a whole nother energy that you don't want to get into.

Jason Shelfer: 1:41

Yeah, and and what's happening though is we're choosing the mood that we're in or the the feeling that we're in, and we're not allowing that feeling to just process itself out and choose the feeling that we want.

Jana Shelfer: 1:54

Okay, so I talked to my cousin yesterday. She's 20 years old, she's my second cousin, and I'm just gonna go ahead and use her as an example because this was so evident to me from an outside perspective, and yet she is in the thick of it right now. She's in the storm, and she's a runner, she is a very gifted runner. In fact, she runs track for a college and she does very, very well. And I asked her, when did running start feeling like pressure? And she said, the last time I really felt like I was doing well in running and it was fun, and I felt free was my junior year of high school. And then once colleges started to recruit her, then the pressure started coming.

Jason Shelfer: 2:54

Running for some.

Jana Shelfer: 2:55

And then it almost felt like they started setting goals. You know, you you you need to get this race in this time.

Jason Shelfer: 3:03

Your they gets bigger, yes. Like you when you say they are gonna be disappointed, they are counting on me, all your quote unquote they people starts changing and getting and growing in your own mind.

Jana Shelfer: 3:18

Now, what people don't understand is the energy changes and you lose the the fun and the freedom that running brought to you in the first place. So, of course, you're gonna have different results because you're changing the equation, you're changing the recipe. That's so big, right?

Jason Shelfer: 3:41

Like when you put it in that language, it's it's when you're changing the recipe. So if you're a cook, if you understand cooking and you understand how things come out of the oven, when you change the recipe, or if you're a baker, you change the recipe, you're gonna get the country. Yeah. If you change the math, you're if you change anything in the equation, you're gonna get a different answer at the end.

Jana Shelfer: 4:04

So I'm only using her as an example because we all face this. When we start putting expectations into what we're doing, it changes the thoughts that go behind it, it changes the feelings that go behind it, and it even changes the actions or the behavior that we take.

Jason Shelfer: 4:27

Yes.

Jana Shelfer: 4:27

Because all of those mixed together is chemistry. It is chemistry.

Jason Shelfer: 4:33

Yeah, and that's and literally that's what's telling our brain what to dump into our body.

Jana Shelfer: 4:38

So I often find that people get caught in this when I make a hundred thousand dollars, I will feel successful.

Jason Shelfer: 4:48

When I'm a millionaire, I'll be happy.

Jana Shelfer: 4:51

When I get married and have kids, I will feel fulfilled. It's a if this, then that. They're literally putting a specific result that they are equating to the feeling they want to have.

Jason Shelfer: 5:15

Yeah, and and it's an assumption equation.

Jana Shelfer: 5:18

Yes.

Jason Shelfer: 5:19

That they're they're kind of hoping for. Not there's no mathematical.

Jana Shelfer: 5:24

Yeah, there's there's no proof in that. Yeah, there's no guarantees.

Jason Shelfer: 5:29

There's so much proof that goes against it.

Jana Shelfer: 5:32

There's no guarantees that if you get married, you'll live happily ever after. Yeah. Although somewhere in our brain, we have programmed ourselves to believe that.

Jason Shelfer: 5:40

We've kind of been taught all these things that this is the way the math is supposed to work. Like these are the like, go to school, get a job, make all this money, get married, then retire, then you'll be happy ever after. They so that math is what's supposed to work, but there's so much proof to the contrary that it doesn't work. However, we hold on to that equation.

Jana Shelfer: 6:04

Okay, so let me just tell you one life hack. And this is the one life hack that that we're going to talk about and end with. If you start with the result in mind of how you want to feel, I guarantee you, the universe in its magical way will give you the experience that will lead to that end result.

Jason Shelfer: 6:31

Yeah, you get to kind of create your own math to get there. It's crazy. And that's what Living Lucky® is.

Jana Shelfer: 6:39

But okay, so let's even dumb this down. Okay. Let's dumb it down. So, for example, if you want to run to feel free and have fun and meet new people and just be your best self, then that's the way you need to feel.

Jason Shelfer: 6:58

Yes.

Jana Shelfer: 6:59

That's the way you need to feel.

Jason Shelfer: 7:01

Just be run, just go out and be running for that. Then you become the better runner. Then you are noticed as a runner in the community or in the college environment. Then you are actually put this is exactly how you ended up on the team USA basketball. Is you you wanted to feel athletic again. You were shooting hoops with your dad. Yes. You became very proficient because you were feeling athletic, you were feeling energized. So I guess what got better because of the way you were feeling.

Jana Shelfer: 7:36

Okay, we're overcomplicating this.

Jason Shelfer: 7:38

Sorry. I'm good at that.

Jana Shelfer: 7:40

We're overcomplicating this. What I'm trying to say is don't put a specific result, put a feeling that you want to have and start with the feeling.

Jason Shelfer: 7:54

Yeah, don't wait for that feeling.

Jana Shelfer: 7:56

Don't wait, yeah, don't wait for that feeling because of the actions. Start with the feeling, and the you will automatically attract experiences that will end up there. And I know it's so hard for me to articulate. It is so hard for me to articulate. And once you get it, people email me all the time and say, aha, I had such an aha moment. And I am doing my best to tell people how this works. However, so for example, my cousin, when she the minute she started putting pressure, anxiety, and a specific result to what she was doing, the energy changed. The energy changed in the entire activity.

Jason Shelfer: 8:50

Yeah.

Jana Shelfer: 8:51

Are you with me there?

Jason Shelfer: 8:52

100%. And I can see it in all different types of areas. And if we're good, just gonna keep it in that kind of the loose running metaphor. Just think about how where you find that joy. You're obviously gonna find the joy in just the being out in that environment. But if you if you're hating it, like if there's that pressure on there, you're gonna find yourself in more injuries, you're gonna find yourself pushing beyond where you need to be, like overtraining.

Jana Shelfer: 9:22

And when you set unrealistic expectations of yourself, it then you start creating the, oh, am I good enough? Have I worked hard enough? Am I skinny enough? Physical chaos, emotional chaos, creating different thoughts that create different feelings that of course are gonna create a different result. Now, I totally believe in dreaming big and setting high goals, but not expectations. We have to let go of the expectations because when you set a specific expectation, you are trying to control the situation instead of allowing it all to just unfold the way God and the creator wants it to happen. We are not the writers, we are the the characters.

Jason Shelfer: 10:23

That's a great way to put it. Because a lot of times, if as a as a high achiever, a lot of times we'll say, I want to do a marathon like if I'm a runner, I want to do a marathon. And I'll say, I'm gonna go train for a marathon. I want to, I'm gonna train as if I'm gonna do a marathon next week because they expect it. Like I and because they expect it, I think I should expect that of myself. So I'm gonna go try to run 26 miles today. Yeah, I don't run. You know, I'm gonna end up with shin splints, injuries, um, probably passed out three blocks down the road. I'm gonna come back and feel a little bit like a failure. But I'll say, you know what, I'm gonna try again tomorrow.

Jana Shelfer: 11:03

Okay.

Jason Shelfer: 11:03

And I might get a little further tomorrow. But by fry by Friday, I'm gonna hate running. I will hate it. And then I will like it'll be, but now because I'm on the marathon team, because I signed up for that two days before I decided, I know I've got to keep showing up.

Jana Shelfer: 11:21

You're just creating a conflict within your soul. You're not you're not in congruence with your soul and what your North Star is, what your destiny is.

Jason Shelfer: 11:33

So, how will I ever find how will I ever decide to choose joy? Well, if I said, you know what, I really want to enjoy running, I want to find that joy in that because I love being outside.

Jana Shelfer: 11:44

Yes, is not up to you.

Jason Shelfer: 11:46

Then I just get to choose joy show up and do your best and do it at my own pace and enjoy and have the joy and fun and that energy, and then everything else will take care of itself and I will I will run the marathon in its due time.

Jana Shelfer: 12:00

Okay, I'm gonna wrap this up because so many people have come to me and said, yes, but I had a specific goal. I had a specific goal. I'm gonna tell you the universe has three answers for you when you set goals or vision boards or you put it out there, and the universe will either say, Yes, absolutely, that aligns with exactly why I created you, little Jana. Or the universe says, Not yet. You're not ripe. You're not ripe for the picking. We have some more time where you need to develop your skills and your talents. And the third answer is, you know what, Jana? I have something that is so much bigger and better for you. And sometimes that is really hard to accept. And yet, from my experience, they're right. It's always bigger and better. Thanks for joining us.

Jason Shelfer: 13:01

Keep Living Lucky®.

Jana Shelfer: 13:02

Bye bye. If the idea of Living Lucky® appeals to you, visit us at livinglucky.com.