Living Lucky® Podcast with Jason and Jana Banana

Little by Little: What If The Dream Is Bigger Than You Think—And You’re Ready Anyway

• Jana and Jason Shelfer • Season 9 • Episode 30

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Little by Little: Beat Panic, Master Big Goals, and Conquer the Mountain (Living Lucky® Podcast)

A dream trip turned into a 30+ hour endurance test became our self-help playbook for managing anxiety and any big goal. Discover the mindset shifts and micro-wins that transform the doom loop of negativity into grounded resilience.

You'll master:

  • Silence the ANTS: How to stop Automatic Negative Thoughts (ANTS) from amplifying panic (even at 35,000 feet).
  • Reframe Discomfort: Discomfort is data, not danger. Use box breathing to instantly reset a spiraling nervous system.
  • Chunk the Goal: Break massive challenges into bite-sized pieces—"little by little, the hill is behind you."

Hear how asking for help is wise resource management and why moving beats perfect every time. The dream is bigger than you think, but you are ready.

Actionable Takeaways for Resilience & Goal Mastery:

  • Biggest Blessing: The climb's difficulty is often a blessing, proving how strong and resilient you are.
  • Chunking the Mountain: Conquer goals with micro-wins. Celebrate every tiny finish to build momentum and self-trust.
  • Battling ANTS: Recognize ANTS (irritation $\rightarrow$ full alarm). Don't breathe life into the thought—you are bigger than it.
  • Discomfort is Data: Most discomfort is a signal, not a disaster. Manage it with posture, hydration, or box breathing.
  • Power of Partnership: Asking for help grounds you. Naming the storm out loud brings relief.
  • Moving Beats Perfect: Execution, piece by piece, moves mountains. You don't have to do it pretty.

Hit play to turn overwhelming journeys into quiet, powerful victories!

  • What are Automatic Negative Thoughts (ANTS) and how to stop them. Best breathing techniques for panic and anxiety (box breathing). How to use chunking to achieve big goals. Mindset for handling travel delays and frustration. Discomfort is data not danger concept. "What are Automatic Negative Thoughts (ANTS)?" "How can I use breathing to stop a panic attack?" "How do you chunk a large goal into manageable steps?" "What is the difference between discomfort and danger in a high-stress situatio

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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

Jana Shelfer:

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. We are recording from Moala, Australia.

Jason Shelfer:

How do you like us from down under?

Jana Shelfer:

It's not quite what we imagined, but we have seen kangaroos.

Jason Shelfer:

It is definitely not what I imagined.

Jana Shelfer:

We saw about four of them dead on the side of the road. That was sad.

Jason Shelfer:

That was not what my vision of kangaroos was gonna be. And getting here was quite the journey. Oh my gosh. I didn't know Australia could possibly, possibly be so far away.

Jana Shelfer:

So we had a five-hour flight to LA, and then from LA to Sydney was uh 15 hours and 40 minutes.

Jason Shelfer:

So almost 16 hours.

Jana Shelfer:

And then from a half hour delay from Sydney to Melbourne was another hour and a half two hours. And then from Melbourne to Moala.

Jason Shelfer:

Was three and a half, four hours.

Jana Shelfer:

Almost four hours. We literally, it felt like we were never gonna end our travel day.

Jason Shelfer:

Yeah I I didn't do the math as we were adding all that up, but it was over 30 hours of travel.

Jana Shelfer:

What started out as okay, yeah, we've got a plane ride and we're gonna have a couple connections. I can handle this. Ended up being plane rides before. Oh my gosh. I've gone to the bathroom five times on a plane. I smell that should be the name of a book.

Jason Shelfer:

I went to the bathroom on a plane five times.

Jana Shelfer:

Five. Five times.

Jason Shelfer:

I and it doesn't, it doesn't compute until you've done it in a wheelchair.

Jana Shelfer:

Uh-uh. Well, exactly. I mean, I tried to avoid that. I was literally not drinking anything, so I could avoid that whole experience.

Jason Shelfer:

You get on the plane looking like a raisin.

Jana Shelfer:

And then we came off the plane smelling like a raisin, a rotten one.

Jason Shelfer:

I'll tell you what.

Jana Shelfer:

My hair was greasy. Like that's how long we flew.

Jason Shelfer:

Here's your pro trap travel tip.

Jana Shelfer:

Yes.

Jason Shelfer:

Take a travel size thing and deodorant, because even if you don't need it, somebody that you're gonna be next to on a 30-hour trip is gonna need it. I I needed it.

Jana Shelfer:

I could not believe I'm like, it has been literally 48 hours since we've showered now, and we have been all cooped up and next to people breathe in a in a traveling fart box.

Jason Shelfer:

Recycled air fart box.

Jana Shelfer:

So I guess the message for today is you know, it may be a blessing sometimes when we don't know how hard the climb is going to be. Yeah, it was how big the dream is. Maybe it's a message. We had no idea how big this journey was. And to say that we had no idea, I mean, we imagine we talked about it.

Jason Shelfer:

I mean, you can look at it on a globe and you can look at it on a map. I've been to Australia before. That's the thing.

Jana Shelfer:

This is your third trip. This is my third time to Australia, and yet it felt like this travel day was never going to end. This is like the journey of a life to the point where when we landed in Sydney, I literally said to Jason, we either need to get a hotel here and just cancel our flights and maybe rent a car tomorrow and just drive the rest of the way. That's how tired of traveling I am.

Jason Shelfer:

Well, here's the dilemma. So get to Sydney and we have a two-hour layover plus an hour and a half flight, and then a three and a half hour drive, or it's a six and a half hour drive from Sydney to Mawala and keep a car for three and a half weeks.

Jana Shelfer:

Okay. So enough of us complaining. The whole message that I want to get across is sometimes the dream is bigger than what we imagine in our heads. And again, that is a blessing because you can do it. You can handle it. The universe only gives you what you can handle.

Jason Shelfer:

And we took it on leg by leg. So one piece of the trip at a time, and we conquered them.

Jana Shelfer:

And some of the legs were short, which can be applied to any goal that we want to accomplish if we chunk it down into little bite-sized pieces or morsels, then all of a sudden, before we know it, we have swallowed the whole frog.

Jason Shelfer:

And I will be honest, when we got on that 15 and a half hour flight from LA to Australia, yes, we were no more than 45 minutes to an hour into that flight. Yeah. And I I was in a full bump, full-blown inside panic attack. Like my in my insides were ready to be on my outside.

Jana Shelfer:

It was wait, does that mean you were nauseous, sick, you were?

Jason Shelfer:

I was I was so you had anxiety. I had anxiety, claustrophobia, my feet were burning, like my legs were I had restless leg syndrome, like all these things were happening internally. I know this about you. I I I didn't want to verbalize it because I didn't want to give it life. And it wasn't, I wasn't trying to push that feeling down. You were just trying to work through it. Work through it and let it go.

Jana Shelfer:

And you were like, we have 14 more hours of this. Right.

Jason Shelfer:

And in my brain, so there were there was this thought of I can't. Like literally, that was the thought. And we're in the air already.

Jana Shelfer:

So it's like I wish you would have confided in me because that would have maybe made me feel valuable in being able to help you in that moment.

Jason Shelfer:

I I I understand that, but so there was a part of me that wanted to share that with you. And the other part of me was I can't let these thoughts continue. I'm proud of you. And if I let the thoughts continue, and if I keep and if I if I verbalize that thought, I'm giving it breath. You are bigger than your thoughts. Right. You are greater. So what I had to do was say, I'm in this, I can do it. Yes. And this is just a feeling that will that will pass. And I've done this before, I've been through this before.

Jana Shelfer:

This is the similar thing that happened to you the last time we went scuba diving.

Jason Shelfer:

Yes, it was very much the same thing.

Jana Shelfer:

You were like, I can't do this.

Jason Shelfer:

And when we're 60 to 90 feet underwater, I have that almost that same claustrophobic feeling of bad things are about to happen here. Oh my gosh. I need to get out of this situation and get back to the kind of the quote unquote controllable. And being able to move, like really open air.

Jana Shelfer:

Okay, so let's talk about that. How did you work through that internally?

Jason Shelfer:

First, the first thing was I I tried to not have any more of those negative thoughts.

Jana Shelfer:

Okay. Like so negative, we call those ants. We call them automatic negative thoughts.

Jason Shelfer:

Yes. So I was having these automatic negative thoughts that were manifesting in physical pains and physical, physical sensations throughout my body.

Jana Shelfer:

Ants, just like ants do.

Jason Shelfer:

Like my feet were burning, my legs were itching. Like again, just like ants. I needed to get up and move. So I'm not I wanted to have more leg room, more seat room. I want we wanted, I wanted to be in first class. That didn't happen. Now we weren't in bad seats. No, we were in the second class. Yeah, we were in premium uh comfort.

Jana Shelfer:

Yes.

Jason Shelfer:

And but I had someone on my left, I had you on my right, you know, it was like I I still was I felt bunched. Yes. And there was for some reason there was this thing, like this rod from the seat in front of me, right in the middle of my feet. And that made me uncomfortable. Yeah, it was in front of me my feet too. Right. So that something about that threw me off a little bit. I don't know why.

Jana Shelfer:

And sometimes it's the littlest things, right? Because that threw me off. All of this. Because I couldn't, I always put my cushion underneath in the and sometimes in life in front of me.

Jason Shelfer:

It's the little thing that throws me, throws you off. Yeah. It is. It's not the big thing. The big thing, you're like, oh shit, big things happen. Oh my gosh.

Jana Shelfer:

Again, I wish you would have, I wish you would have confided in me in that moment because we could have laughed about that. Because that bar was throwing me off.

Jason Shelfer:

And it threw the guy to my left off, too. Because he kept taking your space. Well, he can't he he wanted to put his shoes over there, and like I was like, uh pal. Like, I've got 12 seats. It's not coming over here. You're gonna have to use like there's a small woman next to you, use her space. I literally felt like my feet can't even reach the seat in front of her.

Jana Shelfer:

No, I couldn't even fit my cup on the one side. So I was taking up some of your space too.

Jason Shelfer:

It's all like these little things. So these the the automatic negative thoughts were coming in, and I was going, okay, let it come, but also let them go. Don't breathe life into them. And also, uh, what are the positive things that I know? Like I know I can do this, I know I've done it before, I know everything's gonna be fine, I know at some point I will relax, I will, and and at one point it all kind of started subsiding. My feet stopped burning, my legs stopped itching, and I was able to just breathe.

Jana Shelfer:

Sometimes breathing, that's what I was getting at. Sometimes breathing in that moment when you are literally in the thick of having a panic attack, sometimes just taking that deep breath in, even counting, and then doing like a little box breathing.

Jason Shelfer:

Yes, right? Yes. Now I didn't do the box breathing, that would have helped. But in the moment, it that completely escaped me. And I know how important breathing is.

Jana Shelfer:

You only had a life coach sitting right next to you.

Jason Shelfer:

And if I would have shared it with you, but again in 23A, it was right for 15 and a half hours. I mean, that's what uh $15,000 worth of coaching right there, I could have had. Easy.

Jana Shelfer:

Sometimes we we don't know what's right in front of us.

Jason Shelfer:

We're looking too far in the horizon to see what's right next to us. Oh, Jason. But we did it. The big thing is, is we had this massive, massive trip in front of us, and we we conquered it leg by leg. And after each leg, we celebrated our wins.

Jana Shelfer:

We did. We we did. I will give us credit there because we were like, okay, let's mark that leg off.

Jason Shelfer:

We went to the bathroom, we took a little break, we washed our hands, and we started the next leg.

Jana Shelfer:

We did, and we didn't, we didn't do it pretty, like we were imperfect with our smelly little bodies and our I mean there were times when I was like, oh my gosh, I just need water, but if I drink water, I'm gonna have to go to the bathroom again.

Jason Shelfer:

I think what happened is we had this plan, yes, and it didn't go perfectly, but we executed on it and we did it piece by piece.

Jana Shelfer:

That is true. And yes, I I'm really proud of sometimes we are given these situations to realize how strong and resilient we we really are.

Jason Shelfer:

Yeah, even down to like the suitcase trackers, like putting the trackers in the suitcases, because I was watching that as we were taking off, and I was like, okay, well, one of the bags isn't here. Okay, but then it was, it just hadn't caught up to the app yet.

Jana Shelfer:

And also because they put those suitcases down where the Wi-Fi can't get to it. And so it takes a while.

Jason Shelfer:

And it looked like it was still half a mile away.

Jana Shelfer:

You did, I did notice your energy change when you're like, oh you're like suitcase number four isn't here yet. It's getting left behind.

Jason Shelfer:

It's like, how did I just pay extra for that bag and it didn't make it?

Jana Shelfer:

I I mean, seriously, I can't say enough, even from the packing of the skis, packing up, getting ready to go to the airport, or even taking our dog to Sheila.

Jason Shelfer:

So that so that was another part of like I was part of the trip. So that was five hours north of us in car by car, five hours back, all in one day. So a 10-hour drive.

Jana Shelfer:

But we just kept, little by little, we just kept marking it out of the plan. And you know, there's a saying, little by little, the hill is behind you. Siddicket, sedicet, llama llama. Little by little, the hill is behind you. Yes, and that is what we have done. Now, I I'm not sure I'm making sense today. I'm still delusional from the jet lag and the sleep deprivation and everything that we've gone through. However, we're adjusting slowly.

Jason Shelfer:

That's right. And that's and that's what it is. That's that's reaching the that's conquering the mountain. And learning to adapt as you go. There you go.

Jana Shelfer:

Thanks for joining us. Keep Living Lucky®.

Jason Shelfer:

Bye bye.

Jana Shelfer:

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

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Jana Shelfer

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Jason Shelfer

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