Choose Your Challenges (Arenal Volcano, Costa Rica)

What if you could Choose Your Challenges? Would you choose the ones you currently have, or would you make a different choice?

I'll show you how it's worked for my travels, but this also works for all aspects of life and I'll explain it more in-depth in the podcast which is recorded right next to the Arenal Volcano in Costa Rica. 48 Hours before I was in Northern California, and getting to Costa Rica always from there always requires a lengthy layover and at least one very long leg. 

Usually, that's always meant a 4.5 hour red eye flight to Houston followed by a 5 hour layover before getting to land in Costa Rica late afternoon. I'm not saying it's the worst thing in the world (that's probably Indian Jones and the Crystal Skull), but the lack of any sleep for over 24 hours can be rough.

On this trip, I made a different choice. I chose to take a 1 hour flight down to LA, where I then had a 7 hour layover before the 5-hour flight to Costa Rica getting in at 11 PM. To make it even more enjoyable, I got a hotel for the day (yes, that's a thing) so I could take a 2 hour nap and go for a sun and swim before the flight to Costa Rica. All this wasn't even that much more than what I would have ended up spending on airport food if I hadn't gotten the room.

On the drive from the airport to Arenal I got stuck behind a crazy slow driver on the twisty 2 lane road. I felt myself getting frustrated. I could have kept being frustrated for kilometers on end (cause not in America), but I decided to pull over, get some coffee, and enjoy the view for a bit. So I swapped frustration for arriving a little later, but much much happier.

This type of choice is ALWAYS available in life because LIFE IS CHOICE. The only question is…

Are you aware of the choices you're making? If you're miserable with your challenges it's because you're not consciously choosing them. You've accepted the ones you were born with and you haven't upgraded them yet. There's even a viewpoint that you chose the challenges you were born into. Whether or not you agree with that or not, any time you become conscious of your challenges, you can choose new challenges.

How do you choose new challenges? That's a major theme of my book where I teach you to see how you're stuck in Fear Obligation and Guilt (FOG) and swap it for Joy Ease and Love. If there were no challenges then there would be no opportunity for growth, but growth doesn't have to come from suffering. 

You go choose your challenge and enjoy the amazing shifts that come with it like getting near an amazing Volca

Watch the full video episode at Justin Wenck, Ph.D. YouTube Channel!

Check out my best-selling book "Engineered to Love: Going Beyond Success to Fulfillment" also available on Audiobook on all streaming platforms! Go to https://www.engineeredtolove.com/ to learn more!

Got a question or comment about the show? E-mail me at podcast@justinwenck.com.

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Transcript

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Hi, I'm Justin Wenck, PhD, and you're listening to the engineering emotions and energy podcast. Are you ready to bust burnout, pursue your passion have more time, money, energy, and relationships you actually love, including the relationship with yourself. If so, then this podcast is for you. I'm a best selling author, coach, consultant, speaker, and a leader and transforming people's lives from living in fear, obligation and guilt, to living a life of joy, ease and love. What's most important is that I can teach you all this in a way that's enjoyable, easy, fast, and can actually last, let's begin. Today I'm talking about choosing your challenges. Welcome to the show, I am recording this from a beautiful r&r Volcano region of Costa Rica, in the background is where the volcano is. There is currently clouds covering it up, will they be here during this whole show? I don't know. Maybe it'll dissipate, maybe it'll go away? We'll find out. That's sort of the fun of being on location, you don't know what's gonna happen. And also speaking of that, there's construction going on, wasn't sure I tried a couple of things. I tried doing it in my car, I could still hear the construction, the lighting wasn't good. So there's all these things that come up in life. And we're just like, you know, what, what are you going to do about it? So I'm going to be going over what are the possibilities that you can do about it, because oftentimes, we feel like things are happening to us. Yet more and more, I'm realizing, and I want you to realize this, too, that things are being done for us. And we never know exactly how things are going to work out what's meant to happen, or how we're going to learn and grow by what comes our way. And we really have a choice and all of this. And you might be thinking, Justin, what do you mean, I have a choice and my challenges. So I can tell a few stories of where I've had challenges and the choices I've made. And then you know, we're going to show you how this can relate to your life because it really doesn't matter if I'm doing great. What matters is if you my listener, and thank you for being a listener, thank you for being a part of this podcast and do ask that you subscribe. And while you're at subscribing, tell a friend maybe you can rate this five stars wherever you listen to your your better podcast and always hoping that this is one of the better podcasts you get to enjoy. And also would like to ask if you got any questions or things you would like podcast at Justin wenck.com. Or just you know, if you're seeing this through post on social media, do a little comment there. Let me know like, I love what you're doing. There's something you don't like, again, that's great time to slide into my DMs and let me know, Hey, Justin, like this can be done better. I appreciate that. So I'm here in the r&r region of Costa Rica. So there's a big volcano. Trust me, it's there. It's beautiful. It's a volcano that looks like a volcano. If you're on my social media, Justin Wenck, PhD, cross all the things, those tick tock LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, they'll definitely be some pictures of the volcano looking like a volcano. Getting here though. to Costa Rica. This is not my fifth time being in Costa Rica. And it's my third time, I believe coming to the this particular region to be around the volcano. And I come from the San Francisco area, California. And just about always, it's been very, very challenging event to make it to Costa Rica, where there usually has to be at least one stop over and often that stopovers very long. And usually, I've done it where there's been a red eye flight and I can't sleep on planes. At least I haven't been able to so far, perhaps soon I'll be asleep on planes. So factually would usually be a red eye flight to Houston, and then like a five hour layover. And I've usually found this just completely miserable, because I'm exhausted, you know, go 2436 hours without sleeping essentially. And it's just it's just not fun. And it's just like I can be able to just and you're going to Costa Rica Correct. I am getting to go to Costa Rica so it's worth it get why do we have to make things that we want that we want to enjoy? Why do we have to make that so hard? So difficult, so full of suffering? Can't we make it easier? And when I was booking this trip that was what I went in with is how can I make it even more enjoyable coming to the beautiful Costa Rica because it's like now that I'm here. It's fantastic. I've been sitting in Hot Springs and gotten hikes and beautiful areas with lush, lush, jungle stuff and eat some delicious food that cannot be a little bit more enjoyable and this really is my what I believe that all All life should be is how can we find the most joy, ease and love and just about anything and everything we do if there is a feeling of this is like awful, this is hard, this is just suffering, then it probably means that we might be due to make some different choices. So the choice I decided to make, and this trip was one not do a read I so I was able to find a flight that started in the morning and got me to Costa Rica at the end of the day, this still came with a seven hour layover in Los Angeles. And I don't know if you've been to LAX, it is not the most delightful airport in the world just isn't there's more delightful Singapore Airport. Fantastic, beautiful, beautiful airport, highly recommend, if you got, you know, eight hours, you can enjoy it at the Singapore Airport. Very, very good. Lax, not as much. So I decided it'd be great if I could find a place to nap. Because again, I had to get up at about 445 in the morning to make the flight. So a great place to nap would be awesome. And maybe get started on little sunning with a pool. So there's a you can find de use hotels. And so I was able to find one, you know, the airport shuttle picks me up takes me check in only get the room for about five hours, which is all I need. Had the most beautiful nap and got the kick in in the pool. It was just really enjoyable to really get started on the vacation before I even get on the main flight. And it's about fight or flight to Costa Rica, which ended up being very enjoyable. And that a woman who's a medical doctor, and she was looking to write a book. So I was able to tell her about my book writing process and hook her up with my publisher. So it's amazing when you take care of yourself and do things that make life a little bit more enjoyable, easeful how you start running into things and people and be able to pay that forward. And I know I'm going to make this woman's life way easier, because my publisher, inspirational book writers, they are phenomenal, highly recommend if you are looking to write a book, if you've got an idea, or maybe you've even started, I highly recommend them. So that was one way that I chose my challenge to be less challenging. So the second is, land in Costa Rica late at night, have a hotel near the airport wake up and I need to drive to this Arnel location, it's about a three and a half hour drive to get here from San Jose. And at some point, there are some fantastic roads. Yet there's also some two lane roads that have no place to pass. So I ended up getting stuck by someone who was going really, really slow, especially around the curves, and then not much faster when it wasn't the curves. And I just noticed myself getting frustrated. So I grew up in Southern California. And I believe there. For whatever reason, most people couldn't tell I'm from Southern California because I drive with purpose. I drive to get places and I drive fast when I can drive fast. I believe it's because there's so much traffic in Southern California usually that we take that speed limit not as a speed limit, but as a speed average. So when there's not traffic, those of you that are engineers or math pros know that if you want the average to be something if you haven't found the time below the average, you need to make that up with time above the average. So thus speeding. So I like to drive fast. I enjoy it. I find it fun, exciting, exhilarating. And if I'm not able to, I can notice myself getting frustrated. And I was like am I just gonna be frustrated behind the sky for the next 2030 kilometers. I say kilometers, because that's what they use here. Because it's Costa Rica and not America. And I'm like, you know, I could and hoping I find a place to pass or hope that this person is going to do something differently. Or I can just pull over at the next spot that's got some coffee, get a coffee, get some water, enjoy the view. And that's what I did. So I chose the challenge of being a little bit later to my destination which doesn't matter. I'm on fucking vacation, I have nowhere I need to be at any time. And I got to have some lovely coffee with the woman that served it helped me a little Spanish of how to say the smells really good. I already forgot it. But it was fun. It was way more enjoyable and I got to have way more amazing drive at my pace that I enjoyed with a little a little speed and then a little take taken relaxation and it worked out a lot better. And so that was another example of choosing my challenge. Now there are some that go like okay, Justin, these are these are easy challenges like you know travel like this is all hopped in shit. What about the rest of life? You know, what about the challenge of a shitty job and not being able to quit it because of the money or the family that you live with? You know, and if you've read my book if you heard other podcasts, you know the challenges that I had, you know with With a lot of members of my family, and there are those that like to say that even what you are born into at a level that you are choosing that, and whether you believe that or not, to me, what ultimately matters is, once you have the concept that you have choice that you are 100% responsible, or whatever has come into your life that you have a choice and what you do about it. And at the very least, you have the choice of how you're going to respond versus react to any given situation. And we often have way more choice, because often that choosing and how we're going to respond leads to a whole lot of other options. So if you've listened to a couple episodes ago, where you know, it's been that undercover boss of your life, so when you choose to see that you're the CEO of your life, things unfold so much so much differently. Like yesterday, I was at a hotsprings has just for now it wasn't the one I was planning to the one I was planning to go to they were full, so I end up getting a tip to try another one. Couple, just a couple spots down and it just so beautiful boutique hotel with their own hotsprings gloriously hot and got some dinner and a comeback to the hottest hotspring and there's some duty bro Brody bro guy doing a video FaceTime with I don't know, Tom. Yeah, it's gonna be so sick so tightly. It's gonna be party nonstop. You're gonna just love it's gonna be fucking Dara brah great. Like, yeah. And at first I was like, I can't handle, you know, this is just, so I got up and I went to another hotsprings. And was there and I'm like, No, I really want to be in the hottest hotspring. And it brought up a lot of like nervousness, because in the past, I didn't like, you know, confronting people saying like, Hey, could you do this something different, especially if it's a man. And even though this, this guy is probably like, in his early 20s, or something, it's still like, I don't know, I'm in this paradise. It's like, what is he gonna do beat me up in the hotel hotsprings highly unlikely that all these fears are coming up. And I was just like, you know, probably time to confront some of these fears, and choose to have the hot springs experience I want. So went there and said, Hey, are you about to wrap that up? And he's like, Oh, do you want my seat? And I'm like, No, the phone call like, here to here to relax and do you on the phone, it's makes it hard to relax. And he was kind of a bitch about it, which I wouldn't not not surprised somebody who's going to be completely unaware of where he is and what the intention is of the location, yet he got up and left. And I was like, great, and I got to enjoy. And then the rest of the people that I get to meet interact with were just pleasant, really enjoyable. And so again, it's taking a moment to look at what's going on, what do I want? How can I work with that, and choosing a different challenge. So instead of me going with my default challenge of I'm not going to get what I want, I'm gonna have to just suck it up. But I'm just gonna have to go without, I decided to go with the challenge of well, what if i What if I expressed my desire to have this be a place where people aren't on their phone? What is this place where you're either quiet, or you're engaged in conversation, which are completely different than just hearing one side of a conversation. So it turned out to just be really, really awesome. And so glad I did that. And you might be also going Hey, Justin. Okay, so So again, these are like simple, simple, things wouldn't have been the end of the world. What about my job? What about my relationship? What about my family, and it may sound different, but it's really not that much different. And if you really want because I'm about to wrap this up, because I got to check out of this hotel in a couple hours, because the next spot I'm going to is haco, which is a great little beach city, right on the coast. So some beautiful views. I've gone surfing there before. I don't know if I'll go surfing but definitely looking forward to seeing some beautiful sunsets. So going to be some more, some more photos, some more videos being posted on the social media, Justin Wenck, PhD, Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok. All that fun stuff. So do highly recommend if you're not following me there already, please do. So gonna be wrapping up. So I've got lots of other episodes. And I would highly recommend my book for lots of very practical tools, tricks, tips, to basically learn how you can be at choice in all aspects of your life, how to set boundaries, how to figure out what it is you want, then how to go for what you want, in a way that is easy, and I don't think things should be hard. Like should they should there be a little bit of growth edge challenge? Yeah, but you get to you get to choose how challenging that feels, what is the degree of difficulty and over what amount of time that's part of the choice. Choosing your challenge is how you go about growing and getting what it is you want in life and I have so many tricks In my book, engineered to love going beyond success to fulfillment. So I'd highly recommend that like, it's seriously stuff I've, you know, charged people hundreds 1000s of dollars to teach them. And it's just all in this book for the paperback, it's under 20 bucks to the ebooks even less like less than half that 10 bucks. And it's available worldwide. So wherever you listen to if you haven't gotten it yet, highly recommended. And you've also get access to some amazing resources, like I have guided experiences, I have worksheets. So it's really it's me in a box for 20 bucks, even though I don't like to be in a box, I like to get out of my box, create new boxes and realize that there never was a box, I created the box and I can have whatever box or no box whenever however I want, I want you to have the same realization. So with that, I'm going to wrap this up here hammering fiercely. I'm really curious how this ends up sounding. I have full faith in my my editing team. I'm using a little lav mic that hopefully is helping us out. This is an experiment we're trying it out. But I'd rather get some great content to you from a great location as soon as possible than waiting for the perfect for stuff. Let's see if the mountain came out. It's still cloudy, but sometimes the clouds, they're just not meant to pass yet. So it's all in good time. So just to things aren't working out now. Keep trying different things keep moving forward. Eventually, the clouds will pass and you'll you'll get the view you'll get the relationship you'll get the health, whatever it is you desire. It's there. And sometimes it's just a matter of time. And it might not be the time you want but it'll be the time that it's meant to be. And with that, I'm going to bid you a good day