How Mindfulness Guides You In The Chaos Of Your Hero’s Journey
As I am moving through life and facing its various challenges, there’s an idea I keep returning to — one that’s difficult to define but is beautifully captured in Jordan Peterson’s book Beyond Order. His 2nd rule states: “Imagine who you could be, and then aim single-mindedly at that.”
This chapter speaks directly to anyone who has grand ambitions but finds the actual process of working towards them really tough, much harder than expected. In these situations, being confronted with chaos, novelty, and discomfort, it’s easy to retreat back to what’s familiar and what’s comfortable.
This is where I want to emphasize the importance of mindfulness and awareness in the journey toward achieving our goals. It’s not enough to just have a goal and work tirelessly toward it. There’s a need for deep awareness of what’s going on in your mind and body when you’re facing challenges.
Without that clarity, it’s easy for discomfort to make you question your path because it will present itself as an unknown unknown: something you can feel is off, but you don’t know what. The clarity of awareness transforms this into a known unknown: something you can now pinpoint, define, and, therefore, strategize against.
Growth In The Discomfort Of Chaos
Peterson talks about the balance between chaos and order. Chaos is where growth happens, but it’s also where the discomfort of novelty lies. It’s evident, but no growth comes without discomfort. Comfort is easy. It’s what we’re used to.
But real progress — whether in a career, a skill, or in personal development — only comes when we push beyond the familiar and enter the realm of chaos. When you step out into the unknown, you’re faced with situations you’ve never experienced before, and that’s where discomfort — and growth — always co-exist. If everything were easy, there would be no challenge, and without challenge, there would be no transformation.
Peterson’s use of the hero’s journey is a powerful analogy here. The hero is never the one who stays in the comfort of their home. They have to venture out into the unknown, face the dragon, and thereby confront the ultimate test of their abilities. But this process requires more than just courage and aptitude; it also demands a clear mind and an awareness of what’s happening internally.
When you’re actually face-to-face with the dragon (which is, say, a major life challenge), it’s incredibly easy to let doubt creep in. The emotional charge of the fear and discomfort can throw out all confidence: in the moment, the dragon always seems bigger and scarier than the ones you’ve previously fought.
Self-Awareness In Discomfort Is Key
This is why mindfulness is so crucial on your hero’s journey. Without it, fear and discomfort can cloud your judgment. When you’re entering the battle, it’s so easy to let those feelings magnify in your mind, making the challenge seem insurmountable. But when you’re mindful, you can step back, observe your emotions without being controlled by them, and focus on what really matters: taking the right action in that moment.
You can think about it this way: you’ve likely been through tough situations before, even if not exactly similar ones (hence the idea of discomfort that true novelty brings), but you survived them, grew in the process, and took away skills you can now use. If you pay attention in moments of chaos and discomfort, you can notice not only your own aptitude but also, equally importantly, your own personal insecurities and how they shape your reactions to discomfort.
We all have patterns of avoiding conflict and pain and allowing doubt to show itself in high-pressure situations. But being mindful of those tendencies gives you the power to confront them. When you begin to be aware of this nagging sense of discomfort that is trying to deter you from the challenge, you can choose not to let it control you.
This awareness — of your mind, your emotions, your tendencies — is key to not letting discomfort paralyze you. If you don’t understand these well, you can’t take control of your headspace when things get tough because the many unknown unknowns will make you want to retreat.
An unknown unknown can’t be fought or confronted, only a known unknown can. That can be confronted if you have confidence — a kind of data you have gathered about yourself, which comes from previous experiences and self-awareness, as the author Ryan Holiday says.
Each time you face chaos — whether it’s a new challenge at work, a major life decision, or even confronting a deep personal fear — that’s your dragon. And each time you slay one, you come back stronger, more capable, and more aware of your own potential. You gather more data about yourself.
But you only turn data into confidence if you’re mindful enough to integrate the lessons from those battles into who you are as a person, which requires a lot of work. The upside: then you can carry forward that knowledge to the next challenge.
This journey requires a deep understanding of what drives not only your goals and ambitions but also your fears and insecurities. What skills, headspace, experiences can you rely on to inform your journey? What gives you the confidence to move forward, and what will likely create doubt and questioning?
Once you recognize these patterns, you can begin to embark on a hero’s journey and face the dragon with mindfulness and clarity. Because the hero’s journey is not just about confronting the chaos out there in the world; it’s also about mastering the chaos within.
