The 3 Habits That Hold Everything Together (When Life Gets Chaotic)

Your son has a fever. The daycare just called. You've got four client appointments this afternoon and a team meeting you cannot miss. Your meal prep containers are still sitting in the sink from yesterday. And somehow, you're supposed to hit the gym.

This is when most systems fall apart.

Here's what I learned lying in a hospital bed after tearing both quads: the difference between surviving chaos and thriving through it comes down to three non-negotiable anchors. Not ten. Not a color-coded habit tracker with twenty-seven checkboxes. Three.

When I couldn't walk, couldn't train, couldn't do most of what defined me as an athlete and coach, I had to identify what absolutely could not be negotiated away. Because when you're in a wheelchair and your life has been reduced to the absolute essentials, you figure out really quickly what matters.

I worked with a client recently who runs her own physical therapy practice while managing a toddler. She came to me completely overwhelmed—habit trackers with missing beats, to-do lists on her phone, fridge, and mind simultaneously. She was drowning in her own excellence.

Sound familiar?

The problem wasn't her work ethic. It wasn't her commitment. It was that she was trying to be disciplined about everything instead of being strategic about the few things that actually hold the center.

Here's the framework: your three non-negotiables need to anchor three domains—physical, mental, and systematic.

Physical anchor:This is your training session or movement practice. Not seven days a week. Not the perfect program. But the consistent showing up that reminds you who you are. For me, even from a wheelchair, it was the rehab exercises I could do in bed. Every. Single. Day. No exceptions. That physical anchor kept my identity intact when everything else was chaos.

Mental anchor:This is the practice that keeps you from becoming a reactive, overwhelmed version of yourself. For some clients, it's five minutes of morning reflection before the day explodes. For others, it's an evening walk with the dogs where they deliberately disconnect. Mine? It's that pause between stimulus and response—the conscious moment where I align my thoughts, feelings, and actions before proceeding.

Systematic anchor:This is the one thing that keeps your ship from completely capsizing. Meal prep. Sleep hygiene. Your calendar blocking practice. The Sunday planning session. Whatever system, when maintained, prevents the dominoes from falling. During my recovery, Liv prepared my nutrition according to the plan I'd written. That system held while everything else was uncertain.

Notice what's not on this list: perfection. Complexity. Doing everything.

The goal isn't to be disciplined about these three things. The goal is to make them so non-negotiable that they become who you are. You don't need discipline to breathe. You just breathe. That's the end state for your three anchors.

When your toddler gets sick and your day implodes, you don't negotiate with these three. Everything else can flex. These don't. Because these are what make youyouwhen chaos tries to make you someone else.

What are your three non-negotiables?

Not what you think they should be. Not what worked for someone else. What are the three anchors that, if maintained, keep you intact as the high-performer you are—regardless of what burns down around you?

Reply to this email and tell me. Because if you can't name them, you don't actually have them. And that's exactly why life feels like it's constantly pulling you under.

Stay Strong,

Paul Oneid, MS. MS. CSCS

Founder and Head Coach