In 1933, an overwhelmed and frustrated woman named Frau sent a letter to psychologist Carl Jung, asking “how to live.”
(She didn’t have Instagram influencers shouting motivational platitudes at her, I guess)
Jung replied:
‘Your questions cannot be answered, because you want to know how you should live. You live the way you can.
…when you do the next and most necessary thing with conviction, you are always doing something meaningful and intended by fate.”
He shared the key to life.
It is part of recovery communities such as Alcoholics Anonymous.
It was even the title of a song Disney’s Frozen 2.
“The next right thing.”
As I revisited this story, I began to think about how much my thoughts about success and progress have changed over the years.
“Success” redefined
I’ve been doing this Nerd Fitness stuff for over 15 years.
Millions of people visit the site every year, more than 50,000 customers have purchased gear through NF and our coaches have served more than 15,000 1-on-1 customers.
During that time, I have changed my view of ‘success’ and ‘living well’ quite a bit.
I always thought that the only path to success required militant discipline according to a specific plan. I have never missed a training session and was incredibly proud of this.
It didn’t occur to me how many of one privileged and simple life I lived where I had 100% control over my time.
(Apologies to any parents and caregivers who read my 25-year perspective!).
Now that I’m 40, I can see what kind of people we have Actually help at Nerd Fitness, I have changed my perspective on success and “living well” quite dramatically.
Success doesn’t come from learning how to do everything perfectly, but from getting better at staying afloat even when things are bad.
In other words, success is learning to be inconsistently consistent. Learning long enough to be good enough.
And that means when life seems chaotic, we need to narrow our focus to “the next right thing.”
Do the next good thing
A recent newsletter by author Oliver Burkeman shared how he chose to maintain a modicum of sanity in an overwhelming world.
It led me to these sentences by author Eckert Tolle:
“What you call your ‘life’ should more accurately be called your ‘life situation’. It is psychological time: past and future.
…Forget your life situation for a while and pay attention to your life.
Find the “narrow gate that leads to life.” It’s called the Now.
Limit your life to this moment. Your life situation may be full of problems – most life situations are – but consider whether you have a problem right now. Not tomorrow or in ten minutes, but now.
Do you have a problem? now?
When we think about what has already happened, and we panic about all the things that could or should happen in the future…
It’s easy to feel out of control and overwhelmed.
That brings us back to that cliché solution: ‘the next right thing’.
It’s only a cliché because it’s true.
We can really zoom in and narrow our focus to something that we can still control. In some situations it is possible yes, there is a problem right now. And we can just focus on that one thing.
But in many other situations, it’s often the worry we have about all the possible problems, or the problems we can’t control, that keeps us from taking action on the actual things we can control.
Burkeman continues:
As for telling myself that all I had to do was this… you can always just do the next thing, and then the next thing, whether you like it or not.
It’s actually a bit strange to refer to any of these techniques as “narrowing your horizons,” as if it somehow means artificially limiting yourself.
In fact, you just consciously recognize how limited you always were.
We all know how easy it is for us to do that making things too complicated.
And when the world feels like a dumpster fire, it can help to zero in on the next decision, the smallest goal, and just do the next right thing.
It could involve a workout or a walk, focusing on the next meal, calling our therapist, or… finally say no to a commitment.
If “now” is the only time that exists, then “the next right thing” is the only thing we can really do.
I’m going to do the next thing that works for me: take a walk.
-Steve
PS: Maria Popova does a great article about “the next right thing” as it relates to her life as a writer that inspired this piece.
PPP: Nerd Fitness hires a few remote, part-time people (primarily with flexible evenings and weekends) to answer incoming, scheduled calls from prospects interested in our 1-on-1 coaching. Click here for more information.
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