In 1933, an overwhelmed and frustrated woman named Frau sent a letter to psychologist Carl Jung, asking “how to live.”
(He didn’t have Instagram influencers to shout motivational platitudes at him, I guess)
Jung replied:
“Your questions are unanswered, because you want to know how you should live. You live as you can.
… if you do with conviction the next and most necessary, you always do something significant and destined by fate.
He shared the key to life.
He is part of recovery communities such as Alcoholics Anonymous.
It was also the title of a song in .Disney’s Frozen 2..
“The next right thing.”
Revisiting this story made me reflect on how much my thoughts on success and progress have changed over the years.
“Success” Redefined
I’ve been doing this Nerd Fitness for over 15 years.
Millions of people visit the site every year, more than 50,000 customers have bought things through NF, and our coaches have served more than 15,000 customers 1-on-1.
In that time, I have somewhat changed my perspective on “success” and “living well”.
I had thought that the only path to success required militant discipline in following a specific plan. I never missed a workout, and I was incredibly proud of it.
It didn’t occur to me how much of a .privileged and simple life. I lived, where I was 100% in control of my time.
(Sorry to all the parents and caregivers reading my 25-year-old perspective!).
Now that I am 40 years old, and I can see the types of people we have indeed help with Nerd Fitness, I changed my perspective on success and “living well” quite dramatically.
Success doesn’t happen when we learn to do everything perfectly, but instead when we get better at staying afloat even when things go wrong.
In other words, success is learning to be inconsistently consistent. Learn to be good enough for long enough.
And that means, when life seems chaotic, narrowing our focus down to “the next right thing.”
Do the next right thing
A .recent newsletter. by author Oliver Burkeman talked about how he chose to maintain some sanity in a messed up world.
It led me to these phrases from the author Eckert Tolle:
“What you refer to as your ‘life’ should be more accurately called your ‘life situation.'” It is psychological time: past and future.
… Forget about your life situation for a while and pay attention to your life.
Find the “narrow gate that leads to life.” It is called now.
Limit your life to this moment. Your life situation may be full of problems – most life situations are – but find out if you have any problems at this time. Not tomorrow or in ten minutes, but now.
You have a problem now?
When we ruminate on what has already happened, and we fear all the things that could happen or need to happen in the future…
It’s easy to feel out of control and overwhelmed.
Which brings us back to that clichéd solution: “the next right thing.”
It’s a cliché simply because it’s true.
We can zoom wayyyyyy in, and narrow our focus to something that is still within our control. In some situations, yes there is a problem now. And we can only focus on that one thing.
But in many other situations, we often worry about all the problems that could be, or the problems outside of our control, which prevents us from taking action on the things that we can control.
Burkeman continues:
As for saying I need to just do the next thing… you can always just do the next thing, then the next thing, whether you like it or not.
It’s a little strange, actually, to refer to any of these techniques as “narrowing the horizons,” as if that somehow implies artificial limitation of oneself.
Really, you just recognize how limited you’ve always been already.
We all know how easy it is for us .complicate things..
And when the world feels like a dumpster fire, it can help you zoom in on that next decision, the smaller goal, and just do the next good thing.
It could involve a workout or a walk, focusing on the next meal, calling our therapist, or .finally saying 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 good thing for me: take a walk.
– Steve
PS: Maria Popova has .a great write up on “the next good thing”. regarding his life as a writer that inspired this piece.
PS: Nerd Fitness is hiring a few remote, part-time humans (especially with flexible nights and weekends) to take incoming, scheduled calls from potential clients interested in our 1-on-1 coaching. .Click here to learn more..
###
