In 1933, a devastated and frustrated woman named Frau sent a letter to the psychologist Carl Jung, asking him “how to live.”
(I guess she didn’t have any Instagram influencers shouting motivational platitudes at her)
Jung replied:
“There are no answers to your questions, because you want to know how to live. Live as you can.
…if you do the next and most necessary thing with conviction, you are always doing something significant and destined.”
He shared the key to life.
He is part of recovery communities like Alcoholics Anonymous.
It was even the title of a song in Disney’s Frozen 2.
“The next real thing.”
Revisiting this story got me thinking about how much my thoughts on success and progress have changed over the years.
“Success” redefined.
I’ve been doing that Nerd Fitness for over 15 years.
Millions of people visit the site every year, 50,000+ customers have purchased items through NF, and our trainers have served 15,000+ clients 1-on-1.
During that time, I changed my perspective on “success” and “the good life” quite a bit.
I used to think that the only path to success required militant discipline that followed a specific plan. I never missed a workout and I was incredibly proud of this.
It didn’t occur to me how many a a privileged and simple life I lived a life where I was 100% in control of my time.
(Apologies to all parents and guardians who read my 25-year perspective!).
Now that I’m 40 years old and I see what kind of people we are actually help with Nerd Fitness, I changed my perspective on success and the “good life” quite dramatically.
Success doesn’t happen when we learn how to do everything perfectly, but when we get better at staying afloat even when things are going badly.
In other words, success is learning to be inconsistent. Learning how to be good enough for long enough.
And that means, when life seems chaotic, narrowing our focus to the “next right thing.”
Do the next right thing
AND recent newsletter by author Oliver Burkeman talked about how he decided to keep a shred of sanity in an overwhelming world.
This led me to these lines from author Eckert Tolle:
“What you call 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’s called Sada.
Narrow your life down to this moment. Your life situation may be full of problems – most life situations are – but find out if you have any problems 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 freak out about all the things that could happen or should 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 only because it’s true.
We can really zoom in and narrow our focus on something that is still under our control. In some situations, yes, there is a problem right now. And we can only focus on that one thing.
But in many other situations, we are often worried about all the problems that could be, or problems that are out of our control, which prevents us from doing something about the real things that we can control.
Burkeman continues:
As for telling myself to just do the next thing… 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 call any of these techniques “narrowing horizons”, as if they involve artificially limiting yourself.
In fact, you are only consciously recognizing how limited you have always been.
We all know how easy it is for us make things too complicated.
And when the world feels like a dumpster fire, it can help you zoom in on the next decision, the smallest goal, and just do the next right thing.
This can include exercising or going for a walk, focusing on the next meal, calling our therapist or finally say no on obligation.
If “now” is the only time there is, then “the next right thing” is the only thing we can really do.
I’m going to do the next right thing for me: take a walk.
-Steve
P.S: Marija Popova has great article about “the next right thing” because it refers to her life as a writer that inspired this work.
PS: Nerd Fitness is hiring a few part-time remote people (especially with flexible nights and weekends) to take inbound, scheduled calls from potential clients interested in our 1-on-1 coaching. Click here to learn more.
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