In 1933, a frustrated and frustrated woman named Frau sent a letter to the psychiatrist Carl Jung, asking “how to live.”
(He didn’t have any Instagram influencers to speak words of encouragement to him, I guess)
The answer comes from Jung:
“Your questions are unanswerable, because you want to know how a person should live. A person lives as he can live.
… if you confidently do the next and most necessary thing, you are always doing something meaningful and purposeful.”
He shared the key to life.
It is part of recovery societies such as Alcoholics Anonymous.
It was the title of a song on .Disney’s Frozen 2..
“The next thing that’s right.”
Revisiting this story made me think about how much my thoughts on success and progress have changed over the years.
“Success” Redefined
I’ve been doing this Nerd Fitness stuff for 15+ years.
Millions of people visit the site every year, 50,000+ customers have purchased items through NF, and our trainers have used 15,000+ customers 1-on-1.
During that time, I changed my view a bit about “success” and “well being.”
I used to think that the only way to success required military discipline following a certain plan. I never missed a workout, and I was incredibly proud of this.
It didn’t occur to me how much a .a happy and easy life. I lived, where I was 100 percent in control of my time.
(My apologies to all the parents and carers who read my 25 year opinion!).
Now that I’m 40 years old, I also see the types of people we have actually help with Nerd Fitness, I changed my perception of success and “wellness” dramatically.
Success is not found when we learn to do everything right, but rather when we get better at staying afloat even when things go wrong.
In other words, success is learning to be consistent. Learning to be good enough for long enough.
And that means, when life seems chaotic, we narrow our focus to the “next right thing.”
Do the Right Next
A .the latest newspaper. in writer Oliver Burkeman talked about how he chose to keep a small mind in a wonderful world.
It led me to these sentences from author Eckert Tolle:
“What you call your “life” should accurately be called your “state of life.” It is mental time: past and future.
…Forget about your health situation for a moment and pay attention to your health.
Find the “small gate that leads to life.” It’s called Now.
Reduce your life so far. Your health condition may be full of problems – many health conditions – but find out if you have a problem right now. Not tomorrow or in ten minutes, but now.
Do you have a problem now?
When we analyze what has already happened, and dread all the things that could or need to happen in the future…
It’s easy to feel out of control and overwhelmed.
Which brings us back to that cliché solution: “the next right thing.”
It’s only cliché because it’s true.
We can zoom in wayyyyyy, and narrow our focus to something that is within our control. In some cases, yes, there is a problem right now. And we can just focus on that one thing.
But in many other cases, we tend to worry about all the possible problems, or problems that are out of our control, which prevents us from taking action on the real things that we can control.
Burkeman continues:
As for telling myself that I only needed to do the next thing… you can only do the next thing, and then the next thing, whether you like it or not.
It is surprising, in fact, to refer to any of these methods as “shrinking horizons”, as if they are somehow involved in automatically limiting themselves.
Really, you just realize how limited you’ve been.
We all know how easy it is for us to do .complex things..
And when the world feels like a dumpster fire, it can help zoom in on that next decision, that little goal, and do the next right thing.
It may include exercising or going for a walk, focusing on the next meal, calling our therapist, or .in the end he said no. in commitment.
If “now” is the only time there is, then “the next right thing” is the only thing we can really do.
I’ll do the next right thing for me: take a trip.
-Steve
PS: Maria Popova has gone .good writing about “the next right thing”. as it pertains to his life as a writer who inspired this piece.
PPS: Nerd Fitness is hiring a few remote, part-time people (mostly with flexible nights and weekends) to take incoming, scheduled calls from potential clients interested in our 1-on-1 training. .Click here to learn more..
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