Tag Archives: planning

When we take just the next right step, life gets simpler. By releasing ourselves from the burden of twenty seven steps down the line, our minds can clear a bit. It’s very hard to know what to do next, when the moment is clouded by what to do seven hours or days, months or even years from now. But when we allow our attention to settle gently on just the next right step, there’s room in us to watch, listen and feel for all that’s guiding us in that very moment. And then with seemingly little effort, we move right into the next moment. We’re no longer stuck trying to figure out how this moment intersects with that moment eleven years away.

And once present in the next moment by taking the next right step, another next right step begins to avail itself. Soon the stuckness we felt has begun to move.

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And this process begins to flow like water: effortlessly moving to the next place, then the next, surmounting and surpassing any obstacle as if it wasn’t even there. More importantly, this process becomes a way of life, and decisions begin to make themselves.

This approach to life and decisions is often initially met by resistance. So many of us were taught that “figuring it out” would solve all our problems. So we go about searching inside and out for ways to avoid hurt, maximize our assets, and put an end to whatever ails us. Many responded to this just-the-next-right-step approach with rebuffs like, “You have to have a plan,” and “You can’t just let things happen,” and, “Nothing would ever get done if we all thought that way!”

And then they try it. So many stories of people fighting to figure something out, resisting the surrender into just the next right step. And then, after months or years of exhaustion to make some aspect of their life better, they let go of the planning and wrestling. And then something happens in their lives that appears nearly miraculous and the struggle ends with a resolution they’d never dreamt. How?

When we empty our minds of all our plans and projections and plots, there’s room for something completely new.

“Just the next right step” doesn’t have anything to do with being lazy or unwilling to work hard. But when we practice just the next right step, we move forward without resisting ourselves, because the next right step comes naturally as something we want to do. And we have energy to do it, because we haven’t been spending our energy mapping out the course of our lives, and the lives of everybody we know.

Just the next right step opens the door to a level of efficiency and effectiveness you may be surprised by. Feel free to tap into the flow.

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