Do The Next Right Thing

At an event I heard Darrell Vesterfelt speak and he shared the simplest philosophy to self improvement I’ve ever heard.

Darrell is the VP of Growth for Mighty Networks, he's built and sold a handful of businesses, and he's created a life by his design. And while of that is impressive, what's most impressive is the way that he did it.

At every juncture and with every decision, Darrell asked “What’s the next right thing to do?”.

Bad news from a vendor or a client - What’s the next right thing?

Gets a new and exciting opportunity presented to him - What’s the next right thing?

Feeling stuck about how to proceed on solving a problem - What’s the next right thing?

You don’t need to know or do everything. You don’t need to have the perfect strategy in place. You don’t even need to know how to do it. You just need to take action with full alignment toward what you want.

It’s such a simple philosophy but it’s so effective, and connects to guidance offered by two other leaders in the space:

Brian Johnson, the founder of Heroic, makes the simple recommendation to “do more of what works and less of what doesn’t”. It’s a path that will get you slowly optimizing toward the lifestyle and realities you desire.

And in Atomic Habits, James Clear talks about the power of decisive moments. We can choose to make a good choice or a bad choice, and it’s the accumulation of those choices that determines where we end up.  He uses the example of tree branches where at every decision point, you either branch up or down. More good choices lead to more positive inflections, and more bad choices lead to more negative inflections. 

Both of these theories imply the exact same thing - Doing the next right thing. 

One choice, one action, one intervention at a time, you are building your life. When you live with more consciousness to know you’re making decision, have the clarity to know what’s the right choice, and exhibit the discipline to execute it - Darrell claims that in 30 days your life would be unrecognizable.

I call this living intentionally where you’re thoughtful and purposeful about everything you do. And while the process of consistently living out this process requires more awareness, the next time you find yourself making a decision, ask yourself this question:

What’s the next right thing to do?