I learned this trick from Sam Seaborn.
There’s a scene I always think of from Season 4 of The West Wing. An exhausted Sam Seaborn has been sent home to sleep after a particularly brutal week; after getting to sleep he is called to fill in on an essential job for an absent colleague. After he hangs up the phone, he pauses for a second then says, “Get up. Right now.”
To Do Lists, and calendars can be great, but sometimes when life throws a major curveball you need to just take a deep breath and narrate the next right thing.
I’m gearing up for a very exciting weekend that I didn’t know about 12 hours ago. I’ll definitely be narrating to myself as I go. Because I want to do well, because there’s no time to spare, and because it’s a new experience for me, I am doing the next right thing.