How to Find Your Next Step in Life and Do the One Thing That Matters Most Right Now

Ask yourself one simple question.

If you chase two rabbits, you will not catch either one.

— Russian proverb

When was the last time you said “I know exactly what to do? This one thing is what I have to work on right now, and it will make everything else easier”?

I bet it’s been a while. Life’s complicated and there are tons of things you have to look after. A demanding job, car payments, keeping your relationship going, doing your taxes, your watchlist on Netflix, and the extra weight you’ve put on last Christmas all compete for your attention.

Even if you zero in on an area like your work, it’s the same story. Your current project has loose threads all over and there are at least ten different things that need your attention.

Under these circumstances, keeping your focus and working on what matters most seems to be almost impossible.

Almost, that is.

Life is like knocking over a row of dominoes. Just like they fall one after another, you get to where you want to be in life one step after another.

The problem is that there are tons of dominoes to choose from, just like life has tons of opportunities and there are a bazillion things you can do with your time.

You walk around and randomly knock over a domino here and there. Some things fall, some don’t. Unless you stumble upon the right domino — the first in line — by luck, you’re not going to achieve much that way.

What you need to do instead is to find the starter domino that will knock over the whole line with a single push, unlocking opportunity after opportunity and crushing goal after goal.

Can you imagine what your life would be like if you stopped aimlessly knocking over dominoes and instead looked for the right starter? If you had clarity about what has to be your next step?

How much progress would you make if you could find out what mattered most right now instead of wasting time on things that have low payoff or become obsolete down the line?

Not only would you worry less about all the uncertainty, but also move your life forward instead of taking random, distracting detours in between that don’t pay off.

So, how do you find out which domino you have to knock over first? How do you structure complex problems and issues into actionable steps? By asking yourself a simple question.

The Thing That Makes Everything Else Easier

Our end goals are often clear as day to us. Finish this project. Earn X amount of money. Become fluent in that language. The problem with goals, as clear as they might be, is that they are just that: goals. They’re all about where you want to be but not so much about how you get there. The thing is that the “how to get there” part is often the crucial one.

So you have to find a simple way to break down your big picture into the smallest, actionable step that you can take right now. You have to work backward until you find the first domino.

Gary Keller and Jay Papasan, authors of The One Thing, have narrowed this process down to a single question. To find your first domino, you have to ask yourself the following: What’s the one thing I can do so that everything else becomes easier or unnecessary?

It seems trivial, but once you apply it, you’ll know why it’s such a brilliant question.

First, you narrow down on one thing and focus on it. No more distractions, no more spreading yourself thin, but 100% focus on what moves the needle right now.

Second, it asks what you can do. No should, could, would. It forces you to take action and move things forward instead of coming up with fancy descriptions of what you could do.

Third, it helps you to find the first domino — the one thing that makes everything else easier or unnecessary. This first impulse then moves down the line, either knocking over all the other dominos for you or at least show you what your next steps have to be.

Let me give you an example to make it clear how effective this question is to help you focus on what matters.

Think Backward

There are two ways to apply this question: Broad — if you’re looking for the right direction in life. And, narrow — if you’re looking for the next step to take.

Finding direction in your life — the macro view

A while ago I took a step back from life to look at the big picture. I stopped and asked myself What do you really want? I came up with tons of things. Being able to work from anywhere I want so I wouldn’t have to compromise my job, family, and the city I wanted to live in. Starting my own business because there aren’t many things that I despise more than someone else telling me what to do. Obtaining financial freedom and independency so I didn’t have to slave away until I’m 70. Finding my purpose in life, so I had something to strive for. Becoming a good human being and developing my personality and myself. Finding a woman whose lifestyle aligns with mine and whom I can have a long-lasting relationship with. Get a dog.

You see that it’s quite the list. Yours might be even longer. If you worked on everything at once, you’d spread yourself too thin and burn out before accomplishing anything. So how can you narrow down from a huge list like that to the next step you have to take to move in the right direction? By asking yourself: What’s the one thing I can do so that everything else becomes easier or unnecessary?

In my case, the answer was the following. Financial freedom and remote work both would be tons easier if I had my own business. I do believe in the law of attraction, so to have a great relationship with another good human being, I first had to become one myself. Both my own business and becoming a good human being would be tons easier if I found my purpose. I could build my business around that and once you have your own direction in life figured out, you can spend time improving yourself and helping others.

To find my purpose, I had to find out what I love doing and what I’m good at — which would also help with setting up a business. So, from a macro perspective, the next thing I had to do to set the direction for my life was to find out what I love doing and what I’m good at. And that’s the story of how I became a writer.

Discovering the next step — the micro perspective

Once you’ve found your direction in life and looked at the big picture, it’s time to zoom in and find out what the next step is to get you there.

Whatever you’re doing, you usually have a certain outcome in mind — something you’re working towards. If your big picture goal is to climb the corporate ladder and now you’re leading a project at work, you want it to be delivered on time, including a nice presentation and awesome results. If you’re me, you want to be a self-employed blogger or online entrepreneur who gets paid for his work.

But how do you get there? Again, by asking yourself the focusing question. What’s the one thing I can do so that everything else becomes easier or unnecessary?

And then you just iterate the whole thing down again, as you can see above. In my case, I figured out that I needed to do tons of reading before I could back my practical experiences with some solid knowledge and frameworks. And read I did until I got to the point where I had enough knowledge to advance to the next step — finding topics to write about and getting some practice in.

The whole thing seems like a complicated process, but it’s not. Once you get the hang of it (which you will quickly), it’s an amazing way to structure complex problems in a simple and actionable way. And all of that by asking yourself a simple question.

It’s not about taking the fun out of life

Despite my love for systems, schedules, and routines, I am all about having fun in life. Life isn’t about racing to a certain destination, it’s about enjoying what happens on the way.

I don’t know about you, but constantly being overwhelmed, not having focus, and wasting my efforts on things that aren’t worth it doesn’t sound like a lot of fun to me.

Use the focusing question as to what it is — an awesome way to find direction and the next step you need to work on.

Life is unpredictable. Even if you’ve got a rock-solid plan in mind life will throw you enough curveballs for you to dodge. There will be more than enough opportunities for you to derail, try things out, and have fun.

Simplify Your Life

Order and simplification are the first steps towards mastery of a subject.

— Thomas Mann

Life can seem super complicated at times and I’m not only talking about the business part of it. Your health, finances, relationships, spiritual life, and self-care all are areas that you need to tend to. And in each of these areas, there are tons of things to do.

But life is also filled with opportunities. The first thing you have to do if you want to make the most out of yours is to bring some structure and order to it. You have to decide where to go and what the first step is to get you there.

Write down what you want.

Ask yourself the question and go down the chain.

Then topple the right domino and watch life unfold in front of you.

Once you’ve found out what your next step in life is, all that’s left is to take it. If only there wasn’t procrastination — but thankfully, there’s a way to beat it:

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