Mini Episode: One Day at a Time

I'm doing for the many episode. Today, what I want to talk about is one giant cliche, which is one day at a time. One of our earlier guests, Jessica Lamb Shapiro, we talked a lot about cliches and how um silly they become, and yet if you can get underneath the silliness, or you can hear them fresh, you realize how much power is really in them. And one day at a time is one of those cliches that can be very, very useful. I first came across it in recovery programs where one day at a time is used.

Often it's really used in the sense of don't drink one day at a time. It's very difficult to make a commitment to never drink again, and people get very overwhelmed by that. So the commitment is just don't drink today, and sometimes we have to deconstruct that further. Don't drink this hour, don't drink this minute, and you just keep stringing one more minute that you don't drink together. So this can be useful in anything that we're trying to do.

By breaking it down to just not today, it's very easy to get overwhelmed by a lot of things in the future. So, for example, if we're talking about not drinking, people will start getting way ahead of themselves, like, well, what about it my wedding? Am I not going to drink at my wedding? And they don't even have a girlfriend yet. So by focusing on one day at a time, we can come back to the moment and try and only solve the problems we have to solve. The same

is true of trying to accomplish a goal. I find it very often that I find myself going, I don't see how on earth I'm going to keep going to the him every day. Well, I don't have to keep going to the gym every day. Right now, I just have to go to the gym today. And this always brings us back to the fundamental idea that all we

can really do anything about is this current moment. And so if there is something that needs done in the moment and we do it, we feel better and we are setting the stage for all those things in the future. Worrying is the spending the time over and over worrying about the future, but not doing anything about it. And so one of the rules I have for myself is if I'm worried about something, then I asked myself, is there anything I can do about it right now in

this moment, and I try and do that. So if it's a situation that needs figured out, then I think about it in that moment and I come up with a plan. If I'm worried about getting everything done that needs to get done for the podcast this week, then obviously the obvious answer, obviously the obvious answer is to do the work on what needs done right then. So the idea is not to get It's very easy to get caught up in the future. How am I going

to do this? How am I gonna do that? But coming back to one day, at a time, back to this moment, what's in front of me right now that I can do something with, What action can I take today that's going to set the stage for those future days.

What we're trying to do is bring ourselves out of that realm of rumination, that place where our thoughts spin and spin and spin on the same thing, not producing any new results, and bring them back to the present moment where we can either a do take some action on it, or be We can come back to where we are and and focus on where are we? And sometimes this is a very physical thing. Where am I sitting? How do my feet feel on the ground, What do

I hear around me? What colors do I see? It's about getting out of the theoretical world, which for a lot of us is a world of a lot of anxiety and worry, and back to the real world, which is sitting right here today. Hopefully that was helpful for you if you are interested in working with me again Eric at one you feed dot Net. Have a great week. Another episode out on Tuesday. Thanks as always by