When the Next Step is Unclear

One of the best days of my life was in September of 2007. I hopped off the bus, ran down our long lane, and skipped up to the house to grab an after-school snack. I went into the living room to deposit my backpack when I noticed something sitting on the chair. A white, shoebox-sized box was a little out of the norm, so I carefully stepped over to investigate.

Then, I screamed.

In the white box was something that would change my life forever. It was innovative and exciting. The most important technology of its time. A gift from a foreign culture to the heathens of America. A gift that would, in fact, be the most important gift of my life.

That’s right. It was a Wii.

To say my sister and I were deprived of a childhood would be a complete lie, but our parents did teach us the value of waiting. In fact, my dad always said, “It’s good to want.” A Wii was something I had wanted for what seemed like forever, so getting off the school bus on a normal Wednesday to see the beautiful, white Japanese console making it’s home in our home was a top-10 experience for my 8-year-old self. I can remember trying to take off my jeans and change into comfy pants while attempting to open the box at the same time because I just couldn’t wait any longer to get the thing fired up!

With my parents' help, ‘Wii’ got the Wii hooked up that night (no more puns, I promise). There were so many choices I didn’t even know where to begin. I’m fairly confident I spent an hour perfecting my Mii that night (which has not changed one bit since then, even though I don’t have a spiky bun or glasses…). Wii Sports was also my favorite sport growing up- the family bowling tournaments? Sisterly baseball games? Wasting time whipping the remote back and forth, trying to figure out how to play the stupid tennis game? I was quite the athlete.

Our whole family had a lot of fun playing the Wii often, even after it wasn’t “cool” anymore. We ended up accumulating a small hoard of games over the years, ranging from Wheel of Fortune to Wii Music and some of which we still pull out once in a while. One of my sister and I’s favorite games was Super Mario Galaxy, an adventure-style game where you travel through different ‘galaxies’ as Mario to collect stars and save Princess Peach (who, by the way, needs to get her sh*t together. I mean, stranger danger? Hello?...). To this day I still think the different levels and the music was really cool, especially for its time, but for those of you who aren’t concerned I’ll stop geeking out.

Anyways, what was unique about this game was that it required a lot more problem-solving and investigative skills than your average video game. Rather than just running through a course with a start and end point, this game had a lot of moving pieces and parts to figure out For example, some of the stages had different gravity effects or plants that acted differently if you touched them. It wasn’t until I was middle school-aged that I could appreciate the game- when I was younger, I would get so frustrated that I couldn’t figure it out that I would just quit. The issue? There were no hints, no instructions, and so many possible solutions to the problems in the game.

I’ve been thinking about that goofy Super Mario Galaxy game lately. If only I could go back and give my elementary school self all the critical thinking skills I have now, I probably would have been able to finish the game. I don’t think the roadblock then was that I couldn’t solve problems. I think the real issue was that I, like many others, was so conditioned to being told what to do next that I didn’t know what to do when the next step wasn’t laid out for me.

That’s really what I’ve been thinking about lately. The next step.

Sometimes, we are fairly good at planning for ‘the next step’. Maybe it’s graduating from college or finding a new job. We have visions for what our lives will be in 5, 10, or 20 years and it’s easy to imagine what big steps need to happen to get to that point. But what do you do when the next step is unclear?

It’s hard to know what to do when you don’t know what to do. Just like my younger self playing that Wii game, it can be easiest to just shut down, say ‘I’m done’, and walk away for a while. And although it can be healthy to take a break from life now and then, you and I both know it’s important to tackle decisions as they come our way. How do we do it? Sometimes that a question that’s easier to ask than it is to answer.

Some will say you have to critically evaluate all options and take the path of least resistance (If you’ve ever seen Along Came Polly, this would be “The Reuben Method”). Others, will say you need to completely trust your gut. But sometimes it’s just as difficult to understand what your heart is saying as it is to predict which step will have the fewest roadblocks. That’s why it’s important to take both into account when formulating the next step. It’s important to evaluate the details of all options as they present themselves, but don’t underestimate your own, inner decision-making skill.

I know that’s pretty confusing and it probably isn’t anything you haven’t heard before. “So what’s the point of this blog post, then?”

This next section is where the money is, so stay with me: When the next step is unclear, the most important thing to remember is that there is no ‘wrong’ next step. Assuming the decision you made was done so with clean morals and good intentions, you’ve already made the right decision. Now, that doesn’t mean you might not have to make the same decision again in the future, but it does mean that you can stop chewing over past missteps in your mind. We all make choices and steps we wish we hadn’t, or that we wish we’d done differently, but that doesn’t mean they’re bad. And the best part? There’s no limit on the number of times you can step forward. All you have to do is wake up in the morning, trust yourself, and step one foot in front of the other.

So what are you waiting for, go ahead and take that next step. Trust your intuition, trust your gut, and step forward with conviction, even when you’re unsure. And if you need to take that step differently the next time, don’t worry- there’s a green 1-UP mushroom waiting for you up ahead (and if you didn’t get that video game reference, I’m incredibly disappointed in you).