Friday morning as I was settling into a class, my cats started scrambling around the room and the next thing I knew, I was watching one of them knock over my (full) 16-ounce cup of coffee which was next to me on the end table. 

It happened so fast I don't even know which cat dealt the final blow.

But there was coffee all over the place.  The table top, legs, bottom shelf, the few items that were on the table, the backpack on the bottom shelf, the floor. You get the idea.

Maybe the most surprising thing is that all I said was "Oh Jeez!" rather than what most of you would probably have expected to come out of my mouth. 

Possibly this reflects the degree of inner peace and nervous system regulation and calm that I have achieved over the past couple of years.

Possibly it just means I hadn't yet had my coffee (thanks, cats)!

But on with the point of this story:

By now you all know that when something like this happens, I like to find the lesson for myself and the other people in my world. 

I will admit to something here:  there was a piece of me (the cat parent part) that wanted to take time to grab a photo.

But as a physician, my triage instinct took over.

I knew that the most important thing was for me to check for any "wounded" items and get them to safety.  

And only after getting the tissues, the TV remote, the backpack, and other items to safety did I get to work on cleaning up the mess.

And yes, after it was all over, I did make a new latte.

So the photo you see is not the photo of my coffee all over the place, it's a photo I grabbed from elsewhere, because I opted to do the most important thing in the moment.

As a coach, the triage instinct looks a little different. 

In my coaching sessions or in other interactions, or as I witness other people in their lives, I am always on the lookout for anyone who has an emotional wound or fear that might need some attention.

I look for the first thing that needs to be attended to, the thing that if I don't take care of it, nothing else will matter.

In "The One Thing," Gary Keller talks about finding the one most important thing to do, that thing that needs to be done by you, that most leveraged activity that will do more than anything else to help you get where you need to be.

So I invite you to think about what your highest priority is. 

What is your focus? What is the very next thing you need to do that is aligned with what you want to achieve or get or make happen in your life?

Here are some examples:

If you are a physician (or anyone else, for that matter), and you are feeling stressed or overwhelmed, you need to identify the big picture of what you really want, and then figure out the next action to help you make it happen.

If you are trying to lose weight, you need to figure out your "why" and find the plan that will work best for you.

If you are trying to declutter your house, you too need to look at the big picture, figure out why you want to do it, and create a plan of attack that makes sense to you. What is the very next thing you need to do?

And once you identify that very next thing, make sure you are in the right mindset to actually DO it.

It's easy when there's coffee all over the place.  You know what to do and you know it has to happen right away, so you do it.

But of course, you do NOT want very many of your next actions to be determined by what is happening around you - you want the vast majority of them to be things you choose, not things that are forced by the situation (although having planned for what to do in emergencies makes them a lot easier to handle when they arise).

Here's the thing: it's a little harder when the thing you need to do, while it is really important, isn't an actual urgent thing, like cleaning up spilled coffee.

I've heard it said, "action eats good intentions for breakfast."

So how do you get yourself into action?

You need to figure out what you want, then figure out what you need to do first (or next) to make it happen, and then ask yourself why you haven't yet done it.

Because it turns out that you also need to take care of that inner 2-year-old also known as your unconscious brain, that has some fear about it and says what all 2-year-olds say: "NO!"

And once you take care of that part of you, you can let go of the old programming that holds you back and move into deliberate, focused action.

And then you become unstoppable.

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