What's Your Next Move?
A direct challenge to stop planning and start acting
You know exactly what you should do next.
The decision you’ve been circling. It’s there, waiting for you to acknowledge it.
So why haven’t you done it yet?
Because doing it means finding out whether you’re capable of what you hope you’re capable of. Right now, in this moment of inaction, you get to preserve the fantasy. You could succeed if you tried. You have potential. You’re just waiting for the right moment, the right mood, the right alignment of circumstances.
But potential without action is just a story you tell yourself about who you might become instead of evidence of who you actually are.
Marcus Aurelius wrote:
“Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one.”
He wasn’t talking about waiting until you felt virtuous enough. He meant stop theorizing and start demonstrating. Your character isn’t built in your thoughts about what you should do. It’s built in what you actually do, starting now, with whatever capacity you currently possess.
You’ve spent enough time preparing. You’ve consumed the articles, listened to the podcasts, made the plans, set the intentions. You’ve thought deeply about what you want and why you want it. You’ve analyzed the obstacles and strategized solutions. All of that thinking feels like progress because it’s adjacent to action.
But adjacent isn’t the same as actual.
Think about the last three months. How much time did you spend learning about what you should do versus doing it? How many hours went into consuming content about change versus making changes? How much energy went into planning versus executing?
The gap between those numbers is where your life is leaking away.
Epictetus used to challenge his students directly:
“How long will you wait to demand the best of yourself?”
Not when you feel ready. Not when circumstances improve. Not when you’ve figured everything out. How long will you accept being less than you’re capable of being?
His students wanted philosophical wisdom. He gave them philosophical confrontation. Because wisdom without action is just entertainment. You’re not here to collect insights. You’re here to become someone different through what you do with those insights.
What would change if you made one move today toward what matters? Not the perfect move. Not the complete solution. Just one action that demonstrates you’re serious about what you claim to value.
The email you send might not get the response you want. The conversation you have might be uncomfortable. The work you start might be mediocre. But you’ll be someone who acts on what they value rather than someone who talks about acting on what they value someday.
That difference compounds over time. Every day you choose action over analysis is a day you’re training yourself to be capable through practice. Every day you choose planning over doing is a day you’re training yourself to be comfortable with inaction.
Which training are you engaged in right now?
What are you postponing? And what makes you certain you’ll get another chance to stop postponing it?
Your next move doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to be real. It has to take you from the realm of intention into the realm of action. From what you’re thinking about doing to what you’re actually doing.
Maybe it works. Maybe it doesn’t. But either way, you’ll learn something that no amount of planning could teach you. You’ll discover what’s actually difficult versus what you imagined would be difficult. You’ll find out what you’re capable of right now, which is more valuable information than maintaining fantasies about what you might be capable of eventually.
The people you admire didn’t wait until they felt ready. They started before they knew how things would turn out. They made imperfect first moves that taught them how to make better second moves. They built capability through doing rather than through preparing to do.
You can join them. Or you can spend another month, another year, another decade preparing while they’re building.
What’s your next move?
The answer is already in your mind. You knew it before you started reading. The question is whether you’ll make that move today or whether you’ll find another reason to wait, another article to read, another strategy to consider.
Close this. Go make your move. Everything else is just delaying the moment when you find out what you’re actually capable of.
📝 Today’s Stoic Gameplan
Identify the one action: Not the project. Not the goal. The single next action that moves you from planning to doing.
Set the timer: You have until you go to sleep tonight. One move. That’s all.
Stop consuming: This is the last thing you read today about improvement. Now go improve something through action.
Notice what you learn: After you take that action, write down what you learned that you couldn’t have learned through more planning.
Make your move. Find out what happens. That’s the only path from where you are to where you want to be.
Stay stoic,
SW
Excellent piece. More certificates, degrees, seminars, courses, how-to books = more procrastination. Something to think about.
"Stop consuming: This is the last thing you read today about improvement. Now go improve something through action." - Mood follows action. Probably one of my greatest learnings over the past 10 years, and one I wished I'd learned 20 years ago.