Just For The Day
Just For The Day
#9 - August 19, 2025 - First Things First
Ever felt paralyzed by the enormity of what needs changing in your life? You're not alone.
"All we've got to change is everything" – this seemingly impossible task confronts many of us entering recovery. We explore the powerful recovery concept of "First Things First" and how focusing solely on the next right step can transform overwhelming challenges into manageable progress.
• Present moment awareness helps us avoid anxiety (future-focused) and depression (past-focused)
• Our mental capacity is limited to approximately seven pieces of information at once
• Holding onto resentments occupies valuable mental bandwidth we need for recovery
• Like Superman learning to filter overwhelming sensory input, we must learn to prioritize
• Breaking large tasks into smaller components makes progress possible
• Small, consistent efforts create more lasting change than dramatic one-time actions
• Perfectionism blocks progress while "good enough" allows us to move forward
• Recovery happens through taking one step at a time with intention
Question: How do you maintain focus on the present and avoid feeling overwhelmed in your addictions?
Jay and Diane's Just For The Day podcast is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Just for Today, any 12-Step program, or any other recovery-based product or organization. They should not replace your regular group or sponsor meetings.
The views expressed are solely those of the hosts and guests. Take what you like and leave the rest.
Welcome back to another episode of Just for the Day. I'm Jay and I'm a recovering addict.
Speaker 2:I'm Diane and I'm codependent.
Speaker 1:And today is August 19th.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:The title of today's daily reader is First Things First, and the quote is we apply effort to our most obvious problems and let go of the rest. We do the job at hand and as we progress, new opportunities for improvement present themselves.
Speaker 2:It's been said that recovery is simple. All we've got to change is everything. That can seem a pretty tall order, especially when we first arrive in Narcotics Anonymous. After all, not many of us showed up at our first meeting because of because our lives were in great shape. On the contrary, a great many of us came to NA in the midst of the worst crises of our lives. We needed recovery, and quick.
Speaker 1:The enormity of the change required in our lives can be paralyzing. We know we can't take care of all that needs to be done, not all at once. How do we start? Chances are we've already started. We've done the first, most obvious thing, obvious thing that needed to be done.
Speaker 2:We've stopped using drugs and we've started going to meetings up our feet and taking the step that's right in front of us. Only when that's been accomplished must we concern ourselves with what comes next. Slowly but surely, we'll find ourselves making progress down the path, visibly drawing closer each day to becoming the kind of person we'd like to be.
Speaker 1:Just for today, I will walk the path of my recovery by taking the step right in front of me right in front of me.
Speaker 2:I like it. I'm having images of Frozen 2 in my head. Just do the next right thing.
Speaker 1:That is exactly what. So I'm pulling out this one statement here in this last paragraph. Only when that's been accomplished must we concern ourselves with what comes next, If you know what you're doing and you're not doing it.
Speaker 2:Next, if you know what you're doing and you're not doing it, then you know what you should be doing. You don't have to plan ahead for what's ahead. Okay, if you know what you should be doing right now it's not being done.
Speaker 1:You can let go of the steps farther down the line if you know. You can just focus on what's next, what's right in front of you. Right, did I not say that? Right Is that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, kind of I've just yeah.
Speaker 1:I think this is fundamental to progress, in that most addicts are focused on the fourth and the fifth and the 10th and the 11th step.
Speaker 1:They're focused on things way too far down the line and we have to let go of those things. There's this this is a really clear skill that gets deployed not just in addiction, but in many areas of our life where I don't have to feel we feel compelled to worry about all of the steps and inevitably, if they can point to any one of the steps that's too difficult, that's the one we focus on, and then all of our focus moves away from the next step and all on the one that's potentially dangerous, and that's the one we focus on, and then all of our focus moves away from the next step and all on the one that's potentially dangerous, and that's a sure way to trip right, whereas the program teaches us to just focus on the next right step, right, one step at a time. Um, and I think there's a lot of wisdom in that, because then that there's. I'm having other things called to memory, like the value of present moment awareness. Right. Is that there's not, that you have nothing else other than the present?
Speaker 1:And if you're focused on anything other than the present you're going to be, you're going to be deploying energy somewhere else. That doesn't need to be. It needs to be in the now, and that's all that's important. You can worry about that stuff later, and that's something that we have reversed as addicts, where we focus too much on the tomorrow or the 10 years from now or the next three days, as opposed to I just have to worry about today.
Speaker 2:Or the past right. This is a very common discussion that you and I have had about mindfulness versus being focused on the past or the future, and mindfulness is a very hard thing to do. It's probably the reason why it's such a huge topic in today's society, because people just aren't used to living in the moment and there's lot of you know, youtube videos and there's a lot of spotify lists, playlists and whatever that help to people to focus their mind, to bring it back and say don't worry about five minutes from now, don't worry about the end of the day, focus right now, what's happening yeah what do you hear?
Speaker 2:yeah, what do you see?
Speaker 1:what do you feel?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, and, and just being able to pull all of that awareness back into now can be a huge stress reliever when you're so busy and preoccupied with what you can't control, which is any other moment than now any other moment, and it one of the things I really like about this concept is that it honors the limits of your focus.
Speaker 1:So, what we typically find is is so everyone's there are a couple of realities here of a human being is is that our focus is limited. You know, there are a thousand things we could be attending to right now, and yet I'm focusing only on a limited few, and so my my focus is already limited to a couple of things. Well then, if we then include in our focus things that are tomorrow and in the future, or things that are yesterday or farther back in the past, we're even further limiting our ability to focus.
Speaker 1:I like to think of it someone walking up a set of steps, progress and it's a long staircase and think of your focal view is like a very small circle that you can actually look at any given moment.
Speaker 1:And where is that focus? Imagine we're walking up this staircase and if my focus is at my, at my feet and just in front of my feet, meaning the next right step, well, I'm likely to be able to continue to climb right. But if I'm focused too far in the future, I can't like like steps above, I can't focus on where I'm stepping and I'm likely to trip, like steps above.
Speaker 1:I can't focus on where I'm stepping and I'm likely to trip. And if I'm turning around and focusing behind me on steps that I've already taken way back in the history, I'm likely to continue to trip up as well, and I find personally that people who are overly focused on the future steps are more anxious. They're more likely to be dealing with anxiety, and people who have their focus more commonly anchored into the past they're more depressed.
Speaker 2:Is that?
Speaker 1:making sense.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Not always, but typically that's. That seems to be the pattern, and especially when when discussing those things with those people.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's very interesting. Yeah, I like the idea of learning to narrow our focus, and the two things that come to mind for me are uh, one I remember in high school being told that was it seven digits?
Speaker 1:seven digits is the most that most average brains can remember yeah, and easily recall your working memory can seven to ten, I think something like why phone numbers are about that.
Speaker 2:Which is why they made phone numbers seven to ten digits. Yeah, because that's what people can remember nowadays. You don't have to remember that.
Speaker 2:It's going to get worse with all of the Right Now with people having computers and phones and whatever that remember all their contact details. We're probably more like five digits that we can remember. We've probably lost some of that, but that's the first thing that came to mind is that there are studies and they're they have shown that we have limits in what we can focus on, and if we try to focus on too many things and I remember doing this in high school they they had us um, hear a phone number and then a couple minutes later we had to give somebody the phone number and then they had us do it again, where we had a phone number but then there were other noises happening and other things going on and then we had to give back the phone number and it and the more noise noises that were put in with that phone number, the harder it was to recite it back afterwards.
Speaker 1:So definitely there's a focus limitation there it's a capacity limit, yeah right, and there, and it's interesting when you phrase it back that so definitely there's a focus limitation, there it's a capacity limit, yeah Right, and it's interesting when you phrase it back that way, because I think that you're you're exactly right it was seven, I just looked it up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's seven plus or minus two, somewhere between five and nine. And you know what it? What it honors is is that and it's okay that we have a limit to our capability, to our focus right, there's, there's and that it just means every bit of information that you lock in, which is why resentments have such a major impact on our life. Because imagine if, when you take on a resentment that you're going to obsess about, you're voluntarily giving up a portion of that capability. That's, and you're, and you're going, that's always going to be operating on a limited capacity.
Speaker 2:Because it's tied up holding onto the resentment. It's not available to be able to take in other information.
Speaker 1:And if you think, if you've deceived yourself into thinking that, oh, I'm not holding onto it, I'm just putting it into the history of my life, I'm just not dealing with it, you better believe that your subconscious is holding onto that. And that is energy tied up and the evidence of why this is how you know if energy is still tied up is is that, when that comes to memory, involuntarily cause you bump up against something in the world.
Speaker 1:Whether you bump, you meet that person on the street or you see a picture that reminds you of it, or something happens that reminds you of that situation If it disrupts your energy flow in any way, you're holding onto that energy and it is occupying your capacity.
Speaker 2:That's right. You're talking about untethered soul. The untethered soul goes into that in a lot of detail it's a really great book.
Speaker 1:It's a great book okay.
Speaker 2:So then I had another image that came to my mind when you were talking about the level of focus, okay, and it was a 1990s version of superman.
Speaker 2:I think maybe it was dean cain okay he's basically grown up in like a cornfield or whatever. He goes to the city and something happens that like his power is activated or something, and he hears everything. He hears the, the pigeons and the tops of the buildings and all the cars and the people and the subway, and he hears everything and he just grabs his his head and like wails because it's so much, it's overwhelming, it's overwhelming and he has to train his mind to know what's worth focusing on and what's not worth focusing on. And I mean, that's that's what makes his superpower so incredible, because he can hear somebody's getting robbed that's right from miles and miles away, and then he can get to them and help them but he's got to learn to filter it but he's got to learn to filter it and know what he's listening for.
Speaker 2:And I think that that's so true when you're looking at first things first, we can get so overwhelmed that it's debilitating. We can get so overwhelmed that we don't want to get out of bed. I get that when I look at my house and you know it's a weekend, everybody's been home and then they all go to school and I look around and I'm like, oh, where do I start? This house is a disaster and it can be very debilitating. And I think about when we were in the midst of our addiction cycles. Yeah Right, there were definitely days where I just did not have the capacity to deal with these typical survival things doing the laundry and the dishes, and the house was a mess, because I just felt like all of my energy was going into my interactions with you and with my kids.
Speaker 1:Right, and it was exhausting, exhausting, which leaves nothing left over.
Speaker 2:Nothing.
Speaker 1:Right yeah, which I think is part of the reason why, when people get initial bouts of recovery, they get so much drastic improvement, because a lot of the energy that they had tied up in the management of the unmanageable gets let go of and all of a sudden they're better able to manage all the other things that they do have control over. Right.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, maybe we do have to change everything about our life. Maybe we're recognizing that every aspect of our life has a trigger or something that is getting in the way of our recovery that we have to deal with. But I love that it says one thing at a time right. One step at a time. First it says deal with the obvious problems. So I mean there might be 1000 things wrong with my home situation. What is the most obvious thing?
Speaker 1:The one thing that's closest to me that I could have an influence on. That's right. Let me move on that. And it was interesting. Having read the first two paragraphs in this, I was like almost depressed a little bit. I'm like, my goodness, we've got, we've got to change everything. The enormity of the change required in our lives can be paralyzing. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:And then the solution is no, the solution is not to worry about the thousand different things, just to worry about one day at a time.
Speaker 1:So it reminds me of a some story I heard once before and I just tried to look it up. I couldn't find it, but the idea was part of the training. There was a monk that was going through training and he was being invited to wash dishes, and there were too many dishes to wash in one sitting, and so he continued to get more frustrated because it didn't matter how frequently he was working on them. He wouldn't make any headway, and part of the lesson he was there to learn was that it wasn't about trying to get to all of them, get clean. It was about working on every dish with intention, and that was what needed to be retrained into. The person was don't focus on all the stuff that you have to do and all that you can't get to. It's simply do your best to show up with the one thing that you've got in front of you and work with intention to get it done that's beautiful.
Speaker 2:In a society where we have so many um to-do lists, so much to accomplish, we do tend to focus on the dopamine reward that we get at the end of the task, and so we're looking for the reward of completion in a lot of different areas of our life yeah and just to say that's not the point.
Speaker 2:yeah, right, and there's a lot of areas of our life where you can apply that and think, yeah, completion, the end of it, seeing it done, isn't necessarily the only rewarding part. No, and we just have to put more emphasis on the progress, on the journey, on the little steps and accomplishments.
Speaker 1:The way you just said. That reminds me of our daughter who never cleans her room, and it's because she gets so overwhelmed with how dirty it stays. And our other son, who does the same thing, gets so overwhelmed. The solution is to just focus on doing a really good job with one thing. Can you just focus on one. It makes me want to talk to her about that, you know.
Speaker 2:Well, and we've done that with our kids, we've trained our kids to say, okay, you need to clean your room. Oh, but it's so overwhelming, okay, go and get all the dishes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what's one thing you can focus on? Okay, one of the three things. Yeah, you're done the dishes. Okay, now go collect all the laundry and we just break it down into smaller, bite-sized pieces. Yeah, and there's also inherent in that the need to let go when you can't get it all done right, because focusing on just the one also assumes the ability to let go of the 10 steps. I can't get to that.
Speaker 2:I wanted to get to we do the best that we can with the time that we have, and then we express gratitude for what we accomplished, recognizing that it doesn't have to be perfect. You know, that reminds me of last year we we had a son who's fairly young. He had a new teacher. It was the teacher's first time doing a split class, split grades, and this teacher really struggled to give all the kids the attention that they needed, and so she would give assignments and then move on to the other grade while this child was trying to complete the assignments. He he didn't have enough time, so she'd.
Speaker 2:You know do her lesson, then she'd come back and then she'd move on and she'd mark it and she'd say great job at the top. But he'd say I didn't finish it, mom, and he was beating himself up over it. And we'd say great job at the top. But he'd say I didn't finish it, mom, and he was beating himself up over it. And we were just like hon, she wants you to learn a skill. And by her saying good job, she's saying you're learning the skill. But he had such high expectations. It had to be perfect, Just like our daughter. It had to be perfect when she was learning to walk. She made us walk her for hours because it had to be perfect before she would take those first steps independently on her own. And I think sometimes in our recovery it's all or nothing and we really need to recognize that a little bit is still a little bit that's right.
Speaker 1:Well and good enough. A little bit is good enough by small and simple things. Right, and that's far better than big, large. I am so much more impressed by small, consistent efforts than by large one-off changes. And that's what us, as addicts and codependents, learn in the program. So great reading. I have nothing else. Did you get anything else there? No, it's good. Okay. So just for today. In your walk in the path of recovery, do so by taking the step that is right in front of you I love how you stumbled he.
Speaker 2:He was trying to change it from I will to giving it to you listeners so that you can give you advice. I'm trying to personalize it you do, you do, and sometimes it flows really nicely. This, this one, did not flow as nicely, but it was a good try.
Speaker 1:It was a great try. It was a good try.
Speaker 2:All right. Thanks so much for joining us everybody.
Speaker 1:See you next time.
