One unpopular opinion in my house that I have and my teenager completely disagrees with is that Frozen 2 is better than the original Frozen.

Hear me out.

I love both movies. I do. The powerful portrayal of sisterhood. The songs that bring joy and live in your head for days at a time. The relatable struggle of finding yourself and honoring who you are while letting go of who others think you should be. I could make a very long list here.

There’s one scene in Frozen 2 that makes it required viewing for me. You don’t need to know everything about this story to know that one of our main characters, Anna, finds herself alone, deep in grief that she has lost her sister and her best friend, faced with a historical wrong she wants to make right, but unsure of what to do.

In this moment, Anna sings an entire song about one of my favorite practices – just do the next right thing. Things are bleak for her, yet she knows she must keep going and do what she can. We get to see this usually positive, sunshine-filled character have a moment of deep uncertainty. She focuses on the present moment – literally standing up, picking up her things, and walking toward the light out of the cave she is in. She listens to the voice within her that guides her toward doing the next right thing.

Each of us encounters moments when we don’t know what to do. These moments are sometimes full of very high stakes, like Anna experiences. We come face to face with decisions that will change our lives. Often though the everyday struggles push us to examine our core values and who we want to be in the world. From feeling overwhelmed on a project and knowing you should probably ask for help to realizing you’ve over-scheduled yourself and have to tell someone no to having an aha moment that you’re no longer happy in your job, we find ourselves in predicaments that push us to be honest about who we want to be.

Pausing to actually ask ourselves, “What is the next right thing?” helps us anchor to presence and what is possible in the moment. In doing this, we have a better chance of recognizing the fear and anxiety that show up and let them be one piece of our experience instead of all of it. In asking this question, we honor a commitment to ourselves and trust that we have a deep knowing inside us. This helps us remember our core values and add them into the mix as we move forward.

I’m a big believer in manageable practices that we can do in in our everyday moments that help prepare us for the heavier things that come up, often when we don’t expect them to. Using the word practice is key here because a practice is not a performance. A practice is something we do to gain experience, to add another tool to our human toolbox. If we practice, we’re better able to reach for this tool when we need it.

The reality is most of us won’t break out into song to help us get through the hard moments (though I have found that it can help). One thing we can learn to do is pause, get quiet, and remember who we are and connect with the values we have. Remembering that we can just do the next right thing reminds us that we can trust ourselves. This trust helps us hold hands with courage so we can take action.