Time For A New Trajectory

  Step back with me for a moment to high school science class. You recall that Newton's first law of motion states, “An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.” Objects tend to “keep on doing what they're doing.”

In fact, it is the natural tendency of objects to resist changes in their state of motion. This phenomenon is called inertia. But what is meant by the phrase state of motion? This refers to an object’s velocity—the speed it travels in a certain direction.

So why are we talking about Isaac Newton in a LinkedIn Article? Just substitute “objects” for “person,” and it translates to “people tend to keep on doing what they’re doing.” An object (or person) at rest has zero velocity—and will remain with zero velocity in the absence of an “unbalanced force.”

Objects in a state of rest stay at rest. People in a state of rest stay at rest. People tend to resist changing this state of motion or their own development unless action is taken.

The majority of people continue on the same path, with their own inertia, doing things the same way, because it’s familiar and comfortable. Making the leap to a new adventure requires someone to shake off inertia and move into change with determination. You have to use your own energy and human potential to make this change. Just as the earth exerts a gravitational pull on everything from the ocean tides to the moon, our own current state of being, our mind, our surroundings, and the stories we tell ourselves exert a heavyweight pull on what we believe we can or cannot do.

 All the Right Moves

More than two centuries after Newton advanced scientific knowledge, Albert Einstein said, “Nothing happens until something moves.” We all understand this well as we try to balance safety, security, and stability with constant change. Not making a change is far easier than changing, especially since we are wired for Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs to first have food, shelter, and safety. Thankfully, most of us in the developed world enjoy a decent job, safe surroundings, and supportive friends—but we also have a burning desire to do more, be more, achieve more.

What we think is safe and secure is not necessarily so. We can’t wait for the change to happen to us—we have to take control of the trajectory of our lives. It’s like jumping into a pool: The water is very cold at first and a shock to the system, but our dive carries us forward. Then we have to swim, breathing and paddling, keeping steady and straight. Why? Because the alternative is drowning.

A friend told me recently that in a few decades hardly anyone will have to work anymore. While I don’t totally agree with this when I consider service industries, for example, we can already see the effects of manufacturing jobs being eliminated by robots and software industries. In the future, people will want to work at something that is both fulfilling and helps to make the world a better place.  

Valuable Frienemy

Inertia can be both your friend and enemy—just like the saying, “Keep your friends close and your enemies even closer.” We have to embrace, nurture, and feed inertia so it will work for us instead of against us. We can alter an unfulfilling trajectory and gain momentum in a new, positive direction. So how do we control our inertia?

We have to acknowledge that there are indeed things we can control and things we can’t. Some things are largely out of our control, including the stock market, economy, weather, health crises, or the political environment. However, we can reclaim some control if we set the course, while keeping our True North always in sight through the metaphorical small window in our ship.

Inertia can be a good thing. You can pick up speed along the way that propels you forward—if you are controlling and steering your ship. Then momentum begins to build. You will sometimes experience stretches in life when it seems like everything is going right. Your constant visualization of where you want to be versus where you don’t want to be can build the right inertia.

In The Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger wrote, “This fall I think you're riding for—it's a special kind of fall, a horrible kind. The man falling isn't permitted to feel or hear himself hit bottom. He just keeps falling and falling. The whole arrangement is designed for men who, at some time or other in their lives, were looking for something their own environment couldn't supply them with. Or they thought their own environment couldn't supply them with. So they gave up looking. They gave it up before they ever really even got started.”1

You might have heard that more mountain-climbing deaths occur on the descent, not the ascent. On the way down, you’re sore, worn out, and less focused. So you get sloppy. When inertia sends you sliding down the mountain you’ve worked so hard to climb up, you have to learn how to self-arrest. Jam that ice axe into the frozen ground and stop yourself from falling farther. The team you’re roped up with can also stop your fall, but you’re the one who has to take immediate action. Conversely, others on your team can also cause you to fall or you have to stop them from plummeting. As with mountaineering, in our daily lives it is critical to know the right techniques to self-arrest before you need them.

The friendly aspect of inertia helps create the velocity needed in your own personal rocket ship. Positive change and inertia are additive and addictive, kind of like booster rockets that keep propelling you to new heights. When you leave the atmosphere of your comfortable existence, it doesn’t mean all is safe and satisfying. You will have to return to earth someday, in some way—gravity naturally will bring you down. It means sometimes you will return to visit friends and family who were not on your rocket journey of pursuing your passion. You’ll find that you have changed, but they have not. It is kind of like being an expat and returning to your hometown with all of your amazing experiences and a radically altered worldview. In some cases, the friends and family you left behind appear as if their lives have stood still. But just because your view has changed does not mean their lives have not.

Once you start rocketing onward in your spacecraft, you cannot necessarily turn the ship around. You can, however, make course corrections in direction and speed—these variables are under your control. One mistake is to look out your windows and judge yourself on how fast others are moving. Your flight plan is your flight plan, and others have their own. Unless they are direct competitors to you, which is rarely the case, you have to “stay the course.”

True breakthrough requires commitment, time, and a willingness to go backward and get worse, before the change takes place and becomes permanent muscle memory. The point is to play your game - live your life - on your terms. When you make a commitment to change, you might go backward as you go forward – evolving what is in your control and in your innate abilities.

The Cherokee have a saying: “Pay attention to the whispers so you won’t have to hear the screams.” The only way to make those whispers, screams, and stomachaches go away is to change your inertia.