breaking inertia
If you go back to the fundamentals of physics that you learned in high school, you’ll recall studying Newton’s Three Laws of Motion. Let’s focus on Newton’s First Law for now, also called the Law of Inertia: 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. The way it translates in terms of success is that slackers and procrastinators tend to stay that way and superachievers who develop a successful rhythm of doing meaningful actions keep achieving more and more.
The way to break inertia is to set things in motion. This can be a challenging task on its own and will require willpower and most importantly Why-power. It takes effort,commitment and grit to get things off ground. It’s analogous to taking off of an airplane. It takes immense momentum for a plane to take off and reach high altitudes, but once it is in the air, it gets easier as all it has to do is cruise through at a constant speed.
The same applies during the launch of a rocket ship.The space shuttle consumes tons of fuel during the initial minutes of its flight than it does for the remaining trip; the simple reason being that it has to break free from the pull of gravity. Once it is successful to do so, it can glide in the orbit.
Our old ways and previous conditioning are like inertia and the pull of gravity. We are innately wired to stay at rest. That’s why whenever we are building a new habit or starting a new venture we need a huge amount of energy to break the inertia and get things moving forward. But once we are able to build momentum, we become unstoppable and unbeatable even though we put considerably less effort. As Charles J. Givens has remarked, “Success requires first expending ten units of effort to produce one unit of results. Your momentum will then produce ten units of results with each unit of effort.”
Once we have momentum, sticking to performing actions becomes easier for us than not doing them. And that’s a magical spot to be in. We face more resistance inside us if we do not take action rather than when we take action. Because we’re fulfilled by our actions, we don’t experience a fear of failure or success in the long term, but instead end up developing a fear of not taking action, which works in our favor. Essentially, as we are in constant motion, taking action becomes the path of least resistance, and that is how all things should be — easy and effortless.
The bottom line is that if we enjoy taking action, and know why we’re taking them, we’ll be inspired to continue to take action irrespective of the circumstances around us generating stronger momentum inching us towards accomplishing our goals. Our achievements will keep piling up and we’ll be able to get bigger and better results and rewards over time.
PS: If you enjoyed reading this essay, you’ll love my book The Way of the Karma Yogi. This book is a distillation of the fundamental success principles that will guide you to live a meaningful and fulfilled life with respect to work, relationships, and beyond. This easy-to-use, step-by-step guide allows you to bring consistency in your actions and inspires to progress forward leaving mediocrity behind.
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