In the physical world, objects are either moving or standing still. There isn’t some third state of being… only the two.
In your life as well as in your business, the same holds true… BUT, unlike many business books I’ve read and most business gurus I’ve heard, I don’t believe that either one of these states is “better”, “worse”, or “best”. Ultimately, we will find ourselves either moving or standing still all throughout our lives and careers. What’s more important than our current state (moving VS standing still) is the reason for and thinking behind the choice we make about which state to be in at any given moment.
Over the next few days, let’s pick apart each of Newton’s Laws of Motion and see how we can possibly apply them to life and business.
1) An object at rest remains at rest, and an object in motion remains in motion at constant speed and in a straight line unless acted on by an unbalanced force.
We call this “Inertia”. Setting “rest” aside for the moment, let’s look at the back half of the statement.
Once moving, we will move at a constant speed, in a chosen direction, until something forces us to either: 1) Speed up, 2) Slow Down, or 3) Change Direction.
In business and life, we can be the force that causes any one of these changes or something / someone in our environment can be the catalyst for a particular change. The hope is that most of our state changes are self-directed and intentionally orchestrated. Life being what it is, invariably, we find ourselves making adjustments based on the forces outside of our own control that collide with our own choices and efforts.
In a sailboat, though we desire to move in a certain direction, the wind may be pushing us in a completely different direction. In response, a skilled sailor will use the tools and structures at his disposal to capture the energy from that opposing wind and redirect it into the desired direction. (We’ll get to Newton’s Third Law on another day).
That said, the act of moving can also be self-directed or foisted upon us by these outside forces. I can be sitting perfectly still and have Life barrel into me like a speeding bus with some unexpected situation (i.e divorce, a new job opportunity, a global pandemic, etc). When that happens, you or I don’t really have any other choice than to move and often, the decisions of “Which direction?” and “At what speed?” may not initially be ours to make.
The opposing force started our proverbial balling rolling and the next move is the one that you or I choose to make in response to that force. At that moment, we have to choose some other opposing force or action because, if we don’t, we will continue to move in the direction chosen for us ad infinitum. Choosing to do nothing is to accept the path we have been pushed onto.
(We will deal with Newton’s Second Law on another day.)
But, let’s take all opposing or interacting forces out of the picture for just moment. I want to concentrate on the states of moving versus standing still.
About 5 weeks ago, I decided that it was time to stop and stand still for a little while. For whatever reason, I felt like I was not moving in a direction of my own choosing. So, I applied just the right amount of stopping force to myself and then put everything down. Every project, every goal, every action, all of it… stopped cold. This took a fair amount of effort and wasn’t easy to do, but it seemed to come at exactly the right time.
Then, once stopped, I was able to look at everything around me with the benefit of patience, time, and a singular point of reference. I could decide what I liked, what I didn’t, what needed to stay the same, and what needed to change. I will admit that this was all very overwhelming, but it felt really good to just stop and look around, even if only for a moment.
We need those periods of time in our lives to stop, take an inventory of ourselves, conduct a survey of all that’s around us, and decide how we feel about the sum total of these things. Sometimes that stopping period may last an hour or, in my case, it may extend for days… sometimes, weeks. I have had periods where I needed to stop a certain endeavor or “direction” for years before returning to it… or, to never return to it again.
The point here is the choice. We must make a self-directed choice. We each must have an intention in making that choice. There needs to be a purpose for the choice to stop and later, with enough deliberation, we can use a very purposeful, calculated reason for beginning to move again in whatever direction and at whatever speed that has been chosen.
This particular stop can be because you don’t like the direction you are heading in or the speed that things are moving. Maybe you see an unfortunate outcome ahead that you do not want to happen that will come because of your current trajectory… your path has a clearly defined destination and it is NOT what you had intended earlier in your journey.
Maybe you don’t have the money, experience, or knowledge needed to continue moving in a particular direction at this time. Perhaps you’ve chosen to interrupt your hard-earned inertia because you can’t scale correctly past a certain point in your journey.
Moving forward in this moment would mean crashing into a wall that would result in the destruction of everything you have built up to this point? Or maybe you don’t have the right structures and systems in place to continue moving forward at this moment. Right now, doing so might mean collapsing under the weight of your unfit supports or, for an organization, an inadequate or unbalanced team.
Realize that, regardless of the reasons you have for stopping, there must also be a real, often unspoken, intention to get moving again at some point after you have addressed your issues or deficiencies and gone through the steps necessary to correct them.
Isn’t there some sort of saying about sharks only staying alive because they continue to move through the water? You will have to get moving again at some point if you are going to survive.
So much has been made about moving, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead” and all of that stuff you read about moving “further faster”. I just wanted to get your attention trained on a reality that we all seem to want to avoid. We will have to stop at some point. Whether for good or bad reasons, stopping is inevitable. Growing into whatever comes next often requires it.
So, don’t see moving as “good” or stopping as “bad”. There is much more nuance to these states because it is our intention that determines everything about this present moment.
Where do you need to stop in your life or work? Can you be ok with stopping for as long as it takes? Are you willing to avoid “Sunk Cost Bias” and let your stopping take you into a new direction entirely? Or, are you stopping simply to prepare for whatever comes next?
Feel free to leave your comments and questions below. I’d love to hear what, how, and why you need to stop and, more importantly, how you plan to get moving again!