Inertia

Inertia is at play in all our lives.

This can be good or this can be bad.

If you’ve already been doing the thing you want to do, chances are inertia is working in your favor: you have momentum in the direction you want to be going. People are probably calling you to ask you to do that thing.

Outside forces are helping to push in that direction.

Things are generally working well for you.

It’s like you’re on a bike and the wind is at your back, helping you pedal.

If you’re trying to pivot, however, inertia is going to make life more difficult.

First, you have to get mind on board with this shift in direction. That requires exceptional focus. It requires you to break out of old habits. So first you must reckon with the inertia within yourself.

Then, there’s the inertia of the world around you.

Just because you’ve made up your mind to ditch your career as a singer-songwriter and start writing books, doesn’t mean the world is on the same page.

The world around remembers you as a songwriter!

People call you and ask you to do things related to writing songs!

The projects you started before will keep tempting you, even begging you to go back.

These are last vestiges of your former momentum- the world is often the last to catch up.

It’s hard to move against inertia. That’s why people so seldom change.

It will continue to be this way until you push through it and demonstrate to both yourself and to the world that you are intent on moving in a new direction.

I don’t know what really is to be done about this force in our lives, but simply recognizing that it is at play can help us brace for the hard work of changing direction.

When we make a change, everything in our lives is going to be moving against this change, until we make enough purposeful moves in a new direction to garner a new momentum.