I saw a book today by Richard Bach. Knowing how much I like and have learned from his previous books, I considered buying it. Then I thought of all the books I have bought that did not lead to change. Why? The answer is inertia.
www.dictionary.com defines it as; the property of matter by which it retains its state of rest or its velocity along a straight line so long as it is not acted upon by an external force.
How many of us are stuck where we are in our lives due to inertia? Perhaps we have gotten into the habit of watching 6 hours of TV per day while dreaming of a new job or work. Maybe we’ve wanted to lose weight but because we are tired, we don’t exercise? Maybe we are in a career that no longer serves us but we don’t know what to do. These are all examples of inertia from real people. Some people call these ruts.
The definition above says we remain in state until acted upon by an external force. Is that true? It has been my observation that until we act upon ourselves we stay in state. I have seen many individuals get knocked off course, get right back up, and go back into state. You may know people like this. Charlie just divorced his third wife that looked and acted a lot like his second wife. His new girlfriend… yep she is cut from the same cloth.
Until we bring our internal force, our intent if you will into play, lasting change is difficult. I know. I was a smoker for years. I had the scares and the Physicians that had the “Talk” with me. Now I took extra Logic in college because I wanted to have the perfect syllogism, which is the perfect argument. So why did it take years to quit?
Inertia
It wasn’t until I decided inside of me to quit that I was able to quit.
This also happens in our professional lives. I read a while back about buyers that had the “hangs” when a sales rep called on them. This was where they just hung there limp and slack because they were not engaged. We also know of people we work with that aren’t engaged because they have gotten into a rut, now they have inertia, and they may not see a way out.
So step back and take the time to inventory your life and your career, determine if you are suffering from inertia and decide to improve your state. Do you need to put in some extra time to get a different result? Do you need to step back and create a plan for success? Maybe it’s time to talk about your relationship. You get the idea.
Take good care,
