“Everything changes as long as you keep moving.”
Forward motion is no guarantee of improvement, but sometimes it gives you the momentum you need.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this quote from my interview with KC Davis a couple weeks ago. There’s more context in the interview, but the part that stuck with me was this:
“Everything changes as long as you keep moving. Think about how your actions affect those around you, and after that think less about yourself.”
Perhaps another way to say it is: you only get stuck if you stay in one place. We often get stuck, or at least feel stuck, and we don’t know what to do. This idea offers a solution: don’t stay in one place!
Many years ago I wrote a post called forward motion. Here’s an updated excerpt of it:
I had an early-early flight, so I booked a hotel near the airport and took the train out the night before. Problem was, I’m so used to going to the airport that I forgot to get off at the hotel stop and instead rode all the way to the terminal.
Then I stepped off the train and thought: Whoops. Wrong stop.
It wasn’t a big mistake—I had only gone about fifteen minutes out of my way. But when I got back on the train to return, I realized I had a choice: take a stop that was further away from my hotel and walk the half-mile in the cold, or wait on the train an extra ten minutes for the more logical stop.
It was a no-brainer: I took the first stop and walked. Reaching the hotel, I was frozen solid, but victorious.
I made this choice and felt victorious (though frozen) because of a lesson I’ve learned: always keep moving. When given a choice between forward motion and remaining in the same place—choose forward motion.
Just like “don’t stay in one place,” I think of this advice as being in the category of “what to do when you aren’t sure what to do.”
There’s no guarantee that advice like this will work. When you’re choosing between two random directions, who’s to say that forward is better than back? Sometimes it’s better to move backwards! And of course, sometimes it’s better to remain in one place than to move at all.
Nevertheless, after many years I’ve continued to think of this example whenever I’m feeling stuck or stagnant. Which direction is forward? Let’s find out … and then let’s go that way!
It just feels better, and sometimes that’s all that matters.
This is the thing about thinkers, we tend to get stuck in the thought. That inertia is a killer when it comes to getting things done, right?
It isn't because there is no thought, it is almost as if there is TOO MUCH thought. Contingencies and plans to account for the plans and contingencies that never happen and then another set of plans and by the time you get done, the opportunity has passed and you end up being frustrated and digging yourself a righteous hole every time.
Yet action is the way to get those plans, to get those contingencies. All of the thinking and planning in the world means nothing if you don't get feedback from action first.
Default to action and even if it isn't perfect, it still is because you received the perfect feedback on it. Yes, no, go, stay.
Just don't stop.
As someone in constant motion, I approve of this message.
There was this really interesting experiment done on atomic clocks. If anyone here is a scientist and believes I am interpreting this wrong, just let my ignorance be bliss please and thank you. Basically there are two atomic clocks - One was put on a plane and flown around the world. One was left on the ground. When the atomic clock in motion met back up with its grounded counterpart, its time was behind. It had ticked slower than the clock on the ground. Freaking atomic clocks, accurate down to the atom… you live longer in motion.