A number of years ago, in my first outpatient position, I treated a patient who suffered from anxiety and depression. Medication helped her, but only to a point. Together we’d identified her job as the chief source of her unhappiness. Due to understaffing, she was doing the work of three people, without commensurate pay. Her boss micromanaged her, and her co-workers often stabbed each other in the back. In short, she was miserable. We talked about this numerous times, and to her credit, she’d already reached the conclusion that she needed to leave her job.
Our last conversation on the subject really stuck in my memory.
“The company’s not doing well,” she said. “I think they’re going to fold eventually. So I’ve decided that once the company folds, I’ll look for something new.”
“How long before you think the company folds?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Maybe six months? Maybe a year?”
“Or maybe two years?” I offered.
“Maybe.”
I digested this for a moment, and then asked her, “Here’s a question for you. What if the company never folds?”
Her eyes widened a bit. It was her turn for a moment of silence.
“Wow,” she admitted. “I never thought of that before.”
* * *
I’ve hated physics since high school. I never understood how to draw force vector diagrams. I was always adding arrows where there should be none, or neglecting to add them where they existed. Today, I still avoid thinking about physics whenever possible. But when I remember this patient, I think of Isaac Newton and his Universal Laws of Motion.
Newton’s First Law of Motion, often known as the Law of Inertia, states:
An object either remains at rest or continues to move at a constant velocity, unless acted upon by an external force.
In the example above, my patient displayed what I like to call “mental inertia.” As long as nothing exerted force on her (that is, as long as the company didn’t fold), she had accepted that she would stay put.
The other law that’s relevant here is Newton’s Third, often known as the Law of Equal and Opposite Reactions:
When one body exerts a force on a second body, the second body simultaneously exerts a force equal in magnitude and opposite in direction on the first body.
In the example above, my patient could have chosen to solve her job dissatisfaction by leaving before the company folded. Instead, she had decided to react, to have someone else make the decision for her. She chose to be acted upon, instead of acting for herself.
So, here are Newton’s Laws restated in regular English, and with a personal development message:
- Nothing changes unless something happens.
- Nothing happens unless you change it first.
If this sounds like circular reasoning or a Catch-22, it is. That’s precisely why mental inertia is so hard to break. The acting force, the “something,” has to come from us. We can’t look to the outside to find it. Because by definition, if we’re stuck in mental inertia, there are no forces around us. Nothing is happening to us–or at least, nothing good.
So we have to be the instigators of our own change. We have to admit when something feels wrong. We have to dig deep and feel fear and uncertainty. We have to be vulnerable. And this requires tremendous faith in ourselves and in the universe—a universe governed by Newton’s Laws.
* * *
Let me be clear: Sometimes there are times when it’s better to let things take their course, when “staying put” and waiting for something to happen is actually the smartest decision. Doctors know that the “tincture of time” can often either 1) heal the patient or 2) present new, definitive symptoms that help with the diagnosis. Taking action before then, with incomplete information, can actually harm the patient.
But often, mental inertia just holds us back from all the good we could achieve—both for ourselves and for others.
So remember:
- Nothing changes unless something happens.
- Nothing happens unless you change it first.
What are the areas of “mental inertia” in your life? Can you think of times when it’s beneficial to “stay put” and do nothing? Conversely, can you think of times when “staying put” has held you back?