Tell Giselle: Movement vs. momentum

Years ago I was gifted with a bit of wisdom from a much older and more seasoned professional. This had nothing to do with employment advice, but rather about romance. The guidance, however, did become applicable to my work, and soon became a thread through just about every other aspect of my life.

His counsel went something like this: Be careful who you choose to give your affection to as it will require you to make sacrifices you do not even know about right now. Are you up for big sacrifices?

I was reminded of that query just the other day while responding to a parent’s concerns about their adult daughter, who is college educated. Now in a transitional phase of her career, she must consider the pros and cons of a radical change. She knows a new opportunity will require the typical and obvious sacrifices, including loss of seniority, income reduction and having to move away from family and friends.

But it is the unknown sacrifice to come that is potentially more serious and challenging. And it is anxiety that likely keeps them both up at night and what prompted the parent to reach out to me.

Anxiety can be a driver for finding solutions, and it’s particularly common with career changes. Many people going through this, whether young or mature, often fail to consider something essential to success. As we come upon life-changing decisions, there is a need to ask ourselves if we are making change for the sake of movement or are we making change that will actually represent momentum.

These are seemingly similar actions, but they really are quite dissimilar.

Here’s a romantic situation rather than a professional one to illustrate what I mean. It should become clear how the situations closely resemble one another.

A man in his mid-20s, I will call him Ben, wanted to move out of his parents’ home and live with a lover. This change would require not only distance, but also a completely different job, one that Ben had not secured. After much deliberation Ben packed up and resettled in a new town with his lover. Only after several weeks of finding his way in the new town did Ben make the effort to seek employment.

Ben was able to do this because he had a small amount of savings, and his lover had agreed to carry the bulk of the financial burden, at least for a while.

To Ben’s father, it looked like a positive change. He was hopeful about this, as he believed he was going to see Ben begin creating a life for himself as a real adult, and not just existing in a childhood bedroom till who knows when.

But over several months the change revealed to be what it actually was: movement without momentum.

With no solid career ambition or direction, there was no energy, no drive, no plans or benchmarks for achieving tangible success. Nothing much came of the job Ben took, a clerking position that could not help him to fully pay his own way. The romance struggled to flourish.

An unaddressed depression set in, due in part to Ben’s lack of dealing with the trauma of the sacrifices that he did not know he would face. These included the adjustments to living with someone who had a fractured relationship with family and no friends to speak of to broaden their perspective or offer support.

Ben’s depression was compounded by his lover’s tendency to self-medicate in destructive ways. Neither had the capacity to help one another through the unexpected sacrifices.

It was no wonder then that a year later Ben chose to leave that relationship. Ben moved back home, but again without having secured a job, and having even less money to begin anew.

That is what I call movement without momentum.

Movement is a change, but it does not necessarily mean a change that makes a significant difference. You can roll over in bed, for example, during sleep, but still never go any distance that brings you to a new place. You remain in bed. Yes, the rolling over may help you remain asleep, but unless you fall off the bed, you will wake up exactly where you began: on the same mattress.

In contrast, momentum is the impetus gained by a moving object. Momentum is an increase in energy.

Staying with the example of the bed and rolling over, if you go to sleep with an intention to become recharged and enhance stamina for the following day’s duties, then within your intention is only the seed of momentum. You’ll still need to move.

But with momentum you won’t just be in bed rolling around without a destination; You’ll be making night movements that actually work toward a goal that extends beyond the mattress edge the moment your feet touch the floor.

This is not to imply that making any change is a small thing. Making change that advances growth, to enhance wellbeing or success, requires momentum. The seeds of momentum are attitude, focus, orientation toward setting goals, interests or desires yet to be more fully realized or developed, and the conviction there is wisdom inherent in everything, no matter what comes our way.

Time to stop simply tossing and turning. Time to get on with it.