In 1687, Sir Isaac Newton wrote The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and changed the way the world would view gravity for the foreseeable future. He dropped the microphone (or in this case, the apple) with his innovative theories about gravity and the laws of motion
For no apparent reason, a few months ago I started getting into physics, watching videos on the Internet about friction, momentum and gravity. I didn’t really know what I was looking for… until I found it.
As a father of a young child who works morning, noon and night to start two businesses, I am often exhausted and overwhelmed. However, when I found Newton’s three laws of motion, I found the motivation I needed to keep working.
While Newton’s three laws of motion apply to the movement of physical objects (pushing a rock up a hill, etc.), I found direct correlations with my two business startups. Newton’s laws apply to the relationship between the acceleration of an object and the force applied to it. In my case, the object was my businesses, the strength was the effort I put into them, and the acceleration was how quickly they gained traction. I realized that these theories—whether scientifically sound or not—could help explain, and even overcome, my current entrepreneurial burnout.
I suspect I’m not the only one who experiences motivation slumps from time to time, so I hope a little dive into these theories can inspire some of you too.
“An object will remain at rest or in a state of uniform motion unless that state is changed by an external force.”
So if I lay on the couch with a tube of Pringles watching Billions on Amazon Prime, my a-double-ss will stay there unless my phone rings, I have to pee, or my husband comes home. It makes all the sense in the world. It’s all a matter of inertia.
Likewise, if I apply this law of motion to my professional life, I see that my business doesn’t build itself. My tendency is to want to set up everything and stop just before launching into marketing our products and services (marketing scares me).
But, Newton says that unless you apply some force to push that boulder of a business down the road, it stays right where it is.
Another way to say it is that people won’t find my business unless I tell them about it. I cannot gain momentum unless I am willing to be the external force that pushes the rock.
I think this law applies to many things. If you want to change a relationship, you have to make the effort to apply force to it (having a difficult conversation, asking for what you need, etc.) and if you want to change your financial situation, you have to take steps to cut costs or generate more income. . In most cases, unless action is taken and force is applied to the situation, things will remain stagnant or status quo.
In my opinion, strength is the equivalent of difficult effort in my life. As my husband likes to say: «Anything valuable in life requires an immense amount of effort. That’s what makes it special.”
Motivation to carry: If you want to change things, you have to apply force (effort) to the situation to change it. Otherwise, things will never change.
“The temporal rate of change of the momentum of a body is equal, in both magnitude and direction, to the force imposed on it”.
My interpretation of this in relation to my motivation is this: the harder and longer I work at something, the more successful I will be with it. Rome was not built in a day. Neither did Seth Godin.
Another part of the definition of this law says: “The momentum of a body is equal to the product of its mass and its speed.” (Thanks, Encyclopedia Britannica!) So if you want to do something small, it just takes a little push to get things going.
The bigger your goal, the more effort it takes to get your big project off the ground.
For example, if I want to start a book club in my neighborhood, all it takes is a few emails, the choice of a book and a place. Launch the project. If I want to start a book club that becomes a charity that sends books to millions of impoverished children around the world for every book its members read, it will take much longer to get off the ground.
The momentum of a thing is equal to the magnitude and direction of the force imposed on it. If we focus all our capabilities on one thing, we can push it further and faster than if we focus our resources on more than one thing.
Think of water from a garden hose pushing a ball down the sidewalk. The more concentrated the current, the faster the ball will go. The less concentrated the stream, the more water is needed to push the ball.
This idea applies to many things. In a very simple example, if you only fold the laundry, you will finish folding it in half the time it would take if you divided your time between folding the laundry and putting away the dishes.
I love applying this thought process to my work duties. The more opportunities I say yes to, the more my focus will be diluted and the longer it will take me to reach my destination. So, if I work on something for 30 minutes a day, it will take me longer to get to a specific point than if I spend two hours a day.
Motivation: Concentration is everything. If you work on two things, it will take you twice as long to be successful as if you work on just one. If you work twice as hard at something, you’ll get where you want to go twice as fast.
For every action in nature, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
When you stand up, your body applies a downward force equal to your weight to the ground. The ground, in turn, applies an equal force upward toward us. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. I think this also applies to our society.
I remember when I started gaining more followers in my writing and on social media. I was surprised by the amount of negative comments and combative people I encountered. I was wondering if I was doing something wrong. That’s when a friend told me something I will never forget. «There are negative people everywhere. “The more your work is exposed, the more likely you are to come across one.”
Makes sense, right? If there is one Internet troll for every 1,000 people, if I only have 100 followers, I probably won’t encounter them. If I have 10,000 followers, statistically, I’m likely to have a dozen of them. I have realized that with every step people take towards greater recognition, there is rejection from society. It’s inevitable. Taylor Swift has enemies and so does Joe Schmo, author, entrepreneur or influencer.
The more we achieve, the more difficult situations we will encounter. Equal and opposite reactions. It’s not easy being famous (not that I really know that). Although many of us truly crave success, we often discount the obstacles we will encounter along the way. Newton’s third law of motion helped me learn to see opposition as a sign of progress.
Motivation: We should not see opposition as an impediment. In fact, the more opposition we encounter, the more confident we will be that we are making a difference in the world.
Newton may have only been referring to the way physical objects react to gravity, but in my mind he was also talking about my personal motivation. Many things in our universe follow similar laws and I believe that our motivation to succeed is not an isolated case.
Nothing truly great in this world is achieved without applying a little force, narrowing our focus, and encountering some form of opposition. After all, this is what keeps the universe in check. But, as I tell myself when I feel overwhelmed, if it were easy, everyone would do it. Perhaps that, in itself, is one of the reasons for balance in our society.
So if you happen to need a little science this week to motivate you to get things done, I encourage you to think about Mr. Newton and his three laws of motion. And keep pushing that rock uphill. In the end we will get it.
