It’s a proven fact, and Isaac Newton proved it. I’m referring to the first law of motion, which roughly states that an object at rest will stay at rest, while an object in motion will remain in motion. Yeah, I know this is not a physics class but believe it or not, Isaac could have just as easily been talking about the job search process.
How’s that? Well take it from me, I know how this works from experience. I’ve had a few jobs and careers in my day, and most of them were pretty good. Not great but OK. So OK in fact that I knew that I wanted to make a change but was either too lazy or, more likely, too accepting of that fact that OK is just good enough.
The problem with OK is that it is keeps you going on the treadmill. Sure, you aren’t losing ground, but you aren’t moving ahead either. You’re doing what you do but you aren’t moving forward to something better. You aren’t in motion so career-wise, you are at rest. You may have plans and dreams and maybe even plenty of ideas but unless you act on them, you are at rest. And as Isaac said, if you are at rest, you tend to stay at rest. And the times goes by.
To be technical, the first law of motion in physics does say that a body stays at rest or in motion unless some force acts on it. When it comes to careers, you often need a push to get you out of that rut and off of that treadmill. Unless you, or something outside of you, promotes some change when you are “at rest” then you can’t expect to reach your goals. Isaac knew his stuff!
The good news is that you are ready to step off the treadmill and create some action. You wouldn’t be reading this if you weren’t. Luckily it doesn’t take much to get going, but you have to keep the momentum going. Read a blog or two, check out some online job postings, talk to someone you know about their career, but just do it. That’s Nike’s slogan in fact: Just Do It. Of course there are different ways to approach a job search, and some are much better than others, but just do something. Make those connections, do some research, or even hire a career consultant, and just do it. Take action and be that force that moves you from your resting state to a state of positive, forward motion.
It’s hard to get started but I’ve learned that I was much happier when I was taking steps toward my goals, or even just doing the work to figure out what I wanted in life. You’ll soon find that these actions cause other things to happen, internally and externally, which make you want to keep going. OK is not good enough. You deserve better so get in motion and keep the momentum going. Learn how best to do things and take action steps. Even if you don’t know where you are going, just take the steps. They will lead you places you may not expect, and that’s not bad since learning is also forward motion. Especially if you are learning about yourself.
Isaac would be proud.
