TGIM: Prepare For Takeoff

Welcome back to Thank God It’s Monday!

​

tl;dr every time you “start over” you exert a tremendous amount of effort (consider a car turning the engine over or every Monday you start your new diet). Instead, if you can identify the lowest amount of effort is you are willing to continuously exert, you are more likely to sustain your efforts instead of constantly restarting.

​

As some of you may know, I recently moved down to Richmond, VA to start a travel PA job. The weather has been beautiful, the people are friendly, and the neighborhood is a perfect balance of busy and quiet. But I am also at the age where all of my friends are getting married, so we have been traveling back to NY on a weekly basis.

​

Thankfully, the 300-something-mile commute has been mostly seamless for us so far. My favorite part of our trips is takeoff during the flights. While physics class made me cry every single week during undergrad, the phenomenon of a giant metal machine taking off into the air amazes me every time.
​

Disclaimer: the comparisons I draw herein are solely based on experience and a quick Google search and are probably not accurate in terminology (acceleration vs speed vs velocity, etc). If this is your jam, please feel free to write back and correct my naive similes!

​

While most of us are not physicists here, we’ve probably all felt the initial jolt of acceleration when we’re thrown back into our seat. This is a tremendous amount of effort exerted by the plane to get up to speed. It probably requires a ton of gasoline and engine power.

​

Then, just as the plane begins to lift off the ground (seriously, physics is insane), it feels as though the plane starts to slow down. The pressure is released from our bodies pressed into the seats, so we can readjust to the normal forces of gravity again. The plane is not actually slowing down, but the thrust of the plane is reduced and the flaps on the wings close, which produces that sensation (per Google, again feel free to correct me, but logically this makes sense). The plane gains enough speed to climb through the air and get us safely to our destinations.

While many of us probably can’t fully grasp the physics required to commute through the air, we’ve all experienced what it’s like starting something over again.
​

Whether you lost your favorite game and had to begin again at level one or you had to reestablish a workout routine after being injured, it feels like pushing against a brick wall. The effort required to start from scratch is intimidating at best, insurmountable at its worst. Just like the plane accelerating for takeoff, it requires a ton of energy and effort to get going.
​

Of course, the simple answer to avoid starting over again is to just keep going in the first place. Duh. But we’re all human, and life has a way of making it too easy to quit the hard things. So what’s the answer?
​

The answer is to find the absolutely smallest, least effortful action that moves you towards your destination.
​

We love to think about the massive, max-effort actions we can take to reach that new, ambitious goal. It feels like we’re doing something meaningful when we cut out carbs to lose weight or go to the gym for two hours a day every day for a week. Our brains are wired to think that big actions equal big results.

​
However, we all know how well that always plays out in the long run. Just like the plane that would burn through all its fuel rapidly, keeping the thrusters on, we burn out.

​

It’s okay to use those thrusters for takeoff. But that comes with the caveat: you need a plan for cruising speed. What is the sustainable effort you can exert when you turn off the thrusters? What is the action you can take using the least amount of energy?

​

Your cruising speed might look like making sure to stay hydrated and getting your protein in, even when you can’t work out. Or it may entail wakeful rest away from screen time, even if you didn’t get seven good hours of sleep. Cruising speed should be so simple it feels silly to even do it, but you did it anyway because it maintains your momentum so you don’t have to start again.

​
Wherever your destination is, figure out what cruising speed looks like for you. Most humans worry about what that big, massive action is for accelerating, but don’t plan what their cruising speed action looks like; and that’s why most people never reach their goals. So while you’re feeling motivated and getting up to speed, consider what that minimum effort action is for when the motivation wears off and you have to turn the thrusters off.
​

If you found some value in this, please share it with a friend you think would enjoy it! And let me know if you’d like to be added to get TGIM.

​

This week, my podcast recommendation is new from Paul Levitin’s Change Made Easy, “Your Inner Compass: Why You Still Feel Lost and What To Do About It with Lawrence Yeo.”

​

With that, if anyone is interested in group coaching, I am changing the format to make it accessible for more people! If you’d like more information, email me back with “intake.”
​

Until next time,

Shannon