-Commitment is like a map, or like a plan, or like a guide. It’s the axis on which the momentum will be applied.

-Momentum is like momentum — it’s the movement at certain velocity in certain direction — and the greater momentum the easier it is to sustain it and the harder it is to alter it

-ENERGY is power to increase momentum, change momentum’s direction, or create momentum in the first place

-NON-resistance is how much or how little resistance there is to hinder momentum

 

Let’s call it the 4 pillars.

Or perhaps 4 factors?

(It’s difficult to formulate it with any precision, those are just metaphors for the FORCES AT PLAY in accomplishing of any goal. Don’t take it TOO literally, you’re not an object)

 

You would ideally have great clarity about what you want to achieve — which would render clear and steadfast commitment.

You would then commit ENERGY — creating momentum. Ideally you would have lot of energy. Ideally you’d build powerful momentum.

Ideally your powerful momentum could run over any resistance.

Ideally there wouldn’t be any resistance in the first place.

Then ideally you wouldn’t have to course-correct and lose energy on correcting momentum and have to rebuild momentum in other direction — ideally you would have selected the right path immediately, owning to your great clarity.

Ideally

 

In practice you will have to do a lot of course-correcting.

Momentum you built will then be your hindrance. Because the more momentum you have — the harder it is to stop it, and redirect it.

Commitment is great, having a good plan is great — but the problem of going any place new is that there is no map. There’s only direction. And then you go in and you lose even that.

Energy is amazing — but it must be directed. If you direct it in the wrong direction — you actually get the opposite result.

Finally even ideal of non-resistance can be treacherous. It creates a bias in favour of easy, low-resistance routes — which eventually divert you from your direction and lead you astray.

Therefore:

ALL 4 factors must be aligned. Neither factor in isolation will do.

 

Most man have a little energy,

What that little energy momentum invariably builds in certain direction.

With time that momentum becomes quite powerful, like a falling object accumulating speed.

This is a somewhat good and significantly bad. It gets them to some place — but eventually the route ends and there’s no easy way to redirect themselves. They become stuck.

They don’t even know they got stuck, or where they got stuck. They lost track of the map long ago. They didn’t look back and reflect where they were going. They ignored this problem the greater it grew — as the more momentum they built the harder it became to change course.

And finally, despite all this momentum — resistance is always there — even if what they do is “easy”.

 

What is resistance anyway?

It’s anything that provides resistance to energy and momentum.

Resistance is internal or external.

Externally: some pursuits, some challenges, some routes — require more energy, more momentum.

Internally? Internally it is all the breaks you put on yourself and your potential which restrain your energy. It’s the ways you prevent yourself from gaining too much momentum. As though worried you may lose ability to control it.

Which is actually a reasonable worry. For you WILL lose control — unless you continuously control yourself and the direction you’re heading, unless you’re continuously stopping and reflecting and course-correcting.

However if you DO have a strong plan, a strong direction, thus strong commitment to where you’re going — then you DO want to go hard. You do want to deploy great energy — and build great momentum.

And those breaks still don’t stop most people from eventually losing control over where they’re going.

Fear and worry and anxiety help you not getting yourself killed immediately. But they don’t help you intelligently look at your entire life, and your self, and at the entire map, entire plan. If anything they make it even harder to see the bigger picture — as they continuously distract you with immediate catastrophic what-if’s.

 

Now,

How do you balance those forces?

 

Those 4 aspects are indeed synergistic.

But in isolation they can actually be at odds with one another:

-Commitment actually is a form of resistance itself. It guides the momentum — and this very act of guidance is the act of resisting it’s movement in undesired direction.

–Energy STRIVES on resistance. It’s burned on resistance, yes. But utter non-resistance causes you to DEPLOY LESS ENERGY. It makes you lazy. Appropriate challenge demanding appropriate energy causes you to find more energy — as opposed to path which provides little resistance and therefore calls for little energy

–MOMENTUM, as we already described — can lead you astray from your commitment, distract you from your goals.

-Also momentum, in it’s power to plough through resistance — will blind you to the possibilities of reducing this resistance and becoming more efficient.

-AND momentum itself creates inner resistance, as we described — you resist accumulating too much velocity.

 

Thus you don’t want to let any force get too out of hand.

 

But you wouldn’t want to curtail any force either. That sounds inefficient.

And it makes it very difficult to truly break through to that next level:

-next level of energy

-next level of momentum

-next level of non-resistance

-next level of clarity, commitment

 

I DO want to find the next level,

And DO explore how much energy I can get out of myself, how much momentum I can build, or how much resistance I can let go of,

I DO explore it.

But I’m mindful how it impact the other forces.

When the impact is negative, I may put the breaks on.

I DO eventually put the breaks on.

I reach the next level — THAN I put the breaks on — and focus on SYNERGY of the 4 forces.

You want the long term trend to be a picture of GREAT synergy between all 4 forces.

You want control over where you’re going, you want strong momentum but sustainable and tractable, you want energy to control the direction and speed of that momentum, and you want to be quite efficient with it all, without undue resistance outside or inside.

In the short term however — please DO explore either force in isolation. See what it’s capable of. See how far you can push it.

Then balance it again.