Newton and Goal Setting

Isaac Newton is the symbol of an enlightened 17th century scientific revolution, having codified the laws of physical and motion to the extent that humans were able to observe them. Newton’s Laws of Motion only work on Earth, and it wasn’t until Einstein, 300 years later, when we began to understand the forces working on bodies in space, and where earth’s gravity isn’t applicable. But Newton’s Laws are perfect for studying motion on our planet. I also extrapolate them out to help me understand why achieving goals can be so damn hard.

So let’s look at Newton’s Three Laws, and how they can relate to setting and achieving goals. The first law states that an object either remains at rest, or continues to move at a constant rate, unless acted upon by an external force. Which means that if you are going along, living your life at whatever level you’re living it, it’s going to take an act of force to change, and move towards your goals with more velocity.

Sometimes this force comes from external sources – a pandemic, for example – but usually we humans are responsible for providing that ourselves.

Of course, Newton’s law refers to an inanimate object like the famous apple, so that wouldn’t have its own internal efforts to consider. An apple can’t get up in the morning and say, “I think I’ll. break loose from the tree today. I feel called to see what’s happening down there on the ground.” But we are lucky in that we have our own sources of motion and force inside ourselves.

The point is, according to Newton’s First Law, changing the trajectory or velocity of our lives is going to take something. It’s not going to happen. If you just keep continuing along the road you’re on, and don’t make any changes, nothing different is going to happen. #physics.

Newton’s Second Law states that Force of an object is equal to the mass of the object multiplied by the acceleration of the object, assuming that the mass is constant. What does this mean for our lives and our goals? It means that if you want to move an elephant, it’s going to take a lot of effort. An elephant standing still has a lot of mass, but not a lot of speed, so the force it can push back on you isn’t as much as if the elephant was charging at you. But it’s still a lot. It means that if you have a big hairy goal, it’s going to take a crap ton of force on your part to move t hat goal in the direction you want.

But, the flip side is that once you are headed in the direction of your goal, it takes a lot less to keep that goal headed in the right direction.

For example, logging my food on the LoseIt app the very first day takes a lot of effort. I have to download the app, and remember my sign in. Then I have to look up all my foods, which are new since the last time I used the app because I am now in Spain. And I need to do this for a couple of weeks until my most frequent foods are saved.

Then, after I’ve done that initial work – ie, put in the force needed to get the goal headed in the right direction – it takes a lot less effort on my part to keep it going. The force of the goal itself is bigger. The goal has more movement now, is accelerating at its own pace, and gathering steam as it goes. My foods are all saved. My frequent meals are easy to log in one tap. It takes less effort on my part.

Newton’s Third Law states that when one body exerts a force on a second body, that second body exerts a force at the same time that is equal in magnitude and opposite in direction to the first body. What that means? When you push, it’s going to push back.

That means that, as we’re headed in the direction of our goals, or in any new direction, we may encounter obstacles. Because life is pushing back. We’re doing something new, exerting a new force into our lives, and our natural survival mechanisms are going to kick in. For hunter-gatherer humans, new often meant scary. It meant strange animals that could eat us. Or poisonous plants. New was avoided.

But for us, it’s the fact that when I begin an exercise program in the morning, suddenly my daughter wont go to bed on time and I get to bed later, making it harder to wake up. It means that when I’m starting a writing practice, suddenly my workload increases and the time I thought I had disappeared.

So how to counteract that? Go back and exert a bigger force. Be bigger than the reasons. Be more committed to the end result than the reasons why it can’t happen. And then build up a new momentum.

Anyone who has ever had a baby and lived through the newborn months can understand how we respond to giant external forces, and adapt ourselves to a new way of being – with less sleep, and less time. Yet, still we adapt because our own forces are bigger. Our own instincts to care for our young outweigh our need to sleep and clean the house.

Goals are the same. It can seem impossible and almost catastrophic at first. But eventually, we start to adapt, and the forces even out, and we begin to develop a momentum that carries us through. A rhythm is born, and we adapt. We start to move closer, and. The excitement of seeing a way to achieve our goals is a force that carries us through.

I find it’s helpful to remember Newton’s Laws any time I’m starting a new goal (it’s going to be hard at first, and that’s okay – it’s just physics). Or when I reach a plateau (just time to up my force a bit).

Newton’s laws are good to keep in your Toolbox of Goal Achieving because they are simple reminders that starting can be hard, but once you start, momentum starts to build, and if you don’t stop, there’s only one way to go.