How to Put Your Career in Motion by Obeying the Law

Physics provides the most basic explanations of how our world works. By ensuring you obey it’s laws, you can gain more control over your career and develop more predictability. In this post, I’ll tell you how.

Throughout our history, scientists have provided us a clear understanding of our surroundings. They have observed, hypothesized, tested, and verified. Finally, when no exceptions are found after numerous studies, it becomes law. Now, law doesn’t explain the ‘why’ part of it, but we can use it to draw logical conclusions. This is exactly what we’ll do with Newton’s Three Laws of Motion. This is as basic as it can get. If you don’t subscribe to this, anything more complicated won’t help.

Law of Inertia. This is Newton’s first law of motion. It states that an object at rest will remain at rest or an object in motion will remain in motion, unless acted upon by an outside force. Here’s another interpretation applied to your career. If you don’t do anything, you don’t go anywhere. I had a client who graduated with his MBA, only to find himself disappointed one year later when he hadn’t received a promotion, raise or recognition. I asked him what he had been doing in the last year to promote his new business skills. He replied, “nothing.” I asked him what he got for this effort. Again, he replied, “nothing.” There’s another data point for you. Do nothing, get nothing.

Now, let’s assume you’re constantly shaking and baking; that is, you’re networking, tackling tough projects, doing whatever management asks and all those other things that impress management. You will gain momentum. As long as you don’t run into anything, such as a bad manager or a lot of other barriers in your company, you will continue to move. However, barriers exist and will have a tendency to slow you, stop you or force you to change directions.

Tip: Get moving. Keep moving. Plan your goals. Write them down. Act on them. Measure your progress (it will motivate you). Celebrate your success (more motivation). Rinse and repeat.

The Second Law. This law deals with acceleration. An object accelerates by producing a net force on it. Pushing a ball in one direction and it goes in that direction. There’s a little more to it than this but we’ll stop here to make a point. Everything in your career will require a net force, or a little effort from you such as networking, job searching, or developing new skills. You can move your career by putting effort behind it. No effort, no force, no acceleration. The more force you apply, the more it accelerates. Now, imagine what it would be like if you enlist the support of others to help you push your career. That could be a lot of force, leading to increased acceleration.

There’s an important note to remember with this law. The direction of the acceleration is the direction of the net force acting on it. If you push in the wrong direction, you go in the wrong direction. If you’re using others to help you, you must all push in the same direction. A good way to look at defining the right direction is to consider yourself an automobile and ask yourself “what options do you need to entice people to buy you?” Choose the wrong options and you alienate your customers.

Tip: Make sure your goals are clear. They should define the amount of effort you need to put into each one, what the metrics for success are and what the end result should be (so you know the direction you are heading).

The Third Law. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. This is where many people lose the momentum in their career. Success is 80% mindset and 20% mechanics. Let’s say you have defined your goals and you know your direction but for every step forward you suffer one step back. You may be missing a key ingredient. You may be missing the “Oprah” factor. Oprah once said she made her success by herself in the service of others. Following her advice, you should seek to “pay it forward.” By contributing to other’s success, you will create support for your own efforts. Give a little effort, get a little effort.

Consider the networking aspect of your career. You meet new people and help them achieve their goals. You’re willing to help when asked. Once you do, reciprocity will be bestowed upon you. You’ll have people determined to help you achieve your goals. This is the law of reciprocal action. If it worked for Oprah, it might work for you. Great success requires great effort. Can you imagine building the pyramids of Egypt all by yourself? This might be something worth looking into.

Tip: Don’t spend all of your effort pushing your ball to gain momentum. Help others.

Newton’s laws of motion are absolute. You do something, you get a response. You do nothing, you get nothing. Your career isn’t any different. You will improve your upward mobility if you constantly focus on these laws. At every step of your career, ask yourself “am I obeying the laws.” There’s no question as to whether this works or not. It’s the Law.

Author:

Todd Rhoad, MSEE, MBA is Director at BT Consulting, a career consulting firm in Altanta and author of the book, Blitz The Ladder. He can be reached at todd.rhoad@blitzteamconsulting.com.