Expect Friction on new journeys!

The excitement to start a new year resolution, to learn a new skill, a language or even a new diet plan fires us up. On the first day of graduate school or in a gym, we are in an ecstatic state, looking and thinking only about the end goal and the successful people in their respective domains. A good starting point indeed!

And you probably know where this is heading… For most, it’s just a matter of few days for some a matter of weeks and it all seems to fall apart. If not in a crash-bang manner then in a gradual fade. A point arrives where, in the pursuit of the once-coveted goal, nothing seems to change. The day appears just like the day before. No signs of progress seem visible.

You have already been there at some point in your life. That day in the gym when you felt just as powerless you were the week before. The eery silence and aloneness that you experience when you are in midst of a language course, which no one gave you an idea of. Similarly, the days when nothing about your code works or in the lecture of a 4-year graduate program, where the only thing changing is the time that passes by (apparently slowly!)

This is the beginning of friction creeping in. And needless to say, it sucks. Feels almost as if you’ve lost the entire orientation! The exact moment you feel “I didn’t sign up for this!” What happens after this is where the friction does the real damage; makes you feel the need to stop and do ‘how you feel’ like.

Since the evolution of mankind, we’ve been wired to choose what works. Perfectly rational. Run when the predators chase, works (half of the time 🙁 ). Eat the fruits, gather in groups. But then gradually climbing the trees for protection, farming for food. But this transition took a lot of time.

Just imagine the first guy who thought that climbing the trees was a better idea than his fellow brethren, who were running around. And while doing so he stopped after merely climbing a foot and his predator devoured him in minutes. The others that survived for decades would have concluded ‘Never climb a tree when the Sabretooth are behind you. Rather run.’ aka choose the path with less friction.

The moral of the story is, most of the times, the activities that feel safe to do are a temporary refuge from facing what isn’t working or didn’t work. Now, this doesn’t mean to cast away every working institution you know of but to expect friction, a lot of it in the pursuit of the new endeavour.

How can one find a way through this barrier?

The moment it gets slumpy and you feel you are in a rut, is the moment to acknowledge the friction and stay poised on the same track, at the same rate. Even on the days when it ‘doesn’t feel so’.

When you spend more time practising a new skill that you are trying to acquire, you are getting better at a rate you cannot fathom. It’s the temporary lack of results that is putting you off the course every time.

A strong belief system can be the perfect antidote for it. And how do you go about building this belief system? By creating a schedule and sticking to it. Your actions build belief, and this belief keeps you well poised in the times when nothing appears to move. A realistic and oriented schedule can get you to places!

It also helps to avoid burnout on days or weeks when you decide ‘This is it!’ and go all guns blazing. You already know how it ends. Broken and tattered, out of gas. Honestly, burnout is also the effect of the belief –I am not doing enough. Scheduling can not only tackle friction but also keep us safe from burning out.

To sum it up, the friction is always going to be there. But when your activities are oriented in the direction of your long-term goal, punctually, they can keep you immune from either falling prey to the friction or burning yourself out. In the end, it’s a time game. The one who endures the longest gets to the other side of the line!