No-one knows where they’re headed when they set out on life’s journey. So it pays to prioritise manoeuvrability. You want to be able to explore all possible avenues — and make a complete about turn whenever you fancy it.
In fact, if you’re not making several massive changes of direction at this stage then you’re probably doing something wrong…
You want to think like a speedboat. All power turns and brutal acceleration.
But you won’t stay like this forever. At some point you get an inkling of the big destination you’re heading towards.
(This won’t — shouldn’t — be a sure thing. But it’s enough that you decide to focus on one direction without distraction for a given time.)
At this point you need to change it up. Stop emulating a speedboat and make like a supertanker. You don’t care about sharp turns anymore… Or even quick acceleration. All that matters now is the ability to transform slow, continued effort into an inexorable build up of momentum.
There’s nothing difficult about this in principle. But it won’t be an easy shift to make in practice…
Your view will be drawn to others still in their speedboat phase. You’ll spot those nippy, agile craft shooting ahead whenever they spot the smallest gap. They’ll zip ahead of your ponderous progress as you’re slowly building up momentum.
But this is a strategy for the short term and reliant on clement weather.
As soon as storms blow up, or things just get a bit choppy, then those light craft aren’t up to the challenge. They have to stop and heave to. Or get blown way off course. Or completely wrecked.
While your supertanker, that you’ve slowly and painstakingly set in motion, is such a store of momentum that nothing can deflect you from your course.
You’re sacrificing the fleeting thrill of momentary pure speed for long-term progress. And what that really means is that you end up going faster — not because you’re ever sprinting, but because you’re unstoppable and inexorable.
Momentum has another advantage over pure speed: it has a direction.
It’s common to go extremely fast… round and round in circles. This wows onlookers with impressive bursts of energy everywhere — but none of it is conserved or connected.
However, momentum will not be swayed from its path. You’re guaranteed to move continually away from your starting point and towards your desired destination.
It’s not quite “slow and steady wins the race” because you’ll get up a decent speed over time. So not really slow — but bucketloads of steady.
And how do you achieve that steadiness? By having the guts and the patience to put your back to the heavy wheel to start with.
It seems much easier to push the lighter vehicle. And it gives faster initial results too. But the wise man knows that this is a short-term mirage when you have a long-term destination in mind.
Do you want to have to start again from scratch over and over? Or would you rather do the hard work once — slowly and methodically — until you become unstoppable.