Evening, Reader, you glorious beam of sunshine,
If I can remember two main things from the first year of my Physics A-level course it’s 1) that there was a disappointing lack of going “oooooooh” at pictures of planets, and 2) everything is named after dudes whose names and formulas you have to remember.
Not to say I didn’t love my Physics course, but the reality is less “fascinating lecture by Neil DeGrasse Tyson” and more “what the fuck is Planck’s constant again?!”.
But the very first thing I learned in that class was the difference between speed and velocity.
See, with Physics—and sciences in general—there’s a focus on the specificity of the language you use that, in other parts of life, you simply don’t need to pay the same attention to.
Lightyears are a measurement of distance, for example, not time. For most people, “velocity” is simply a synonym you find in the thesaurus under “speed”.
For Physicists, however? It’s more nuanced.
In case you have no fucking clue what I’m talking about, here’s the skinny:
Speed is a measurement of distance over time. Miles per hour, metres per second—it’s the distance travelled by an object between two points that is divided by the time it took to get there.
Velocity ALSO has the exact same units of measurement as speed. You divide a distance by a time.
Confusing, because they’re related.
But velocity has one more distinct facet; direction. As soon as an object changes direction, even if the speed is the same, the velocity has fundamentally changed.
Gemma, why are you giving me a science lesson?! I hear you cry.
OK, hear me out. Too often we have an intention to get started on something, and if we pause for too long, the doubts that run behind us finally catch up.
Doubts can absolutely, unequivocally hum on my (very, very figurative) plums because if you let them, they will steal your thunder and shit in your trifle.
What doubts do is add unnecessary complexity to the fragility of your new ideas.
This is you if you’ve ever:
- Wanted to try something new, but then told yourself that you need special kit or tools to be able to get started (and sometimes even spent a lot of money GETTING the aforementioned kit)
- Talked yourself out of doing something because of how you look, what someone might say, the fact you don’t know all the steps to get there, you’re too old, you’re too young, too many other people already do it, the economy sucks… etc etc ad nauseum.
Right at the start, what a baby-idea needs is just a little, tiny, scrap of movement.
You need a point A—the point you are right now—and a point B located juuuuust outside the field of your own comfort AND in the general area of the Ultimate End Point. And with that, you need to move at speed past the initial doubts.
Sugarlump, you do not need the exact street address and postcode for the goal you think you want to achieve—not at the start. That Ultimate End Point goal is an amorphous blob that requires your specific decisions, experience, and refinements along the way to uncover the destination, but you don’t get the information needed to uncover that without moving first.
What does it look like? Well, only you know your field of comfort, but here are a few things that I’ve done
- Had the idea to start a photography business. Didn’t have a “proper” camera, so my first few shoots were done with a point and shoot. As soon as I had the idea, I posted on Facebook and Instagram to my audience offering an introductory rate—and made my first £100 in less than 24 hours.
- I moved cities in my 20s. I decided I wanted to move to the north of England, so one weekend my friend and I spontaneously went on a weekend road trip to see what the place was like. I loved it. A week later, having sent my CV off to several companies, I booked two interviews and three house visits on the same day, took a sickie from my day job, and four weeks later I moved.
I appreciate both of these are somewhat unhinged 😅, but my point is that if I had tried to apply specific directions to the ideas I had at that point, I would not have run a successful freelance photography business, and I wouldn’t have made amazing memories living in Leeds.
I moved with speed first, and then once I’d decided if I even liked the idea and learned more as I travelled along the journey, THEN I applied direction, aka, narrowing the goalposts to get to the next point.
Too often in our lives we overthink the non-essential stuff or try to control the parts that aren’t in our locus of control (think: other people's reactions, the past, the future, outcomes of our efforts etc), and it keeps us spinning our wheels in places we aren’t valued, in situations we aren’t aligned with, and with people we outgrew years ago.
If you’re feeling stuck with where you are, taking speedy action on something—anything—that feels just out of reach can give you the momentum you need to start building your own map to your future destination. Whether it’s making a TikTok or a LinkedIn post, sending a text to your friends and family to let them know you’re starting a new venture or a looking for your next job, or sending off that application to study Physics.
The tiny movements dictate the next steps.
Speed first, velocity later. Pack underwear, we ride at dawn!
Until next week,
Gemma :)
