“An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.” Sir Isaac Newton

Inertia.

We all feel it – that mind-numbing heaviness that settles over your entire body making it hard to contemplate doing anything more strenuous than staring into space.

Sometimes it rolls in silently like a fog advancing across the surface of a pond; sometimes it hits you in the gut without warning as if daring you to advance another step.

There are as many causes of this debilitating sensation as there are approaches to overcoming it. Sometimes a cool shower or a nap will do the trick, other times it requires the intervention of a professional.

Whatever the cause one thing is certain: the longer that you put off doing something about it, the harder it will be to pick yourself up and get going again.

Yes, your back might be sore, or your allergies might be acting up, or the weather might be unbearably humid, but the odds are that the better you are at coming up with reasons why it’s just too difficult get yourself moving the more likely you are to give in to the temptation to believe that you can’t.

Conversely, the better you are at pacing yourself and breaking large problems down into a series of small manageable steps, the more likely you are to keep doing just that.

So, what has any of this got to do with staying relevant in a volatile work environment where things keep changing?

Well, think about this from your employer’s perspective for a minute.

If you were in charge, who would you want on your team? The person who always managed to get their work done on time regardless of the circumstances, the person who always found a way to keep the customers happy or called every supplier on the island to find a part for the truck?

Or would you prefer the one who spent most of the Zoom meeting trolling their phone? The who spent half the afternoon parked under a tree in Somerset instead of returning to the warehouse in time to do another run, or refused to help with a task because “it wasn’t their job”?

Better yet, if you were the boss and you had to decide who to put on reduced hours or who to offer the opportunity to be part of a special project, how would you decide?

The tricky thing about inertia is that while none of us is immune to it, we all have the ability to decide (particularly in the workplace} whether to allow it to “unbalance” us to the point that we cease to be productive team contributors and problem solvers. We have the ability to decide whether to view its arrival as a signal – that it is time to look for areas where we are resisting moving forward or adapting to change and challenge ourselves to assess the circumstances from a more positive perspective.

Robin Trimingham is the chief operating officer of The Olderhood Group Ltd and a virtual presenter, journalist, podcaster and thought leader in the fields of life transition and change management. Connect with Robin at https://bit.ly/3nSMlvc or robin@olderhood.com