Getting the flywheel spinning

When things are hard before they're easy

Your Five-Year Plan is a newsletter about embracing life’s profound uncertainty.

Maybe your own plans went up in flames; maybe you’re considering a big, scary leap. This is your trusty companion while you’re writing the next life chapter.

Welcome to the conversation—and to the adventure that unfolds when your plans go sideways. This is letter #38. ✨

Getting the flywheel spinning

Seattle’s Great Wheel, captured on Kodak Portra 400 film

My college boyfriend introduced me to many things that shaped my years at university: black coffee, summer trips to the Jersey Shore, Bob Dylan’s pirated discography. And, as a member of the men’s crew team, he also introduced me to the sport of rowing.

At first, I didn’t understand its appeal—especially because each brutal practice seemed to end with half the team vomiting into the nearest trash can.

But as fall turned to winter, I begrudgingly followed him into the gym and onto the rowing machines. On D.C.’s coldest days, they proved a more attractive option for cardio than jogging the frigid wind tunnel that was the C&O Canal towpath.

Rowing, I learned, required stitching together—then looping—the four components of a stroke: catch, drive, finish, recovery. With practice, I got better at sweeping one motion fluidly into the next.

No matter how much my rowing skills improved, though, the first few strokes always required the most brute force—and that’s because the gym’s Concept 2 ergs were powered by flywheels.

⬆️ The flywheel in question

When at rest, flywheels want to stay at rest. As they gather momentum, though, they spin more easily, each rotation clearing the path for the next one.

Those rowing workouts popped into mind this week as I tackled the most challenging of my 2024 experiments.

I’m midway through a web development class in which each newly-acquired skill propels me naturally into the next challenge. That dynamic has elicited the elusive “flow state” made famous by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi—and its fluidity brings to mind a perfect rowing stroke.

This blissful momentum, however, follows months of inaction on my part. I signed up for the class last June, watched the introductory video…then promptly found myself immobilized by the prospect of taking the first real step.

In other words, it took me half a year to get this particular flywheel spinning.

For most of 2023, I thought about this class a lot, all while getting absolutely nowhere with it. But just three weeks into 2024—after a brief, ever-so-slightly-painful initial push—I’ve been able to collect a long list of new skills with relative ease.

This dynamic isn’t new to me. As I’ve mentioned before, I published my first newsletter last spring—but only after letting my brand-new Substack account lie dormant for (count ’em!) three months.

As your resident expert on procrastination, I’ve found that new projects with the following blend of characteristics are usually the hardest ones to begin:

• Ones that require learning new skills

• That are in service of a meaningful goal, and

• Feel high-stakes.

Why? When we’re uncertain about our ability to learn something new in service of a meaningful, important goal, we’re not always scared of the effort involved. Sometimes, it’s a bigger fear: that there might not be any amount of effort that can get the flywheel turning.

So I write to you today not with easy answers, but with a generous dose of empathy for anyone else starting something from scratch. And also, a few questions to ask yourself if you’re attempting to get a stubborn flywheel spinning.

Is your particular flywheel a straightforward one that, like a rowing machine, just takes one muscular first push to get moving?

Or is it a more intimidating or emotionally-fraught one that—like my own recent experiment—probably calls for a bit more self-compassion and outside support at the beginning, so you’re equipped to baby-step into the kind of consistency that becomes self-reinforcing?

Life involves both kinds of flywheels. The trick, I’m finding, is to know which kind I’m attempting to spin.

💬 What about you?

I’m curious to know. Which flywheels are you laboring to get going in your own life—and which ones are currently spinning free of resistance?

Had your own plan-in-flames experience? Taking a leap into the unknown? I’d love to hear more. Just hit “reply” to get in touch, or introduce yourself here.

Warmly,
Maddie