Life’s Challenges: Friction, or Traction?

Every life challenge offers traction for rapid progress toward your goal. Friction is optional.

Imagine life as a network of cogs and gears, like the inner workings of an old fashioned clock. Each person, each situation, is passing into and out of our lives as though they were fixed onto one of the gears rotating and making contact with our own.

The mechanism is so complex that we cannot diagram it, nor predict with certainty which gears and cogs are at play to affect the interactions we experience.

One thing I know is that each time we set an intention to accomplish something, the governing forces alter the timing and pathways of each of the gears in motion. Each gear is on a track that can be moved in and out of the path of other gears in motion.

At the center of your gear is the axis upon which you rotate—sometimes smoothly, sometimes not. Things run well in the whole scheme of it all when you rotate freely with every engagement of oncoming, spinning gears.

Sometimes, however, after you set a goal, what often shows up is a gear disguised as a challenge that attempts to engage you and send you into a realm where you’d rather not go. So you tighten up your axis and refuse to spin with the oncoming gear.

This causes tremendous friction, and in reality can be much more painful in the long run than loosening the tension at your axis point, allowing the oncoming “challenge” gear to engage with your own, and see where it takes you. You’ll often find that after it spins you in the opposite direction of your goal, it eventually helps you come around to exactly where you need to be in order to receive the GOAL gear that was set in motion toward you when you set the goal in the first place.

The destination resulting from engagement with the unexpected “challenge” or “adversity” gear is rarely apparent when you consent to engage with it. But you can trust that it will move you into position to receive the “goal” gear as it spins its way toward you.

Those who refuse to engage won’t be where they need to be when they need to be there. And then they wonder why their goals never come true.

Related Video: When Success Principles Don’t Work

If you refuse to relax in the face of adversity, not only will you feel the full force and heat of the friction, you’ll eventually lose your ability to engage at all with any gear that comes along to take you there, because refusing to “go with it” strips your gear of the very teeth that allow you to engage in the more desirable gears.

Every gear, apparently good or bad, has the potential to move you along to wherever you decide you want to be. Get a visual image of where you want to end up, and the right gears will come along to get you there. Keep your axis well-oiled, and you’ll find the journey can be a joyful evolving.

It’s only “hard” when you refuse to spin.

Let me help you stay well-oiled for 12 weeks straight, and just see where it takes you. It’s an amazing experience, well worth whatever sacrifice it takes for you to engage. The Mindset Mastery™ course is one of the most powerful gears I can offer you, and you can view it as a good gear because of the knowledge you’ll gain, or as a bad gear because it costs some money. Either way, it is designed to take you where you want to be.

Even the economy is a gear in the machine of life, which will either cause you friction or, if you choose, it can cause TRACTION to bring you to the success you seek. I have experienced both opportunities and continually come to the same conclusion each time.

Your choice. Get started now and be on track for some powerful New Year’s resolutions. Let this upcoming year be your best year ever! Click here for more information about the Mindset Mastery™ Program.Originally published November 25, 2008

Leslie Householder
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This Post Has 3 Comments

  1. Bob Robertson

    Grease the gears & all is well! What’s missed is the mechanical advantage (MA) we derive from gears. A tiny gear takes many turns to move a larger gear (Case 1). Yet a larger gear gets a job done faster but with less force (Case 2). So what? If I tackle any issue with speed in mind (large gear turning the small), I’ll have less force (MA) and perhaps less chance of solution. Slow down! Enjoy the journey (the task). Get done faster with Case 2, but poop out quicker with a slower moving, but stronger Case 1.

  2. Charles A Mbewe

    I like the article. Its interesting and sensible. Thanks for your usual kindness by providing me such high quality reading material. Charles.

  3. Marnie Pehrson

    Hi Leslie, love this analogy. We had one of those "adversity gears" hit our family back at the beginning of the year. I was thrown a bit at first, went into a bit of a depression, blaming myself for what I should or shouldn't have done that might have averted the gear spinning in our faces.

    Finally, I decided to roll with it and see where it took me. Throughout the summer, I devoted time to building relationships with my family members, relaxed and documented the journey in my journal… as if I were simply an observer of the situation. It now appears as if the adversity gear has moved along and the opportunity we thought was gone forever has spun back around. But now, everone involved is much better equipped to embrace the good it has to offer. What's more, these have been some of the most priceless months of my life.

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