Learning How to Merge

When learning to drive, you’re taught that in order to successfully merge onto a high-speed freeway, you have to accelerate to the speed of traffic on the freeway, signal your intent to merge, and deliberately insert yourself into the flow of moving vehicles.

Merging into traffic isn’t a difficult driving maneuver from a technical point of view. Parallel parking, for instance, requires much more dexterity and skill. Nonetheless, the art of merging causes many drivers a lot of stress, and many drivers haven’t mastered it.

There’s a striking similarity between merging into freeway traffic, and making major, positive life changes. When you’re merging, you’re rapidly increasing your speed and changing your direction so as to enjoy much faster travel to your destination. Positive life changes also involve a change in direction, a build-up of momentum, and a feeling of being on the “fast track” of life, headed towards a desirable outcome or destination.

Many people wonder why it’s so hard to effect major, positive life change. During intuitive readings, and on my radio show, I’m frequently asked, “When am I going to meet my soul mate?”, or “When am I going to find the perfect job?”.

In response, I often feel compelled to ask “What have you been doing to attract this partner/job?” I can feel the energy and momentum of my clients, and I can sense when my clients are hoping for a major, positive change, but haven’t been building up the necessary momentum to make it come about.

They’re trying to merge onto a 60 mile per hour freeway when they’re traveling at 40mph. No one is letting them in. It’s difficult, if not impossible, to attract an adventurous, active relationship partner when you’re sitting home alone feeling bored and lethargic. Nor are you likely to attract a stimulating job that compensates you well if you’re relying on a single temp agency with an unmotivated staff to manage your job search.

In order to merge onto a 60mph freeway, you need to be traveling 60mph before you’re on the freeway.

Likewise, you need to create the right momentum in your life before you’re ready to take on major changes. If you want a partner with whom you’ll do interesting activities, you need to be involved in those interesting activities even before you meet your partner. If you want a stimulating, high-paying job, you’ll need to build-up momentum by establishing a reputation or track record in your chosen field, and possibly engage in a fast-paced, intensive job search. Otherwise, you’re not in sync with where you want to be.

But wait! Perhaps you object to this notion that you have to be traveling at the speed of your goals before you can merge with them. If you had the relationship, then you would be doing many interesting things with your partner. Or if you had a stimulating job, then you’d enjoy a faster pace in your life. That’s the same logic as thinking that if you dropped your car onto a freeway, then you would be traveling 60mph because all the other cars would simply carry you along at their pace.

Attempting this on a freeway is, at best, a very uncomfortable and dangerous way to accelerate your car. Attempting to get into a stimulating relationship without the proper momentum in your own life places a heavy burden on your new partner to raise you to their speed. In my experience, that’s not something that most people are willing to do for you, especially if they have no other reason to believe you have something to offer.

Building momentum in your life often isn’t any more difficult than stepping on the accelerator in your car. Getting involved in just one or two activities, such as cooking classes, intramural basket-weaving or Toastmasters, can add stimulation and structure to your week, provide opportunities to meet people, and give you interesting experiences to talk about. You can often get the ball rolling on major changes in just a few minutes. It took me less than ten minutes to set up a Blog Talk Radio show, and that’s been a tremendous learning and growth experience for me.

There’s one more component to a successful merge – confidence, and the positive expectation that you will be successful in your merge attempt. A skilled driver does not question their ability to merge into traffic. They simply accelerate, choose a suitable gap, and move their vehicle into that gap without hesitating or second-guessing themselves.

You cannot merge into a meaningful life change if you’re constantly debating whether you can pull it off successfully. That’s a recipe for getting stuck at the end of the merge lane. You’re never guaranteed a successful merge, but you make it so with your action and your belief that you will somehow wind up in the right place. Just as you trust that the other drivers on the road will facilitate your integration into the flow of freeway traffic, you need to trust that the universe will support you in your quest for positive life changes – and act accordingly. There’s no guarantee of success, but there’s no other way to succeed.

There is, however, one important difference between merging onto freeway traffic and merging into life changes on the highway of life: on the highway of life you can always back up and try to merge again. You don’t always get that opportunity on an actual freeway on-ramp.

Photo credit: Flickr

Tagged as: bingwu

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