Create in the NOW
An Object in Motion
How Enhavim Creates Momentum
Why Do Good Strategic Plans Stall?
Picture a strategic plan with a clear destination and a strong reason behind it. The people involved agree it should happen. Six months later, it sits exactly where it started.
Isaac Newton described the cause in 1687.
An object at rest stays at rest, and an object in motion stays in motion, unless an outside force acts on it.
Newton's First Law of Motion, 1687
Strategic plans follow the same law. A strategic plan at rest needs a force to start it moving. Once it moves, it keeps going.
Enhavim explains where that force comes from.
Which Circle Moves First?
Enhavim is purpose and mission led by vision. Sherrie Rose draws it as three circles in a Venn diagram, each with its own verb:
- Vision leads. Vision is the what: the destination.
- Purpose fuels. Purpose is the why: the energy behind the effort.
- Mission fulfills. Mission is the who and the how, in that order.
The verbs give the circles their order. Vision comes first because direction comes first. Purpose and mission follow, and each depends on the other to produce motion. The illustration shows the circles as the same size, but vision has the larger priority.
Can Purpose Alone Move a Strategic Plan?
Purpose is stored energy. A strong why can give a person conviction for years and still produce no motion. Fuel in a tank goes nowhere until an engine draws on it.
Many people stop at purpose. They talk about their “Why” (thanks, Simon Sinek), their passion, or their purpose-driven life (thanks, Pastor Rick Warren). They know why they care, they can describe it in detail, and the strategic plan stays at rest. The energy is real. It is waiting to be activated.
Who Ignites the Fuel?
Mission activates purpose. Inside mission, the who comes before the how. First come the people who will act and the people who will benefit. Then those people figure out the how.
The old man had spent forty years building engines.
He knew everything about them. He understood compression, combustion, timing, and the delicate balance between power and performance. He could take an engine apart, put it back together, and make it run better than new.
His workshop was filled with engines. Some were nearly finished. Others were waiting for the right parts. A few had been sitting untouched for years.
One afternoon, a young woman walked into his shop.
“I hear you’re the person who can make anything run,” she said.
“Almost anything,” he replied.
She pointed to an enormous engine in the corner. “What about that one?”
He smiled. “That’s my finest work. It has everything. Incredible power, tremendous capacity, and enough fuel to run for years.”
“Then why isn’t it running?”
He looked at her for a moment. “Because I haven’t decided what to do with it.”
She walked around the engine, examining it.
“What would happen if you started it?”
“It would run.”
“Where would it take you?”
He paused.
“I suppose wherever I wanted.”
“And where do you want to go?”
The old man laughed. “That’s a much harder question.”
She sat on a nearby workbench.
“Tell me something. When you were young, what did you imagine you would do with all this knowledge?”
He began talking. He spoke about an invention he had once dreamed of building, a machine that could provide affordable power to remote villages. He described the people he had met along the way, the opportunities he had passed up, and the business that had consumed most of his time.
“Why didn’t you build it?” she asked.
“I was busy building engines.”
She looked at him.
“And now?”
He glanced at the enormous engine.
“Now I have the resources. I have the experience. I even have the time. But I don’t know if anyone needs what I imagined anymore.”
The young woman stood up.
“My grandfather lives in a village where the electricity goes out every evening. Children do their homework by candlelight. The clinic has trouble keeping medicine cold. Last month, the community lost its water pump.”
The old man stopped moving.
“Where is this village?”
She told him.
He walked over to a cabinet and pulled out a dusty set of drawings. He spread them across the workbench.
“These are the original plans.”
For the next several hours, they talked. They discussed the village, the people, the available resources, the technical challenges, and the possibilities. She offered to connect him with the community. He called two former colleagues. Another friend knew someone who could help finance the project.
By midnight, the workshop was alive with conversation.
The following morning, the young woman returned.
The old man was standing beside the engine.
“Are you ready?” she asked.
He nodded.
“One more thing,” she said. “Who ignites the fuel?”
He turned the key.
The engine started.
But this time, he knew exactly where it was going.
And somewhere, in a village he had never visited, a child would soon be able to finish her homework with the lights on.
Enhavim keeps the how and places it after the who, where the right people can decide it. From mission follow the strategic plan, its goals, its projects, and its tasks.
Once the who is in place, purpose has a path into action. Staff, volunteers, and clients working in unison turn stored energy into motion.
Where Does Momentum Come From?
Momentum is what the three circles produce together. Purpose supplies the fuel. Mission activates it. Vision sets the direction.
Once mission activates purpose, the strategic plan becomes an object in motion, and it stays in motion, headed where vision leads. Nobody has to restart it from rest each morning.
Some models add momentum as a separate element, drawn as arrows circling the outside. In Enhavim, momentum comes from within. The center of the Enhavim graphic shows that motion turning at its core.
What Stops a Strategic Plan Once It Moves?
Only an outside force: a competing priority, a setback, a change in the people involved. Newton's law names the threat, and Enhavim supplies the answer. Keep the three circles connected.
Vision keeps leading. Purpose keeps fueling. Mission keeps fulfilling, with the who renewed as people come and go. A strategic plan moving this way keeps its momentum as long as that connection lasts.
Vision leads. Purpose fuels. Mission fulfills. The strategic plan moves, and it keeps moving.
Masterwork360: Made for Wisdom. Enhavim-driven.
Create in the NOW
Enhavim begins as a dream and becomes a strategic plan in motion. Create in the NOW: From Dream to Enhavim shows how vision leads, purpose fuels, and mission fulfills, from the first idea to the daily task.