Momentum Matters

Momentum is real. I love the feeling of making progress on something – when you start something thinking it will be hard, and then feel yourself moving through it easily and efficiently. Maybe you can relate.

Even though I love that feeling of building momentum, I’m also a huge procrastinator. If you talk to my mom, she’ll say I’ve always been that way. Other procrastinators I’ve known seem to be the same way. It’s not an excuse, I’m just trying to figure out why I am the way that I am. We may implement tips and tricks, and try our hardest to plan ahead, but it almost seems to be apart of our DNA.

I think a lot of those people end up in sales careers; you’re able to perform on the fly more than other professions – you’re forced to, really.

So, what do you get when you have a person who likes to get things done, but who is also a procrastinator? A stressed-out person. A highly caffeinated person. A person whose mind races.

Over the past year, I have tried to focus on the things that combat those tendancies in myself: figuring out what I really want in life and creating space to be thoughtful.

I chose to write about momentum this week because I struggled with this topic during the holidays. When I started the blog, I set a goal to write a weekly post for at least one year and publish that post on Thursdays. For ten straight weeks, I was able to stay on track with my goal… and then Christmas week hit.

Instead of pushing myself to write a post, I let the voices in my head start saying things like, “this is your first holiday season without working full-time… you should enjoy it.” Christmas week came and went, and then New Year’s week was upon us. I found those same voices telling me that I was too tired to write.

I missed another Thursday deadline.

I was out of my routine and lost the momentum I’d created over almost three months of weekly posts. I’ve felt similarly with exercise before – gotten myself on a routine of working out 4+ days per week, and then something would come up: sickness for myself or my kids, a trip away, family visiting, etc.

I have found that as soon as a make an excuse for one reason (albeit a legitimate reason), it then becomes easier to find “legitimate reasons” to put it off the next week. And the next week.

So, what’s the answer? No days off?

I’m not sure what the answer is, but I think it lays somewhere around planning ahead. And remember I said that’s hard for me to do?

Regardless, as soon as you identify in yourself that you’ve lost momentum, you must make an effort to get on track. The longer you let time pass without initiating that first step, the harder it will be to get on the path to achieving your goals.

Cheers to a new year and achieving everything we want in 2020!