Changing Your Goal Pursuit Mentality to Sustain Momentum
Momentum is the motion of moving. Without a doubt, it takes far more energy to create momentum than it does to sustain momentum. When an object is in motion, small nudges can keep it in motion. However, that small nudge is not enough to start it in motion. That’s the power of momentum.
If you were in the process of pursuing a difficult goal at the start of the year, it’s going to be significantly harder now that you’ve been knocked off your routine. How significant is up to how you manage your momentum.
Obviously, pursuing a difficult goal is difficult in itself. But pursuing a difficult goal when you’re knocked off your routine can absolutely kill your momentum and send you back to square one if you let it.
As a result, your goal pursuit mentality must change. You can’t play the all or nothing game. You have to realize that it’s okay to scale down your routine. A routine filled with small actions that are easy to execute can keep you from losing momentum and grinding to a halt.
Scaling down temporarily will not impact your overall pursuit of a difficult goal. On the other hand, completely grinding to a halt will have a huge impact. If you grind to a halt it will require 10x the effort to restart. With this in mind, it’s clearly better to use the power of momentum to your advantage than to your disadvantage. Keep doing something, no matter how small.