Cover Image: Illustration licensed from VectorStock.com (adapted)
It might be hard, but it’s entirely worth it in the end.
For the past three months, I’ve been in a slump. I have a hard time sticking to my good habits and I’ve been resorting to more and more bad habits. The thing is, I welcomed my son on June 5th of this year and never managed to get my groove back ever since.
There’s always a catalyst that changes your routine and breaks your flow. I remember dreading going on vacation for this exact same reason. I’d build great momentum for months in a row, and then by taking a week or two off, that was enough to kill all that flow.
I’d come back from vacation and be all over the place. My good habits were out the window and getting into flow was much harder. Worst, I’d lose all motivation for projects I was deeply passionate about.
Sounds familiar? You’re definitely not alone.
Your catalyst might be something else. Essentially, anything that derails your schedule for a few days will throw off your momentum. Then you’ll have to start all over again.
The whole cycle looks something like this:
Credit: Author
Building momentum takes time, and the worst part is always at the beginning. It feels like the needle is moving, but ever so slowly. Then you hit your stride and everything flows perfectly well, and with ease. All of a sudden, something blocks your path and you lose your pace. Motivation drops; potentially reaching an all-time low.
I know this full well. I’m experiencing this right now. I’ve strongly considered giving everything up — all the online stuff I’ve built, my startups, everything. I’ve been contemplating the idea of getting a 9–5 job again, simply for not having to ask myself a million questions about my life and just go with the flow.
The problem I have with doing something that doesn’t excite me like that is that while my initial happiness level may rise, I know it will stagnate eventually. I’ve been there too many times in the past.
Credit: Author
For an entrepreneur like myself, I know I stagnate after a while with a regular day job. I never get to reach the benefits of having built tremendous momentum, and after a while, I plateau and lose all enjoyment.
I know it’s a very common problem in the tech sector. I see all my peers switch jobs every year or two. They stagnate. They’re bored. I’m sure you’ve seen that happen in other sectors, and probably for yourself as well, right?
When you’ve built momentum, you’re not bored, you’re in trance. You crave results — and you’re getting them. You accomplish so much that you never want to stop. In the same amount of time it would take for you to accomplish things at the bottom of the curve, you do 10x that at the top.
This reminds me a lot about the first time I went skiing. I started on a training slope, expecting full well that I’d fall. Well, I didn’t. Thinking it was a dud, I tried it again, and still, I didn’t fall.
Instant confidence boost, let me tell you!
So, I went to a beginner slope. The problem was, I had not practiced how to turn. Ugh… this was about to get ugly!
Building momentum in life isn’t very different from momentum on a ski slope. Illustration licenced from VectorStock.com
If you know anything about skiing or physics in general, you know that when you go down a slope, unless you break the momentum as you go down, you’ll only go faster and faster, and stopping becomes near impossible to do.
So, as I was blazing through everyone, I had two choices: panic or stay focused. I chose the latter. I didn’t figure out how to brake, but I did figure out how to make myself visible and make other, more skilled skiers move out of the way (hint: it involved screaming).
I ended up crashing in a snowbank at the bottom.
All good, it was kind of soft.
For me, there’s no better metaphor for momentum in your life. The more movement there is, the more momentum you build. By taking consistent and deliberate action, you contribute to it. You’re creating habits that are rock solid.
The problem is, how do you stay consistent and deliberate? I mean, so many things are not under our control, right?
I don’t think that’s entirely true.
In my examples above, I chose to have a baby. I chose to go on vacation. These are choices I’ve made. These things break momentum and I know that full well, especially in hindsight.
What I’m saying here is that you’re constantly faced with the decision to break your momentum or not. Some things will flat out destroy it, others are simply bumps on the road, only slowing you down momentarily.
If you care for your momentum, encountering bumps once in a while won’t hurt much. I’m thinking: a long weekend trip once in a while, a day off here and there, etc. It just needs to be an exception, not a habit. At least, if you care to keep your momentum.
Having built incredible momentum a few times in the past 4 years, I can’t help but crave it today. Technically, it’s not as hard as it seems. The idea is to focus on the process and a very easy-to-measure goal.
When you’ve built momentum, you’re not bored, you’re in trance. You crave results — and you’re getting them.
For example, I was reading an article from Tim Denning yesterday where he was talking about his goal of writing 20,000 words per day. Trust me, if you do that, you’ll build incredible momentum in writing.
If you’re a programmer, you could count lines of code, bugs fixed, features completed, etc. If you’re a photographer, you could count the number of photos. If you’re a basketball player, you could count the number of shots you make.
Whatever you do, I’m convinced you can find a metric that’s easy to follow. And don’t overthink success. Think process. If you write 20,000 words a day, like Tim Denning, there’s no way you won’t get better. Don’t think about instant success, think about long-term success. There’s no such thing as an overnight success anyway.
What’s the most fun part of skiing?
Going down the slope, right? Getting to the end means success, but the good part is when you’re right up there skiing away.
I’d say the same is true in life. You have to enjoy the process more than the results. But you gotta crave the results so much that it’s near impossible to not want to do the process.
When you love the process, you don’t stop. But if you do, it’s momentary. You get back on your feet and jump back into the action. With every step, your momentum grows stronger.
That’s where the real results come in.
That’s when you keep going and going and never let go.
This is how I’ve upgraded my life many times in the past and how I plan to do it again. And I know it’s possible for you to do it as well.
You can do this!
— Danny