Momentum – and why it Matters
Bad habits are hard to break. So are good ones. Momentum is behind everything and it’s why doing something even once makes it easier to do it again.
The first time an employee takes a dollar from the cash drawer it’s a big deal. They’re overcoming their conscience, fear and all the inhibitions holding them back from stealing anything, even a dollar. The next time they do it, it’s a little easier. They feel a little less fear, a little less guilt. At some point – maybe the 10th or 20th or 100th time, it no longer takes effort to steal. It takes effort not to.
There’s a reason why recovering alcoholics avoid taking even one drink. Having one drink makes having that second one much easier, and the 3rd is easier yet. It’s all related to momentum, and it can be applied to any kind of change whether positive or negative.
Think of a heavy train rushing down the tracks at 80 mph. Imagine the kind of force needed to stop that train. Now imagine that same train at a full stop, loaded with cargo, and the force needed to get it moving. Once the train starts rolling and building speed it takes less and less force to keep it moving, and more and more force to stop it.
Every action we take is like that train. The stealing employee who returns the dollar, and the alcoholic who refuses that first drink never set that train in motion. It doesn’t get the chance to build speed. Stopping is easiest before it starts.
The same is true for the habits you want to build and the goals you want to reach. The writer who always waits for tomorrow when there will be more time or more inspiration leaves the train parked on the tracks, wheels slowly rusting into place. But even small forces consistently applied day after day will cause movement. The writer who writes just 5 words a day, or a paragraph or page is constantly inching that train forward, allowing it to roll just a little. Even a slow roll is easier to keep going than a stopped train.
Every action or inaction we take makes further action either easier or harder. We’re always making the habits we want to have either easier or harder to continue, and the habits we don’t want to have either easier or harder to stop.
I haven’t written on this blog for over a year. I could give all kinds of reasons and justifications for this, but the simple truth is that I didn’t write. Posting today changes the direction of the momentum, and gives a tiny push to that stalled train. That’s true for every action or goal a person wants to take.
The man who wants to run 5 miles is much closer to that goal by running 50 feet than by putting it off another day. The woman who wants to learn a new language is closer to her goal if she learns just one word a day than if she waits until she has “time to start.” And the man who runs 50 feet a day, every day, is far more likely to run 55 feet, or 100 feet or a mile than the man who isn’t running at all. The woman who is learning one new word every day is more likely to learn 2 words, or 5, or a new phrase than the woman who is waiting for the perfect time to start.
The key is to just start doing something, and then keep doing it. As long as you keep taking small actions and don’t stop, momentum will build. The more you do something, the easier it becomes, whether it’s something you want to do, or something you don’t. It’s all those little actions and inactions both positive and negative that determine who you are and where you go. You decide through your actions which train you want to be on, and which train you want to leave rusting on the tracks.
Seven Billion 
