“When you find yourself in the thickness of pursuing a goal or dream, stop only to rest. Momentum builds success.” – Suzy Kassem
Hey, hi, hello and welcome back to my little corner of the internet, a place where we drink comical amounts of coffee and discuss how we can make our lives just a bit better!
Also... WELCOME TO BLOGTOBER DAY 2!
If you just popped by, Blogtober is a series that I started on my blog, where I post daily content for the WHOLE month of October.
Also... WELCOME TO BLOGTOBER DAY 2!
If you just popped by, Blogtober is a series that I started on my blog, where I post daily content for the WHOLE month of October.
This time I wanted to talk about something which I am very passionate about. This is a thing I bore my friends with when we go out to grab a couple of drinks.
And that is... *drum roll*... MOMENTUM.
So, if you took any physics classes you probably rolled your eyes hard at this term.
But I'm not here to talk about physics. I'm an English teacher, remember?
What I am talking about is how you can trigger your brain to want to do everything that you put on the to-do list for the week.
Sounds like something you would read? By all means, continue down bellow.
When I say momentum, I mean continuous productive state.
It sounds like a dream, something unachievable, but through many years of trial and error, I found that it can be easy.
Usually, it takes a couple of steps.
1. Inspiration
Every great change starts with an inspiration. It can be a person, a vibe, an aesthetic that you want to achieve. You can look it up anywhere, find it anywhere, and it will be lodged in your brain for some time. Inspiration needs some time to simmer in your beautiful mind, and then you have to options. Either it fizzles out, or you decide to act upon it. If it fizzles out, it wasn't really inspiring in the first place. Keep looking. You will find it.
If you decide to act upon it, then you go on to the next step.
2. Motivation
That is the feeling you get on January 1st. Or on the first day of Spring (or Fall in my case). Or on your birthday.
You can do it! You will do it! You get your planner out, your brainstorming board, your pens and washi tape. You make an excellent plan and you will act upon it. There is nothing stopping you! After that, you go to the last step...
3. ACTION
Imagine I said that "action" like a movie director, please. It will sound so much cooler in your head...
Anyways, action! You wake up the next morning, you hit the gym, you clean the whole apartment top to bottom, you study for 18 hours that day. Whatever you put on your grand plan, you do it. Right? And then the next day. And on the third day you do it as well. Or do you do it on the third day?
Well, not really. How many times has it happened to you that after a few days, your grand plan kind of fizzles out. You attribute it to "things happening". "I feel really tired today, I'll do it tomorrow", but tomorrow you have something else to say.
And that is totally fine. I've been there. I've done that. And honestly, I got over that crap.
So, what if I told you there is a cheat to that failing system?
The thing with constant productivity is that you need a trigger action to do the action which is a part of the grand plan that you made on your birthday. Stick with me, I know I'm overcomplicating it.
But, it's ridiculously easy.
Here's a real life example from last week:
My apartment became a pig sty over the work week. I sit on the computer for 6 days a week, for 7+ hours a day. I don't really feel like cleaning after that. On top of that, my partner had a very stressful exam week. Try to picture how our place looked at that point.
And when things get dirty, you don't feel like cleaning.
What I do at this point is I trigger myself.
My trigger for cleaning the whole place - laundry.
You heard that right. In order for me to get cleaning the whole place, I absolutely must do the laundry first.
That is the magic word of this post.
TRIGGER.
You cannot just rely on the 3 step plan to achieve constant productive flow.
That is why you need actions that start different actions. Kind of like a domino effect.
Here are some of the examples from my experience:
Laundry to start the whole cleaning process
Washing my face to do the whole skin care routine
Getting dressed for yoga in the morning as opposed to staying in underwear
Tying my hair up to write my to-do list (please don't judge me)
Whatever works for you, do that.
You can also have triggers for getting inspired, or triggers to get motivated.
It's all intertwined really.
You can easily get motivated to work out, by doing a trigger action of making your bed.
Or, you can get inspired by being motivated to study for 3 hours that day.
By achieving this sort of a pully system, you will never get deep into that "I don't feel like it" moment because there will always be something to get you out of that feeling.
And that is what I call momentum. You are constantly moving forward and there is always something to push you to achieve your goals!
Okay, I hope this wasn't too complicated. Will you try this out? What are your triggers?
Let me know down bellow, or reach out on my socials!
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