Something Has To Move
I've been thinking about momentum lately.
Partly because I've been trying to create some in my own work.
There is something about things beginning to move.
One action makes the next one feel a little easier. Something gets finished. A conversation happens. A step gets taken. There is now some evidence behind us.
Sport makes this particularly visible.
Watching my beloved Shelbourne struggle this season, I've often had the feeling that they just need a win. Not because one result suddenly fixes everything, but because a win can change the feeling around the next game.
Confidence shifts.
Belief returns.
The next win somehow feels a little more possible.
We use this understanding of momentum elsewhere too.
Fitness watches celebrate streaks. Apps count consecutive days. Some even give us a free pass for a missed one.
They know that yesterday's action can encourage today's.
And perhaps, over time, something deeper happens.
What we repeatedly do can begin to affect how we see ourselves.
This is something I do.
This is who I am.
But momentum has a vulnerability.
When the streak breaks, the same psychology can begin to work against us.
One missed day becomes two. One bad result follows another. The sense of progress can quickly become a sense that we have lost something.
And life will break our streaks.
Things happen.
Perhaps, then, the real challenge isn't maintaining momentum indefinitely.
It is beginning again.
Because once momentum exists, it helps us.
At the beginning, there is nothing behind us.
No streak. No recent evidence. No sense of being carried forward.
Perhaps that is the moment when will matters most.
Not some great act of willpower.
Just enough to move.
One walk.
One page.
One conversation.
One win.
The first one may not change very much.
Except that the next one now has something to follow.
Maybe we sometimes wait for momentum to return before we begin.
Perhaps it works the other way around.
We begin.
And give momentum a chance to find us again.