Do you ever feel like you hit a slump? Do you ever feel like you just lost all of your momentum and that you are quickly losing ground? I like to consider myself a hard worker and I like to think that I always move at an accelerated pace and seldom slow down. But is that reality? Can we really keep up with the high expectations of life and of the world around us? We are expected to always perform at the highest of levels and expected to never show that we are tired. Expectations are great when you are meeting them or surpassing them but what happens when we don’t. What happens when we don’t feel that we can do this anymore? Momentum seems to come at times but it seems to quickly disappear. A success one day can quickly turn into a failure. A strength into a weakness. One day, you can be on top of the game and on top of your competition to only lose it all by tomorrow.
I don’t know that I am failing but I do feel that I lost some of the momentum I had at the beginning of the year, and that I am trying to force myself into my work where before I had no trouble. I worked so hard on this one project since the beginning of the year, and now I am stuck trying to get the energy and the motivation to finish it. The urgency and the importance hasn’t changed and the project hasn’t changed much but I have. I find that I am out of new and “great” ideas and that I am lost for solutions. I am lost in finding the ability to complete this task but why? I thought about it today as I struggled to finish some of the work in preparation for a power session tomorrow and then it hit me. It isn’t the project but it is me. I devoted so much into my work and so much into this project that I lost my focus and the determination to complete the task, and now I am struggling to find anything left in my system to finish the race. I sprinted the first part of the race but now I found myself on the last stretch with no energy and no breath. I guess I realized that even though I consider myself a hard worker and a creative person, I was left to motivate myself to complete a task. Not because I was lazy and distracted but because I needed a change. I lack the endurance and the focus to complete this task.
What is momentum? I really couldn’t define it for you. I know the term is used heavily in college football and really with any sporting event. We talk about momentum switching from one team to the next throughout the game. But what is it? We define it by performance but would we be more accurate in defining it in choice and certain behaviors. You don’t win a game by strategically playing for momentum but by playing the game. A good game plan, good athletes, and focus and determination drive a victory more so than this idea of momentum. Momentum is just a result of these variables that drive success and drive vistory. Momentum doesn’t drive success but measures it. So is that it? Am I just not focused and determined to complete my task and do what it takes to complete the race…I think that is it. I somehow lost focus and lost some of my determination over the last few weeks. I didn’t lose this mythical momentum that was driving my success but I lost focus, confidence, and determination.
I remember growing up and never learning how to water ski. My dad loved to ski and would always offer to pull my brother or me and teach us how. But we always would decline and would choose to a tube or some other form of entertainment in the water. But one day I decided to try it again after years of failure. I jumped out of the boat and got situated behind the boat. My dad yelled out instructions that at this point in my life I had memorized, but I continued to listen and to adapt to his instructions. I tried once. I tried twice, I tried five times before I felt the pressure again to quit. I couldn’t do this. I would never be able to ski. But something that day was different. I remember telling my dad that I wanted to keep trying until I got up that day and that I didn’t care how long it took (determination and focus with no momentum). I could see my brother getting aggravated in the back of the boat but I had to reach my goal. I had to complete the task at hand. After a few more attempts, I got up on the skies and started around the lake. I felt great pride in that moment and great accomplishment but I wasn’t done. I quickly became a accomplishment junkie and wanted to set the stakes even higher. I felt the rush of momentum or success and wanted to test it further. I decided that I would learn not only to ski but to also slalom in the same day. I got back in the water with one ski this time and tried to get out of the water on one ski after just learning how to get up on two. What a silly idea! Even my parents weren’t sure that it was even possible but I felt the momentum behind me. But after 7 attempts and a lot of water in my lungs, I felt the momentum leave me and my confidence was drained.
I found myself, in that moment, in the same position that I am in today. I felt empty and uninspired to complete the task before me. My parents were trying to encourage me to get back into the boat and call it a day, and I felt that I should take them up on their advice. But in that moment, I decided to give it one more go. I thought that even without the momentum behind me that, just maybe, if I focus and push myself I might be able to do it. So I asked for one more chance and with this one chance, I completed my task and got up and slalomed around the lake. What a day and what a memory. Even with all momentum lost and my shattered confidence, focus and determination drove my eventual success. I hope this concept is encouraging because the memory and the thought has helped me. It has helped me to realize that I don’t need to wait for favor to come back on me or for motivation to hit me again, but that I must continue to work, continue to focus on the task at hand and the goals before me. The only one causing me to fail and causing me to miss a deadline, is me. Don’t let the pressure of expectations and the tug-of-war of momentum determine your success…let your determination and your focus drive your success beyond the momentum and beyond the expectations.
