The Trouble with Momentum

I’m a creature of habit.

An object that, once set in motion, stays in motion.

A machine. A powerhouse. An unstoppable force...

Until I’m not.

I learned a valuable and rather humbling lesson about habits a few years ago that gave me a whole new respect for something I had always taken for granted.

I had embarked on a long-overdue kitchen renovation. Not being particularly handy with power tools, I wisely hired a contractor to handle it.

I was so excited and went into the project with such naivety that it’s almost comical looking back.

Up until then, my life ran like a well-oiled machine. The client schedule, the workouts, the meal prep, the family time, the me time. It all fit together beautifully.

Then the renovation began.

If you’ve ever lived through a remodel, you know there’s regular time, and then there’s subcontractor time.

They may arrive at 8:00 a.m. Or noon. Or sometimes not until the next day. Quitting time is an equally baffling mystery.

Plans go out the window. Schedules become suggestions. And the noise and questions seem endless.

Just when I’d settle into a workout or hop on the phone with a client, I’d hear a knock on my office door or a “Ma’am, we’ve got a problem!” from the other room.

It was amazing how quickly my well-oiled machine came apart.

Eventually, though, the kitchen was beautifully finished. The very talented subcontractors, whom I had grown quite fond of by then, packed up their tools and moved on to their next project.

Everything could finally go back to normal.

Except I didn’t.

That object that had once stayed so easily in motion had become equally content to stay at rest.

I made sure my clients and family were taken care of, but other things quietly fell by the wayside.

The workouts disappeared.

Meal prep gave way to takeout.

And me time?

What me time?

What surprised me wasn't that the renovation disrupted my routine.

Of course it did.

What surprised me was how difficult it was to restart once the disruption was gone.

I'd always thought my routines worked because I was disciplined.

I began to realize how much of that discipline was actually momentum.

The same thing can happen in business.

We build good habits and systems. We find a rhythm. Things begin to run almost automatically.

Then something happens.

A key employee leaves. A major client needs more attention. Business suddenly takes off. Life throws something unexpected our way.

For a while, we do what needs to be done.

The danger isn't necessarily the disruption.

It's what happens after it.

Because once we've stopped doing something long enough, staying stopped starts to feel surprisingly natural.

These days, I have a lot more respect for momentum.

I know life will occasionally knock me off course. I've stopped expecting otherwise.

But I've also learned that getting back on track doesn't require rebuilding everything overnight.

Sometimes it just requires getting one thing moving again.

Then another.

And another.

Because an object in motion may tend to stay in motion.

But first, somebody has to give it a push.