The “Momentum” Game

There has been various theories about “Success” and how certain individuals were able to do things they were able to do. You google “How to be successful” and there will be a hundred different theories in journal articles, websites, professional advice etc on how to be “Successful” and honestly, they’re true. I bet you thought that I was going to deny them but I have no right to deny them. Who am I? I’m a nobody. I’m just like everyone else, figuring things out and I believe that certain theories are conclusively known to be true. It’s like a foundational principle that everyone should abide by to become “successful” or whatever is that they want to call it.

I’ve read different books from “Feeling Smart: Why Our Emotions Are More Rational Than We Think” by Eyal Winter, Mark Manson’s “The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F***” , Stephen Covey’s “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” and a book which deserves so much credit than it gets which is Sasha Eurich’s “Insight” (a book about self awareness). I’ll tell you why I got into these reads, it’s because I’ve always felt like things up in my brain were never really up to par and I still feel that, even as I write this. The books as it has always done for me, helped me figure it out to some extent, to bridge the gap or at least come close to it. You’re probably wondering what these books have to do with being “Successful” but anyone with a brain knows, when you really start taking shit seriously, the biggest conflict you will ever have is the one you have with yourself. To fix what you want to fix in yourself only to see yourself fall short and then try again.

But the point of me writing this is not about “Success”. I don’t even know what Success tastes like and I don’t even know if I will so it’s not my place. This article is about something which has entered my state of mind, left my state of mind and then come back again and as the title suggests, it’s the phases of “Momentum” which is on full throttle for a certain period of time and then Nothing on certain periods of time. Before you confuse it, “Momentum” and “Consistency” in my opinion, is not the same thing.

I’ve been trying to find the right way to describe “Momentum” and the only word that made sense was “Flow”. A smooth flow in things you have to do and a smooth flow in getting things done. Why I feel “Consistency” is not the right term here is because I feel there’s a lot of unnecessary tension surrounding Consistency. Tension which will leave you beating yourself up and overwhelming or easily overwhelming yourself with shit.

But yeah, over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been inside my own head trying to find out how to keep momentum on a high and how to avoid losing it. I kept asking myself “how do I build it?” “how do I keep it?” “What does it take?”.

It took me back to a time not too long ago where I first thought of this Momentum over Consistency theory. It was in the middle of the first wave of the pandemic and things were tense at first, for me at least. Everything was on the downfall and I found myself having to sell a product we have which we’ve never sold before. It made me insecure as hell because I had no idea if the Systematic Sales Process I built in my head would work, whether I would actually convert leads into customers. I had no clue. So I tried everything, started overthinking everything. From the way I said “Hello” to how I handled the call even if the lead was not a lead which would turn into a customer. From my tone and intonation, pronunciation, how much talking I should do vs how much the lead should talk. Literally, everything.

As time went on, I started making small changes to things I felt I needed to change when selling the product and within time I found myself at a higher conversion rate than I ever expected. But honestly, it wasn’t exactly planned out thing where I told myself “I’m going to do these things on a daily basis to make sure this works”. It was not that, not even close. It was just ‘Productive Paranoia” as said by Jim Collins in his book “Great By Choice”. I just did not want to suck at what I was doing. I wanted to achieve this sense of perfection which I had unconsciously setup in my head. But that’s when it hit me.

In my opinion, Momentum is not built by following a set of guidelines you’ve set for yourself religiously like “I’m going to wake up at 5am everyday”. It’s built in striving for a perceived sense of perfection and not stopping until you feel “this is how it should be” and the truth is all we know it, perfection does not exist, it never really did. But that’s where the Momentum is. The momentum is in the chase of perfection which has no end.

The Chase of Perfection does not apply to just work. It’s to Everything. You can’t have Momentum in your work and not have momentum in something else. Momentum is State of Mind NOT a Mentality. which means it can change dependent on what you feed your mind. Example, if you clean your room half-assed, it means your state of mind is in a half-assed stage which means your work is going to be half assed. Think about it, how you approach things different things in your life, don’t you think they all are approached dependent on your current state of mind?

So if you are in a high level of momentum, your work is to be approached with high levels of momentum (a chase of perfection) which means you are also going to clean your room chasing perfection.

Now that we’ve talked about the building in momentum, then comes the next challenge. Staying in Momentum.

Staying in Momentum is not only about chasing perfection, it’s only a part of it. Circumstances change in life, how we adapt to it while keeping in momentum becomes the next big question.

I’ve noticed it in me on how difficult it is to keep momentum because when you start delegating the work you once used to do yourself onto your colleagues, you start becoming lethargic, then you start losing momentum little by little and you only see it later. Honestly speaking, I don’t have a defining answer on how to Stay in Momentum because I’m still figuring it out and I only have 2 answers ,“Hands On” and “Be Systematic”.

Hands On means to never really fully take your hands off everything, NEVER. Keep on selling even though you can easily just pass it onto your colleagues, followup on your leads even though you can tell your team to take care of it, clean your room even if you have a maid that can take care of it, do your laundry etc. Hands on everything. Momentum is in the little things and it’s in everything.

Be Systematic because you are not a machine. You can’t Stay in Momentum without getting exhausted. It makes no sense. So have an organized approach to things. From how you conduct your Sales to how you do your laundry. This is where a planned out day comes into play. The Systematic Approach needs to be well thought through and you are going to keep refining time and time again because it’s a tricky to be Systematic without losing Momentum (something I’m figuring out myself). Remember it’s the “Flow”.

By the way, I can be completely wrong about this. I’ll probably realize that I was wrong and maybe write another article contradicting this but isn’t that what Life is all about?

Before I conclude, a piece of advice. Many have disagreed with me on this but I truly believe that being inside your head, trying to understand yourself as time goes on is the greatest thing you can ever do for yourself because to even to understand how you can build momentum yourself, you need to be inside your head figuring out how to. You can get increasingly isolated as you start spending time inside your head but I truly believe it is the best thing to do for yourself. Nobody else can do it for you. It’s you gathering information, data, emotion, experience etc and figuring it out and nobody can do that for you apart from you.

I really hope that this article helps you.

Hope Everyone’s Safe!

Much Love

Azfar.