Strategies to Build Momentum in Business and Life

Success is a subjective term. What it means to me may not be what it means to you. The common denominator to success in anything is the momentum you put behind your action. Yeah, it takes action. Unlike what a lot of coaches out there will tell you. You can’t just think about it and think positive thoughts about it. Take charge.

What does Momentum Mean?

Let’s look at what momentum means because it’s the key aspect of what we’re talking about. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary definition of momentum is this, straight from the book: “ The strength or force that something has when it is moving. : The strength or force that allows something to continue or to grow stronger or faster as time passes. Physics: the property that a moving object has because of its mass and its motion.”

How do you get momentum in life and work?

Momentum will affect every area of your life. I’ll touch on gaining and keeping momentum in work and personal life in the article a little later. I just want you to keep in mind that there are only logistical differences between the two scenarios.

How does Momentum help you Gain Success?

Once you have a goal and take action toward it, you must continue with that action. Meaning, even if one plan of action fails, you must still continue to shift your steps to create another plan. The act of no movement kills your momentum.

This is an important concept because quitting is what many people do the moment something goes wrong with an action plan toward a goal. It’s a nasty habit. Some people not only stop their movement, they sit and ponder what went wrong or become paralyzed and quit because it feels safer. An even worse habit. Don’t let that be you it’s ridiculous to sabotage your life like that.

Instead, keep the momentum flowing. Like being at work. Let’s say you have a project to do. Perfectionism kicks in and you feel you need to do everything a certain way. Your boss walks in and says “Good job, but” and alerts you to something they didn’t like and you’re devastated!

Remember this:

Allowing your emotions to take control is a good way to kill momentum. Your potential and creativity are two aspects needed to succeed.

Bottom-line. How you gain success through momentum is simple, executing it is the challenge. Here are two important points. You can make these into a checklist when you go through your day.

Don’t worry, you won’t have to refer to the list for the rest of your life. Practice the points until they become a habit. Yeah, you have to wire your brain for success.

This is what so many coaches and mentors don’t understand, and I’m giving you the secret right now. You can say all the affirmations and do all the administrative steps, but if you don’t know how to keep your momentum then you’re guaranteed to get derailed, which means thrown right off the track.

Have you seen what happens to a derailed train? Not pretty. And neither is life when you allow that to happen.

Your List:

1. Know who you are and be confident in that. Along with discipline should be confidence. Momentum stops when you have to second guess yourself. Stop right now and take stock in your confidence factor. If it needs work, fin help and gets that in shape.

2. Now, where’s your discipline? Is it out to lunch or on a perpetual vacation? Be honest with yourself, this is important. No time to play coy, and here’s why. There’s no shame in having a severe lack of discipline, but it’s not practical. It’s also not practical to think you can turn this around overnight.

3. So, here’s the tip of the day with this one. Make sure you make action plans that are small and short-term. Why? Because your confidence will rise when you accomplish minor tasks. You’ll be more likely to get to the big goal and you guessed it; momentum will continue!

How to get unstoppable momentum

I want you to notice something. Ever watched or attended one of those motivational groups? Everyone there buys a ticket and not cheaply. They’re typically several hundred bucks or more. They have their notebooks handy and they take part in exercise after exercise and walk out of there pumped, motivated and ready to take on the world.

They also built momentum. Here’s the secret, though—they built false momentum, at least for the vast majority. You’ll know this is a fact because if it weren’t there would be millions of millionaire success stories from people who have attended these things.

There’s a percentage of big success stories, but here’s the difference between those two groups of people. The successful ones know how to maintain momentum and had the capability before they attended the seminar.

It’s easy to get “motivated” when you have the right person telling you the right thing at the right time. Yeah, but you don’t get to take the coach home with you, do you? No. Tony Robbins has a mansion in Palm Beach County, Florida, he doesn’t need to shack up with his students.

All jokes aside, momentum takes discipline. Discipline is the Groom to the Bride called momentum. They work as a team and if you try to succeed using one without the other, you’re going to have a problem.

Overwhelmed yet? You don’t need to be. Just understand what momentum really is and we can move to the next section.

Recap:

Momentum means that you keep moving forward regardless of whether the action-plan you devised fails. Do not allow your emotional state or environmental circumstances to hinder your momentum.

How to build momentum in life and business

In this section, there are two examples of how to gain and keep momentum in your personal life and how to do it at work so you can get a clearer picture of any differences.

In the beginning, I said that you don’t have to separate momentum into categories. Momentum is just momentum. If they’re separated, you wouldn’t see much difference, but let’s go into it for a moment.

How to Gain Momentum at Work

Taking the same principles given you in the article about confidence, discipline, and emotional control, we go into a work situation.

Working at a Company

Working at a company gives many temptations to allow bosses and coworkers to affect emotions. Confidence may decline on a daily basis because you may work in a challenging system, and discipline may be hard to muster. Why? Because you’re making millions for a company and you have a salary cap.

Here, you need to be a bit of a robot while you investigate how to find a company that resonates well with you or you go freelance. By robot, I mean being in a state of acceptance. In the meantime, create small action plans for each goal. Understand that it’s not a defect in you that may make momentum a challenge, but in a system, you belong to.

If you work for a company that allows you freedom, then you can use the same three ideas on the given list in order to cut through the situations you face. Don’t go to the water cooler and engage in gossip. Be proactive and create momentum around an action plan that puts your actions ahead of what may become.

Workplaces can be quite predictable. So, if you know that the office pain is going to do something they always do to get you down, make a plan to be one step ahead of them and like the advice says, if that plan fails, don’t give up, keep the momentum and experiment until something works.

Working for Yourself

When you work for yourself, it may seem like the three points on the list are easy to do. After all, you make your own schedule. Freedom can backfire. Remember the discipline point. For you, look at this point first and face it with resolute honesty. Are you disciplined enough to keep the momentum? After you make two client calls, are you on the couch binge-watching Netflix and procrastinating the rest of your workweek?

If the answer is yes, you have the answer to the state of your momentum. It left. In fact, it was never there. So how do you create and keep momentum in your work life when you work for yourself?

Using the same three points given you in the shortlist, work on discipline first. You’ll have to go down the rabbit hole on this one. To gain and keep the momentum you have to understand why you want to work for yourself, and are you the right personality to do that? This is important because if you’re in the wrong position in the first place, then gaining and keeping momentum is almost impossible.

However, there are things you can do if you have no choice but to work for yourself. Right now, many people must work from home. After you’ve faced the reality of how disciplined you are or are not, you can move to the next step.

Goal Setting

Set small achievable goals. Even if they sound silly or too small. This makes it easier to gain and keep momentum in your business. In fact, it gives you a lot more room to be creative.

Look, to have momentum you must have your ‘why?”. Even if your job stinks, my friend, you must know why you do it. Can you find something that sparks passion in you about the job or what it provides to you?

How to Strategize to Build and Maintain Momentum

This section should pull it all in for you. The final facet to deal with is strategy. So far we’ve peeled the onion back layer by layer. Discipline, Self-Discovery, Motivation, Passion, and now, Strategy.

The strategy is a compilation of all the points together in a logical order, and here they are.

When we create a strategy out of these layers, we have to start with goals first. Regardless of whether it’s personal or work-related, your momentum must have a goal to reach. Start small or large depending on your discipline capability.

Now, once you have a goal in mind before you create an action plan, find your “Why?” meaning your motivation for that goal.

Now that the momentum has started, create an action plan while you’re in that excited emotional state.

Put the action-plan down and go back to it in 3 days. Why? To make sure it’s not a false passion. You’ll know it right when it sticks around. If it doesn’t, create goals until something rocks your world.

Now that you have the right goal and a passion for it, the momentum will bring you through your action plan to achieving success.!

Lastly, maintain the momentum by feeding your natural personality. If you’re structured and don’t like a lot of change, then stick with the plan you have till the end. If you naturally like change, then being creative about the way you take the steps in your action plan will continually boost momentum.

The Bottom Line on Momentum

Hopefully, you’ve noticed the pattern of momentum. Momentum is only the power behind your movement. The movement comes when you have something you are passionate about and to be successful, you must have discipline. Do you see how it’s a sort of circuit with elements that are in a logical order and feed each other? So, figure out what’s in your job or personal life that makes you tick and that juicy, organic momentum will always renew and never end.