‘It’s like the wind at my back, the sun in my face. It’s like running down a grass-covered hill.’ ~Leo Babauta
Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Katie Tallo of Momentum Gathering.
It can carry you like a strong current carries a fallen leaf. It can ground you like an early morning walk through the woods. It can move you like wind moves a cloud across the summer sky. It can ignite your spirit and make you feel like you can do anything.
It is momentum – that invisible, universal force that can saturate your every choice, your every step, your every breath, your every moment of resolve with vibrant, joyful energy. Momentum can surge you forward and it can pull you under. It goes with your flow, follows your lead and enhances your trajectory.
It can be harnessed, gathered and used as an incredibly transformational tool.
How do I know this to be true? I’ve been actively gathering momentum for almost six years now, ever since I quit smoking. That one simple yet meaningful change shifted my direction just enough to spark momentum. I triggered it without even knowing it. All I knew at the time was that if I could quit smoking after twenty years of trying, I could do anything. That’s what momentum feels like. It seeps into your pores and tingles the back of your neck.
It feels like possibility.
That one success of quitting smoking led to another success … and then another. I took up running and yoga after years of sedentary living. I became a mindful eater and adopted a vegetarian diet after a lifetime as a meat-eater. I felt like I was waking up. I became aware for the first time in my life that I could make different choices from the ones I’d been taught – from the ones that had become habits. I let go long held beliefs, pounds and lethargy.
Momentum was helping to shape a new me, inside and out.
I found inner strength after years of feeling like someone who repeatedly started a new exercise regime or eating regime only to quit a few weeks in. I now knew I was capable of profound and lasting change.
I gave up the haze of red wine soaked evenings and instead wrote the first draft of a novel I’d been talking about for a decade. Momentum was gathering all around me. Even the word, momentum, kept popping up everywhere like red cars do after you buy a red car. I was seeing the word in books, hearing it in random conversations, feeling it as I ran and waking up with it on the tip of my tongue.
Six months ago, while reading one of my favourite blogs, Leo’s blog, this very blog, I linked to another called Write to Done which carried me to yet another called The A-List Blogging Club. That’s when I decided to write a blog about momentum as a means to express it, sustain it, understand it, embrace it, share it, inspire it in others and live it completely.
Momentum has propelled me and supported me.
It has been like a coach, mentor and teammate, and it has been my constant companion for the past six years of incredible life change and over the past six months of my new venture. It has ushered into my life the unexpected gifts of friendship, community, passion and life purpose. I have harnessed momentum and I never want to let it go.
How can you begin to gather momentum in your own life and make it work for you? How can you harness it’s power to create lasting and joyful life change? Simply let it.
Let momentum carry you
Dip into the warm waters of momentum by trying, experimenting, taking a first step, forgiving yourself for slip-ups and then trying again. Plunge into whatever you’ve been putting off for “some day” and make today the day you begin. Imagine how incredible it will feel to let the current of momentum carry you from this one success towards another. Each can be a wave you ride to the next.
Let momentum ground you
Feel the earth beneath your feet as you step in a direction that makes sense to you – just you. Ground yourself in the feeling that comes from reflecting upon what you believe in, doing what feels right to you and living by your own convictions, counsel and sense of right and wrong. Get solid about who you are and then feel the power and ease with which your choices come to you.
Let momentum move you
Take that first step in a direction of your own choosing, then with each bold statement, each strong stride, each clear-thinking choice let momentum joyously lift you higher and farther. Exceed your own expectations and strengthen your resolve to be who you were meant to be and nothing less. Don’t strive and stress – instead simplify and find success on your terms.
Let momentum ignite you
Once you feel it growing, let momentum fan the fire inside you – a fire that may have been burnt out or smoldering under the surface for a long time. Let yourself feel love and passion towards yourself, your life and everything you do then begin to recover, uncover or discover your true potential. If often leaps out of the flames.
Momentum thrives on you.
It is the water, the earth, the wind and the fire of your being. It embodies the elements of a life lived fully and on your own terms. It can fill your heart, sooth your soul, propel your body forward and, if you let it, momentum just might make you feel like you can do anything – and then likely, you can and will.