There's a country song by Rodney Atkins that goes, "if you're going through hell, keep on going, don't slow down, if you're scared don't show it, you might get out before the devil even knows you're there". This may seem like just a catchy, silly, albeit motivational song, but I think that Mr. Atkins has a timeless truth buried in the depths of these lyrics.
I am the founder of the Leaders Are Always Readers book club. This is a club that meets each week to discuss a chapter or two on a book written to help us improve in relationships, finance, career, life, or health to name a few. Right now we are discussing Mike Dooley's book Infinite Possibilities, in which he writes, "very simply, depression is the result of feeling powerless - powerless to change your circumstances and feeling trapped by your life. If this is where you are, facing it or admitting it is the first step. Then begin realizing that you are, of course, powerful. You've just lost some momentum. It's like riding a bike; you've got to keep moving in order to stay balanced."
Momentum. It's a subject that you won't really hear discussed outside of a science class, but I have learned that it has everything to do with whether an individual is successful or not. You see, I spent a good portion of my life working hard. Working hard at work and working hard at school. And then, in my early 20's, after I graduated college, I decided that I deserved to coast. I deserved to take it easier. I deserved to not work as hard. At that point I lost focus. For a while, the bicycle of my life continued to coast and I was still moving along and life was alright. But when my life started to lose steam, it did it very quickly. The bicycle wobbled all over the place, and I eventually fell. I stayed down for a couple of years, crying about how unfair life was and stuck in the hole of my own making.
When I finally got back up and tried to ride again, it was hard. Just like riding a bike, it took a lot of effort at first to get my life moving in the right direction and I was still wobbly. However, momentum did take over and now, as long as I point my life in the direction I want to go, continue to pedal from time to time, I don't wobble and I don't fall over.
Donald Trump in his book, Think Big and Kick Ass, puts it this way, "When you start toward a worthy goal - like landing a great job on Wall Street or becoming the next mayor of New York or building the world's tallest building - you have not yet built any momentum. You have no contacts and no track record. Nobody is calling you and nothing is happening. Momentum works like this...at first nobody knows you. They do not believe you because you have done nothing before...at first nothing is happening. With each passing day and each contact you make, you are silently building momentum. You are showing people that you are not going away and still nothing happens. So you keep that up. Then one day, something breaks for you; you land an account or sign a deal. You tell all your contacts and all of a sudden your credibility rises....Everybody sees that you have momentum and they want to be a part of it!"
So no matter where you are today, first focus on the direction you want to be moving. It could be toward better relationships, health, money, career, respect, happiness, anything your heart desires! Then, you must start to take the small actions in the direction of your goal. It will always be hard at first, because you have no momentum, but ultimately, if you do the rights things, long enough, consistently, your momentum will become a snowball rolling down a mountainside and you will be unstoppable!
I believe in a world of infinite abundance; let us create it together!
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