How to Maintain Momentum – Even When Waiting

 I was walking my daughter to the bus stop and I felt it… spring! The birds were singing, the sunlight was just a little more golden, and the air had an underlying warmth. Finally!

You know how kids feel when waiting for Christmas? That’s how I feel about spring. I’m a gardener. We spend the winter months watching out the window - eager for the signals that tell us that spring is indeed on its way.

In that moment, I almost rearranged my whole day so I could spend it playing in the dirt. My motivation was high and it was so tempting to follow that exciting sense of urgency. Sometimes though, when my motivation is at this level, I become my own worst enemy.

On the flip side, I don’t want to completely ignore my feelings either. They are signaling to me that there are important things that I will need to get done soon – and even better that I’m looking forward to those things.

Turns out, this is a perfect opportunity for me to practice even-achieving.

For context, my garden is a big project. It is gorgeous, but it is NOT a low maintenance space. There have been too many times in the past when I would pick one day and try to knock out all my gardening tasks. 8-10 hours of back breaking weeding, fertilizing, deadheading, mulching, and trimming. And I claimed to love it. I would be so engrossed in tending to the space that my husband would beg me to let him stop (“please don’t make me dig another hole!”) and I would get lightheaded and shaky from not eating – because who has time for that?

Guess what, this is NOT the way to enjoy gardening! But I was outcome focused. I wanted it to be “done,” and I would use my intensity to do multiple days of work in one. And when you’ve smashed that much effort into one day, it’s really hard to sit back and enjoy the end result without some resentment. Also, plot twist - a garden grows! It doesn’t stay “done” for more than a couple of days. But my enthusiasm to do that level of work again does not grow as quickly.

So, on this morning instead of following my feelings or ignoring them altogether, I chose to channel those feelings into sustainable high performance. Here’s the ways I’m doing that:

Cheer

First, I’m letting myself feel the excitement. In the past, if I couldn’t act on something right away, I’d try to tell myself to calm down, or hold it in. Not this time. I’m letting myself feel the full joy of the fact that spring is coming. It doesn’t need an action to be worthy of the sensation. So, I shouted to the sky “spring is coming!” and I did a little happy dance. Every time I looked out the window, I thought, I get to go play out there soon. It’s not today, but it is soon. I want to maintain my motivation for when the timing is right and I know that in letting myself feel it, I will only fuel it. I can be excited for excitement’s sake. Letting myself feel this joy in the moment is one of the ways I hold on to my momentum for the next several days.

Check-in and Call Out

Instead of jumping right in because I wanted to, I began to think through what I actually needed to get things rolling. This means first I needed to do a check-in and call-out. I knew I had the motivation (check) and I had the tools and skills to get started (check) – but that doesn’t mean right now is the right time (call-out).

So, I decided to take a closer look at my risks. For instance, the weather. There was a huge rainstorm on its way and it would have hit just about the time I finally got myself outside– literally raining on my parade and putting a halt to my momentum.

I also thought through the timing of past years and remembered that the beneficial bugs haven’t woken yet  - which means if I started spring clean-up now, my overenthusiasm would be detrimental to them. Considering that I love supporting the ecosystem of my garden, losing those bugs would have major long-term negative side-effects.

So, the timing isn’t quite right yet and that’s ok. It will be soon. To keep my momentum engaged, I continue to feed my excitement for the time that I do get to go outside and play in the dirt. To keep it sustainable, I will strategically choose a better time to get it going. The work will still get done – and it will get done well. Which is what Even-Achieving is all about.

Thanks for reading with me today. I hope you take some time to feel the excitement of whatever is on your horizon – even if it’s a few days away.