#51: The Power of Momentum

Hey Friends,

Fitness is hard, no way around it.

This week, I want to talk about how keeping up momentum towards your goals can make it slightly less hard.

I’ll talk through what I mean by momentum as it relates to your fitness goals and how you can build up momentum via small wins.

Weekly Action Point

🍽️Choose one meal per day that you eat without looking at any screen 🍽️ 

In modern society, many people are looking at some sort of screen while they are eating.

Scrolling on social media, watching a YouTube video or their favorite show, checking texts and emails, etc.

This week, to improve mindfulness of what you are eating, pick one meal each day that you commit to eating without looking at any screen.

Just sit there and eat with your brain not doing anything except eating. For many of you, this will feel uncomfortable. Your instinct might be to reach for your phone, but resist. Try it out for a week.

Using momentum in Fitness

Can you recall a time when you experienced momentum in your fitness routine?

You were never missing a workout, eating well, and generally doing the right things. It may have felt effortless, like you couldn’t be stopped.

Have you ever experienced the opposite? Where it feels like you have to drag yourself to every workout, can’t manage any of your cravings, and just generally feel like you aren’t making any progress?

If I had to guess, almost all of you have experienced both ends of the spectrum at some point.

Why then is it sometimes a constant struggle, and other times you are feeling motivated and loving your workouts and your routine?

In my opinion, it all comes back to momentum.

When you are doing something consistently every single day, you build up momentum.

Celebrating your small wins every day is an awesome way to build momentum.

Maybe you have a day where you don’t want to go to the gym, but then you go anyway.

Afterwards, you feel good about yourself, and that positive reinforcement makes it easier and more likely that you do the same thing again the next day.

Small wins compound.

In the beginning, these small wins may seem insignificant. But over time, they slowly inch you towards your goals, and even make it seem easier or more enjoyable.

The momentum that you build via small daily wins is much more powerful than motivation. You won’t always feel motivated; that’s just the way it is.

But when you stack small wins and build momentum, it generates belief and consistency in what you are doing.

Instead of thinking about a goal on a scale, could you instead think about your goals as streaks of consistency?

For example, challenging yourself to see how many consecutive weeks in a row you can get 3 workouts in is an awesome goal to have.

Framing your mindset to structure your goals on an input will be far more fruitful for you in the long term than focusing your goals on output goals (ie, wanting to lose x number of pounds).

When you break your routine or are extremely inconsistent, it makes it tougher to chase after your fitness goals because you have no momentum.

Everyone will lose momentum and fall off their routine from time to time.

Common things that will cause you to lose momentum: travel, holidays, illness, and injury.

All four of these things make sticking to a fitness routine even more difficult than it is anyway.

Instead of trying to be perfect, you can think about ways you can maintain your momentum.

For me, that means intentionally walking to hit 10k steps and making sure I hit my protein goals, even while traveling.

A couple of questions I want you all to reflect on:

1. Do you feel that you currently have momentum in your fitness goals?

2. If not, what things are standing in your way or causing you to lose momentum?

3. Is there some sort of small win you could celebrate that would help you build momentum?

In my experience, there is one main factor that makes it hard for people to build momentum:

They will be extremely good about their eating/their workouts Monday-Thursday. Then, Friday and Saturday come, and they completely go off the rails.

It’s essentially impossible to build momentum if this is you every single week. It takes your mind on a rollercoaster and will always make your fitness goals seem like a constant struggle.

So ask yourself, what are some ways you can keep your momentum rolling the entire week so that you aren’t restarting from zero every Monday? Think small.

While writing this week’s newsletter, I felt like my brain was not working - probably because I drove home from Chicago today and immediately started writing when I got home.

So if this makes no sense at all, just smile and nod. Felt like I was really struggling to articulate the point I was trying to make today 😅 

But next week, I plan to write another newsletter more specifically on what to do when you lose momentum, so stay tuned :)

Ben’s Best

This protein pancake recipe I came across was absolutely incredible, and I felt like it gave me sooo many pancakes. An Instagram recipe that tastes good and actually makes me feel full is always a win:

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My favorite podcast of the week:

Modern Wisdom #964 - Simon Sinek - How to Find Meaning When Life Feels Overwhelming

This podcast has a super interesting discussion on the importance of social connection in our lives - essentially talking about how connection with others is where we really find purpose and meaning, not via our job or money.