Unstuck Yourself: The Art of Building and Keeping Momentum

Don't get too high in the highs or low in the lows.

This advice is stuck in my head.

It comes from my high school coach Gerald Stewart who was a wonderful coach and a believer

of keeping momentum.

He realized through his coaching career that lingering, losing momentum was the number one

thing that derailed quality talent.

This can happen when you succeed, when you say, hey, I made it.

It's all good and forget about the work you did to get there.

It can happen when you lose, when that defeat lingers and stops you from getting back

to work.

And it sends a message that, see, you weren't good enough.

Today, we're going to talk all about momentum.

This is excellent.

Actually, I'm Steve Magnus.

Joined is always by Clay Skipper and Brad Stover.

Let's start by talking about how to combat the first case of getting stuck, which is

you've been working really, really hard at something and you have a big success or a tough

failure and then you're stuck.

And the inroads to this is going back to my youth where I'd grow up going skiing in

the winter.

Only one who's ever skied knows the challenge of lunch because what happens is you've been

skiing all morning, you are worked, you're cold and you go in to that hut for lunch and

you get a nice warm bowl of chili and you put some cheese on top of that chili.

You undo your boots so your shins are all bruised from the boots.

You sit by the fire and you'll warm up and it's only 11 30 AM or maybe noon.

And then the trap is you stay in that hut too long.

You're not getting back on the slopes.

You paid, God knows what it is now, $11,000 for a day pass to ski, you're only skiing

a half a day because you've gotten too comfortable, right?

You've worked really hard and now you've had that chili and you ain't getting out of a

lodge.

Well, that can happen when we succeed.

We work really hard for this thing, we finally get it and then we get comfortable in

the success.

We crack the bottle of wine, we celebrate, we get all the text messages from our friends

congratulating us on the win or on the promotion and we're just kind of riding that high

of success.

And the longer you ride that high of success, the harder it is to actually return to

the work because the high of success is a very different neural circuit than doing the

work.

There's no resistance in getting external validation is showered upon you, right?

There's a lot of resistance in actually doing the work, doing the training, facing the

blank page, preparing the presentation, whatever it might be.

So the way out of this is a term that Steve and I coined, I think that we both had coaches

growing up, the instituted some version of this is what I call the 48 hour rule.

I think Steve's tougher than me.

I think he only gives it 24, but the point is this, after a really big win and the same

is true for a loss, give yourself 48 hours to ride the high, to celebrate the victory or

to feel the feels, to grieve the defeat and then force yourself to get back to doing

the work itself.

So set a cap on celebration or wallowing in despair.

Now there's going to be people listening and they're like, why 48 hours?

And the answer is it doesn't matter.

It can be 72 hours.

It can be four hours.

It depends.

If you win an Olympic medal, you should probably celebrate for more than two days.

If you face a small rejection that you're bummed about, maybe it's only two hours of feeling

bad before you force yourself to get back to the work.

It's not about the time, it's about the theme, which is give yourself a moment or two

or maybe even a month to process whatever happened, but set a hard cap on that and force

yourself to return to the work so that you get out of this very quick hit dopamine

feeling good version of success or this wallowing in despair and woe is me and stuckness

and you get back to the actual work itself.

I think that's a great retroactive tool, but isn't part of this also sort of changing

philosophically, trying to at least how we think about quote unquote, Windsor losses

because to bring up the thing of you just probably dopamine there, right?

And so much of what I know about dopamine is that it is we find dopamine in the pursuit

rather than the achievement.

So isn't part of this like trying to make these these these big events where we fail or

we win less predominant and just think about continuing to work for the rest of your lifetime,

right?

Like you have these stops along the way that horizon, but like thinking you're ever

going to reach the horizon is maybe a bigger thing to change here.

Yeah, intellectually you can do that all day, but it's hard to actually do in your bones

and in your heart.

So you can tell yourself you love the work, you can return to the work, but if you're

striving really hard to win a championship or to get promoted or to hit your sub three

marathon or whatever it is and you reach that goal, there's a decent chance that you're

going to get stuck celebrating.

And I think even stickier than celebration is actually the despair from defeat, because

you reach the three hour marathon, you celebrate your stoked and then most people are like,

well, how do I get down to 255?

But you work really, really hard for the three hour marathon and you go 301 and you're

like, well, my coach told me I should take a week away from running.

And then at the end of that week, you're like, maybe I need two weeks, maybe I need three.

I think the losses are harder than the wins because they they hurt like there's no way

around it.

And I think that it is important, as I said, there's a reason it's not to zero our role.

It's important to process what you're going through, but then you got to like, yes, it's

true that we love the work.

And yes, it's true.

We find all the satisfaction and fulfillment in the work, but sometimes we forget.

And what this rule does is it forces you to remember by actually forcing you to get back

into the work itself.

A little bit of it is that we get super zoomed in whenever we're going through the thing

or whether that's success or failure or disappointment or joy of the thing.

The rule has a way of like bringing us back to the work, which is a perspective giver.

Because like there's nothing like having perspective after you've gone and competed

at the state championship or the New York City marathon.

And then you go back and you're at the track all alone on Thursday night doing random

intervals again.

Like it puts things in place and it's the same when you're writing, right?

You've finished a book and you're like, oh, this is great.

Everybody loves me or alternatively, maybe no one reads this anymore.

And there's nothing like being back in front of the page and being like, I got to figure

this thing out, but that's not the only way that you can get perspective.

I think that, you know, it's a good rule and we love it.

But I think, you know, it behooves you to have people in your world, a coach, a mentor,

a teacher, friends, family, who can also serve as that perspective giver when you've gone

through the thing.

Now no one right after, you know, the big championship failure wants to hear like, well,

it's only tracked like no one really cares how you did.

Like that doesn't help in that moment.

But having people to bring you out and bridge that perspective to say, okay, like, let's

look at this.

This is a small bump along the way progress isn't linear.

All the work you did, like doesn't disappear because the big race didn't go well.

Like we still have opportunities.

All the research and writing you did because your book flopped, that doesn't go away.

You've got that knowledge now to maybe turn it into something else or utilize it in

the future.

And the more we can have people who kind of give us that perspective in those hard times

or those times when we're about to get stuck, like all it does is it takes down the barriers

so that we can find our way to have some momentum again.

So this is interesting because I think there's a little tension here and it might be useful

for listeners for us to tease it out because I do firmly believe that I think I picked

it up from you guys that when you do have a successive failure, the best thing you can

do is get back to the work.

The writing example of this is you guys knowing the next book you're going to write when

your current book comes out or even doing work on that book on the day that your current

book comes out.

If you want to use running, maybe it's like you plan out the next training block.

You're not going to start it.

Obviously the Monday after your marathon, you plan out the next training block before you

run your race.

And I think that is huge because I think just having a task and something to start, some

path to start walking down again is keeps you from getting lost in rumination, whether

that's over success or failure.

But there is also this reflection you want to do of like, do I want to keep, like do I

want to get down to 255 if I did the three-hour marathon or if I didn't do it, do I still

want to try to go after three-hour marathon?

Do I want to write the same type of book?

Do I want to record the same type of album?

And so how do we, how should people think about that of like giving themselves the steps

to not get stuck in rumination, but also making sure that they're the steps on the right

path?

I think this is where you copy field event athletes from track and field.

What do they do really well is they reflect on the mists, you know, if you're a high jumper

and you miss the bar, you got to think, well, was my approach wrong?

Did I, did I mess something up?

You've got to reflect and figure it out.

But instead of getting stuck on that reflection on the like, do I do this or do I do that?

They simplify it and they say, okay, this is what I reflected on.

Now here's the one action I'm going to take forward and I take that one action forward

into the world.

And I think that where you're trying to safeguard against here is getting stuck in that

planning phase or that reflecting phase too long where you miss out on the benefits of

like getting back to the thing at hand.

So it's like time for reflection, as we said, like 24 hour rule, the 48 hours, whatever

it is, like include that.

But I think it also has like, what are you taking forward and don't take forward a 25 point

plan that never goes into place is like one or two things where it's like, this is what's

going to change or this is the new path I need to go down.

And there's micro in macro applications of this too.

I think we're talking about micro momentum.

You just had a kick ass day at work or a great workout or you had a really crappy board

presentation or a terrible workout, you just you forget about it.

Like that is the 10 minute rule, right?

You are on to the next thing.

You're on to the next day.

And that is how you build momentum day after day, week after week, month after month.

Then there's this question of building momentum over the course of a year or five years

or a decade.

And I think when you zoom out to the macro period, the 24, 48 hours maybe becomes one week,

two weeks, maybe even a month.

And I also think you just kind of know like most people know kept my last two books.

I was immediately working on the next one.

I sold the next one in the week that that book was launched.

I was working on the next one is a way to stay grounded and not get too caught up in

successor failure.

This time around, it's the third book of like a quasi trilogy.

I don't have any project that I'm going to be working on next like I don't know what

the next book is going to be because it didn't happen naturally.

Now returning to the work for me is not going to look like facing the blank page and writing

because I don't know what the hell I'm writing.

It's going to probably look like if I'm being honest, taking a lot of long walks and putting

together a reading list of like 20 books to try to get that creative brain going again.

Whereas after the last book came out, it was very much about working on the next manuscript.

So micro day to day, you got it right.

You got to face the blank page.

You got to do the workout.

Macro, sometimes it makes sense to know the next training cycle.

Other time it makes sense to step away in cross train or do something different and then

learn and then come back into whatever your main pursuit is with maybe a different approach

or a different mindset.

So I think it's very important.

We talk about momentum.

There's a big difference between the bridging days and bridging weeks versus bridging

years.

That micro we're onto the next thing makes you want to very quickly play a clip of one

of the great examples of moving on in support history.

You think I'm going to 37 year on to Cincinnati.

It's not about the past, not about the future.

Right now we're preparing for Cincinnati.

Okay.

Do you feel like the talent you have here is good?

We're getting ready for Cincinnati.

We got to turn the page.

I mean, we're going to sit there and talk about the Kansas City game for the rest of

the season.

Any more than we would talk about any of our big wins for day after day after day.

Once 24 hours after the game, you got to move on.

So obviously that has become something of a meme, but I actually think it reflects very

well what you're saying, Brad, which is like, you know, if it's the off season, Bill

Bell check might be doing a macro reflection of should we change our scheme?

What players should we get?

But in the season, he's like, we're on to Cincinnati.

We got to go to the next game.

We don't have time to do these high level.

Not only we don't have time to get stuck in rumination on one game, but we don't have

time to necessarily do these macro changes.

We just need to take the next best step.

Okay.

So I think we've done a pretty good job of laying out the traps.

You can get trapped in success.

You get trapped in failure and then also thinking about this sort of moving on to the next

thing versus doing some macro reflection.

Let's get granular now on specifically creating momentum when you don't have any and then

from there, we can move on to like keeping momentum, keeping the flywheel going.

For creating momentum, I think a lot of this is just about thinking about what is like

the smallest possible thing I can do that will give me a little bit of rolling energy.

There was this I was leaving.

This is maybe a funky metaphor, but I was leaving a concert recently and it was like we

were at that point where the crowd is getting really bottlenecked and like you can't go

anywhere.

And someone I was with was like, go where the water's fast and I just love that idea.

Like find where in the crowd.

There's a little bit of like more momentum and try to get in that slipstream.

And I actually, I was thinking about that reflecting on it.

And I think that actually applies to what I'm saying here too, which is like, if you have

just gotten stuck for a month and you haven't been able to write, let's say, you're not

going to like real off 2000 words, I don't think, can you just get 10 words down?

Maybe it's not even writing.

Maybe it's just like, can do you think you have like 10 minutes of reading something that

might spark some creative inspiration?

And that's where I think you apply this idea of go where the water's fast.

Like if you are thinking about writing and you're just like, I can't do it.

I can't do it.

I can't do it.

Like, is there another slipstream that's sort of adjacent to writing that you can insert

yourself into and then use that momentum to carry yourself to actually doing the thing?

And there's a world where you can just keep doing that to the point of perpetually procrastinating.

But I think if you can, if you can find a way to do it and just take time and experience

and holding the technique, that like actually gets you to moving towards where you want to

be.

It's going to be a very good start, even if it's not necessarily the like big fireworks

2000 word day that you were thinking it might be too often clay.

We let perfect be like the enemy of getting going where we think, oh, if I could write

2000 words, if I could, you know, go do my long run.

If I could, you know, whatever, finish this big project, that's what it's about.

And when you're staring at that in the face, it's much easier to be like, no, not today,

and I'm going to go scroll on Instagram and TikTok again.

In what we have to do is we have to make it easy to get going.

So taking that smallest possible step, lowering the bar, it goes back to my high school coach,

Gerald Stewart with freshman and sophomores, what would he do?

He would say, hey, like, I don't care how many miles you run today.

The whole point is to put some miles in the logbook so that every day you at least get

to write down one mile in your logbook.

And the point is simple.

He knew that if we could just stack enough of those days, eventually it becomes something

that we do eventually it becomes something where we show up and like, okay, well, I always

do one mile.

So I might as well start and sometimes we get two or three.

And that's the whole key.

You know, one of my tricks in writing is if I don't feel energized to write the chapter

of the book, I'll start writing something that I do feel energized on.

Maybe a rant about the latest crazy fitness trend.

And what inevitably happens is I start writing and then I'm like, oh, I can write on other

stuff and you get momentum that way.

So whatever gets you going is the way to go.

I think what Steve is describing is exactly what great shooters do.

So before an MBA basketball game, you look at all the best shooters in the league and

you're going to see one of two things.

Some they create a five foot radius around the basket and they're just pop, pop, pop,

you know, layup, wing, center, wing, layup, and then they step back pop, pop, pop, and

they just work back and they're taking a hundred shots before they're even back to the

free throw line.

Just getting that risk cocked, getting that feel of that risk flick, okay?

That's the small step.

Get out the door.

You got other shooters like Steph Curry who go to half court and they just start hoisting

up threes.

They're smiling.

They're having fun.

That's that crazy big rant that Steve's taken.

They're getting loose.

They're being playful.

That's how they're getting into the groove.

Very rarely do you see MBA players warm up by taking like aggressive, hard mid-range

shots off of a tight move, right?

It's either real relaxed big swings getting the flow or it's the the micro layups.

And I think that that holds true for anything.

You kind of have to decide like what kind of athlete are you?

Are you the athlete that needs to take a big swing to loosen up?

Or are you the athlete that needs to go step by step?

And then this isn't true just for getting started.

This is also true for when you're stuck sticking with the basketball metaphor.

I mean, what does any good coach tell a shooter that's struggling to do?

Come on, Clay, your sports fan.

What do you do if you're struggling as a shooter?

You got to see the ball go through the net.

And how do you do that?

By taking from free throw.

Get to the free throw line.

Get to the free throw line.

You draw a fall because then you're at the free throw line, which is a high-percented

shot and you get to see the ball go through the net.

And I think that there is a version of getting to the free throw line for all of us.

You know, you're really struggling as a writer, craft a banger Instagram post.

Three good sentences.

Go back to the well, something you put up eight months ago, tweak it a little bit, have

it do well.

I can write a good sentence, see the ball go through the net.

You're struggling as a leader.

It work.

Walk the halls.

Have a few chit chat conversations with the people who are maybe four levels under you.

Like remind yourself that you can be a good leader.

See the ball go through a net.

You're a musician that's just struggling.

Go back to a song that you love to play as a child.

See the ball go through the net.

You're a runner and you can't, you just can't make it happen.

Talk to your coach about working in the kind of interval that is just your favorite

freaking workout.

See the ball go through the net.

So it's so important to have these three tools, right?

The layups, the starting small, the big swing, Steve rant, Steph Curry's half court shot

to get you playful and loose and then finding ways to see the ball go through the net.

Let's just stay here for a second because this, I think everyone hears this idea of what's

the smallest action I can take and not everyone, but I'm sure there's some people here and

they're like, yeah, that sounds great.

And yet every day I wake up, I struggle to take the next smallest action.

So let's, let's hang here for a second and get even, even deeper into it.

What do you think are some of the things that keep us from doing that?

Some of the, some of the things we get wrong when it, when it thinks we think about taking

the next step or starting to get some momentum expectations.

I mean, we spend way too much time on the internet.

We spend way too much time.

People telling us we need to go big or go home or do this great thing or we look around

and see all the social media influencers or friends who have already tackled the marathon.

And we go from couch to marathon instead of saying, hey, what about the five came in?

Like, why can't we just love the five K or like a brisk walk or brisk like, why can't

we do that?

But instead, because comparison is so freaking large and we're, we're weighing ourselves

against the whole world, we, we go for the big thing.

And there's no bigger momentum killer than staring up at the marathon and realizing,

like, whoa, I bid off way more than I can chew.

And what does your brain do?

It hits the jack button.

It says, like, go back to the couch, man, this isn't for you.

Okay, what do video games do really well to make sure we keep playing?

They don't say, hey, go conquer the game.

And that's it.

No, there's checkpoint along the way.

There are many goals in many levels and all these things that make you feel like, oh,

this is hard, but I got through level 2.15.

And you got a little reward screen after it.

We got to use the same in our own life, right?

If we have just a super high goal, then we're setting ourselves up for the moment that

goal looks unattainable of just hitting the escape button or just like stepping in the

hole to get out of the thing.

So setting a B and C goals, having goals that are just manageable challenges, having

backups along the way, or checkpoints along the way to build from that brisk walk to

the 5K or 10K or marathon, being able to judge things in different ways, instead of

saying, oh, the only way I see progress is if I go longer in distance, which is how 90%

of runners think for some God unknown reason, thinking, you know what?

I could become a master too by getting my 5K under 20 minutes or winning the falafel

5K like Brad's wife, Caitlin has done, I think, three times in a row.

So there are many ways to judge success and the point is if we think of it like a video

game designer, give ourselves more checkpoints, more little hits of success, guess what?

We're going to keep playing.

No one keeps playing the game where it's like level 1 and you're like, oh, I've died 25

times in a row.

I'm going to keep going.

No, you say this game sucks and I'm going to go find one that makes me feel good.

Physics, y'all like momentum inertia, these are terms out of physics.

And what is the only physics equation that I remember F equals M a force equals mass times

acceleration.

And if the mass is too big, you don't get any acceleration.

You get a zero.

You can't push that rock because you're trying to push too big of a rock in zero times

the biggest rock in the world is zero force.

You get nowhere, but if that rock is smaller, you can start pushing it.

You can accelerate and then you get force and there's some other law of physics, which

I've forgotten that essentially says that once an object starts moving, it's easier to

keep it moving and it's easier to move it faster.

There is less friction.

So a smaller rock, get it moving fast and then you can start adding some weight on it once

it's rolling down the hill.

That's what this is all about.

This is a fundamental law of the universe.

I think this has all been great on how to create momentum one more shorthand that I came

across that is helpful here is just keeping the macro and the micro in mind by saying patient

with results, but inpatient with actions and just sort of creating this daily urgency

of like trying to do something now.

There's a caveat there.

You want to do it with like intention and make sure it's the right things.

You're not just doing busy work or doing fake work.

So make yourself feel like you're doing work, but having some sort of impatience with

actions like having an urgency, but then being patient with the overall big time results.

So that was creating momentum, but let's talk about how to keep the flywheel going.

How to maintain momentum when you are stacking good days, right?

You okay, you've got the ball rolling down hill.

You've been able to get some acceleration to the small rock.

How do you now continue it as the rock gets a little bigger?

You do two things.

One is you keep doing what you're doing.

And two is you stop one rep short.

And what I mean by this is you want to leave a little bit in the tank, right?

Steve will tell you that if you've got a runner that's just crushing workouts, you probably

don't want to send them directly to the well and have them go all out on an eight by

a hundred.

Maybe you haven't run really hard, but they stop at the seventh rep.

Why?

Because the benefit of getting that last rep is not worth the cost of potential injury

of potential fatigue like you don't want to disrupt the momentum.

Every single great writer whose biography I've ever read talked about, you always want

to stop when you still have more juice in the tank.

Why?

So you can pick up where you left off the last day.

Same thing is true in the workplace.

If you're really pushing, there can be a temptation to just crush yourself and try to pull

the week of all nighters.

Guess what's going to happen?

You're going to kill your momentum.

So you want to build, you want to build gradually and you want to make sure that you're

stopping short because the whole point when you have momentum is rhythm, right?

It's not going to the well.

It's not seeing God.

It's rhythm.

And what's the number one way that people blow up rhythm?

Injury illness.

Why?

Because they try to get greedy when they have momentum and they just try to go for it instead

of just building that rhythm gradually, gradually, gradually.

So don't change what you're doing.

Stop one rep short.

Don't get greedy.

I love it.

The only thing I'd add there is when you're in that rhythm, you can also mess it up by

like forcing it.

You start thinking like, oh, if I just try harder, look how good I'm doing now.

This is coming easy.

Everything's flowing.

If I just try harder, I can get even better at what happens.

You try harder.

You force it.

You tighten up and then it all goes to shit.

Like when I was a coach, when I saw someone in that rhythm, all I would yell is just

like, write it, which means like, don't think, don't think too much.

Don't try and do too much.

Just like ride the wave, man, it's you're on the wave, like just enjoy it and keep going

as long as that wave is there.

Like there's a little bit of kind of letting go that occurs here.

I think this is what makes writing that momentum so hard sometimes is it often feels good.

The ideas are flowing, the words are flowing.

The race is coming to us and we have this thought in our head or this idea in our culture

where, well, if we just try a little bit harder, it'll come better and it doesn't.

It backfires.

When it goes back to the ancient samurai wisdom that I think it was Takiwan Soho who wrote

the unfettered mind, who put it like this, the mind must always be in the state of flowing.

For when it stops anywhere, that means the flow is interrupted and it is this interruption

that is injurious to the well-being of the mind.

Now he was talking literally about samurai fighting and swordsmanship, but it also translates

to the rest of us is if you're thinking about the other person, if you're thinking about

what could go wrong, if you're thinking about what did go wrong last time, you're going

to stop the flow.

If you got it, write it, don't do anything stupid, just keep rolling with it.

Yeah.

This is so apparent.

Bruce Lee, baby.

Yeah, be like water.

This is so apparent also by looking at the counter-vailing example, which going back to basketball,

what do you do if the team that you're playing is just on a crazy heater if they're on a run?

You call time out because that disrupts the flow.

Don't do anything that's going to call a time out on yourself.

Yeah.

This goes back to what I was talking about, go where the water's fast.

I do feel like rhythm, currents, however you want to think of it, slip streams when you

want to hear this.

Don't grab onto the riverbank, man, just keep rolling with the tide, you know what I mean?

Yeah.

The Chinese called it woo-way in China.

It's like trying not to try.

Like you can't try not to try, you just, you do the thing.

Like it's pre-intellectual.

This is a point where thinking gets in the way.

So the only thinking you ought to do is how do I not overextend myself and get greedy?

That's the only thought.

And then you just go.

This is where you throw the watch away, you don't look at the splits, you don't look

at how many words you've written.

Like all of those things are going to get in the way.

You just, you just write it and if, whatever, if it happens, it happens.

Like too often we intellectualize it and get in our own way because we're like, oh, well,

maybe if I did this or that, no, just write it, man.

My best deadlift performance ever came on a day when I wasn't expecting to hit even

like a PR.

It was just a normal training day and it was there and I was fortunate.

My coach was in the gym.

He saw it was there and I shit you not.

I said, don't even tell me how much weight's on the bar because I don't want to think

about it.

Just keep adding weight.

Just keep adding weight to the bar.

Like, I don't want to know what's on the bar.

That's how I hit a PR.

I was just like in the zone and of course, since then, I've tried to recreate that feeling

a million times and have just missed.

There are so many times when I'm coaching where I would see someone, you know, come through

the first lap of the mile or what have you and I'm like, oh, God, they're in it.

Like they're, you can tell and I just be like, don't look at your watch.

Stop looking at it.

Just go with these people.

Just ride it and go like, forget everything else.

Just compete because if you just compete, like everything else takes care of itself for

you're in that rhythm.

And it's the same in every other pursuit is like, don't look at the clock.

Don't like whatever.

Look at your phone.

Just like be in the thing and just go with it.

In this is another area where there's a huge difference between being a optimizer, influencer,

longevity guru on the internet and actually being an elite performer because if you start

to look at your whoop or your aura ring or your stopwatch, you're going to slow down because

you're going to see it and you're going to be like, oh, shit, I'm going way too fast.

You are going to leave your best performance on the table because you are addicted to measuring

and tracking.

Like the goal is not to be an auto-metanic robot.

Robots can't have a flow state.

They can't have peak performance.

What makes human special is that we're not robots.

We can get into the zone.

So sure, track the stuff if you need it to help you, but you've got to be able to say,

fuck it.

I'm not a longevity influencer.

I'm not a guru.

I'm not sponsored by whoop trying to make content for the internet.

I'm trying to have a peak performance state.

So I'm going to put this shit down and let it rip.

And that is one of the best joys.

Forget being a performer of being a human.

Be a human.

So we're talking about like having rhythm and not interrupting rhythm.

I imagine there might be some people who listen to podcasts who are hard on themselves

and have time feeling like they're in a rhythm.

And I think that might be because they are holding themselves to a very high standard.

So I think one thing that can be helpful in terms of visualizing that rhythm is giving

yourself some sort of like visual cue or sense of all the progress you're making.

And I know Oliver Berkman, I believe, has talked about keeping a done list.

So like when you have it to do list and just check things off, you can get to the end

of the week.

And I even remember everything you did, even though you did a lot.

And I think actually keeping a list or some sort of mechanism, I mean, this is why like

if you use any of those concentration or focus apps, they often have you like build a tree,

right?

Because you get to see the progress you've made of like the time you've been concentrating.

So think figuring out some sort of way to create a list, a data point, a visualization

of how much you've gotten done can give you a sense of rhythm if you're a type of person

who maybe doesn't feel like you're doing enough or isn't aware of all the stuff you

are actually doing.

It's the training log, man.

You got to see the days that you've trained.

It's, it's the right, it's the chapters and words on the page where you say, oh, I've

accomplished something like in there's so many pursuits where we don't have that naturally.

So I think that's a brilliant example of like make the evidence very clear so that you

can build that momentum.

Yeah.

And I think one thing that's helpful that I'll use a running metaphor here, Steve, is

I know for a lot of people when they run marathons, they have an A, B, and C goal.

And I think you can even do that on a day-to-day basis like you might have an A goal of wanting

to write 2,000 words, right?

But what's your, what's your C goal, you know, could it be just writing 500 words?

Now you don't want to stack a bunch of C goal days in a row or you're never going to

get to maybe that A goal, but I think giving yourself a, you know, I remember from when

I was a track coach, you gave kids a little bit of a range on their, their intervals.

So that they didn't have to feel the pressure of like being perfect, right?

And I think that's a lesson we can all take into our, into our days and to our work is

give yourself a range so you're not holding yourself necessarily to that A plus standard

all the time.

All right.

Any final thoughts here before we wrap up?

Make it easy to get going.

You know, get that momentum going.

And then once you've got it, like on those magical days, don't do anything stupid.

Don't get greedy.

Just ride the wave and see where it takes you.

I mean, I think this is one where it's, it's kind of easy to talk about.

But there are simple things that just have to be implemented over time to make sure that

you can kind of like, you know, ride the wave when it comes and don't freak out when it's

not there.

I mean, we talk a lot about riding the wave, but the truth is most of the time, you're

not going to have great momentum.

It's just how averages work.

So when you're having an average day, like that's fine too.

Ride the wave when it's there, but don't force it and don't freak out when it's not.

It's a gift.

And when it's there, you better be ready to receive it.

I think that's a great place to end.

As always, if you have any thoughts, questions, comments, things you want to hear us go

deeper on or topics that weren't discussed that you want to discuss in the future, send

me an email, clay.growtheq at gmail.com, we'll be back next week with another episode.

As always, take care of yourselves and be excellent to another.