Momentum: When the Going Gets Good, Get Yourself Going

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(I’m not sure this title makes any sense)

I’ve always had a bad habit of riding my car all the way to empty.  One day back in high school, I suffered the consequences.  About two blocks away from gas station my car died.

I opened my door, shifted into neutral and attempted to push and steer at the same time.  The car didn’t budge (in my defense, the road ran ever so slightly uphill).  As I was about to start walking to the station, a man appeared, asking if he could assist me.

He got behind the car while I stayed at the door, pushing and steering as before.  After a little grunting, we got the car into motion.  I quickly realized as hard as it was to get the car to move, it was pretty easy to keep it going.  In fact, I was pretty sure I was doing most of the pushing at this point.

Why was it suddenly easier?  Because I had momentum

This Post is Not About Science

I’m pretty bad at science.  Logic and common sense on the other hand are much more comprehendible.

I recently made a comment on Jon Acuff’s blog.  You may not know who Jon Acuff is.  Let’s just say he’s like the Justin Beiber of motivational /do-something-with-your-life blogs (except older and not annoying).

Anyway, my comment caught his attention and led him to reading my blog. Win for me, right?  Well, it didn’t end there.

Next thing I know, all of this traffic is feeding into my blog from his site.  Apparently, me getting his attention caught a lot of other people’s attention.

Thanks to a little push from someone else, I had some nice momentum going.  And what did I do with that momentum?  I kind of let it die…

Momentum is Not Self-Sustaining.

Back when my car was out of gas, if I would have stopped pushing, it would have eventually rolled to a stop.  Not only did it need something to get it moving, the car needed something to keep it moving.

The traffic boost from Mr. Acuff’s blog actually lasted 3 days.  In those three days, I put no new material up.  I didn’t really do anything in the way of promoting it.  And as great as it was that my blog was temporarily self-sustaining, eventually, it came to a dead stop.  No one was pushing it.

What I Should Have Done

I was given an opportunity.  People were visiting my site simply to see what I had.  And I gave them nothing.  Sure I had my reasons.  I was busy.  I was doing other work for another site.  Still, a spotlight had been put on me, and I failed to put on a show.

If I would have put up new posts everyone of those days, it’s a guarantee I would have gotten even more traffic.  It’s also quite possible that traffic would have kept going and I would have continued to reach new people.

Now I’m stuck at a standstill, relying on myself to push things into motion.

If You’ve Got Momentum, Use It

Sorry if I’m talking about myself a lot here.  What I am trying to say is, if you get that break out moment where you’ve got people’s ear, use it.  Give your best.   Give your all.

Don’t take it for granted, and don’t get caught off guard.  You never know when it might happen.  I comment on blogs all the time.  When all of this happened, I wasn’t really ready.

This post is basically the opposite of my previous one.  In that situation, I took an opportunity, got paid, and opened a doorway to future opportunities.

I this situation, I sat back and did nothing.  And I got nothing for it.

Got a little momentum?  Use it to send you farther than you ever could have gone by yourself.