The Discover program that I was orchestrating in LA last week ends with a really cool closing ceremony called “Momentum.” In it, we discuss the impact of selecting a first domino that will help you take that initial step toward whatever goal you are trying to implement. A first domino can, and should, be very small. For my goal of running a marathon in all 50 states, the first domino wasn’t even running my first marathon; it was driving my car around the neighborhood to find out from the odometer exactly how far one mile was. (I also timed my runs by using an iPod playlist, seeing what time it was on the last song of my run, and then adding that to the durations of all the songs that came before. Ah, how technology has improved!)
Saturday morning, I was really lagging. It had been three weeks since I’d been home (itinerary: Arizona, France, New York, California, and then finally back to Colorado), and I felt really overwhelmed by all the things I had to do. I woke up and headed downstairs to make coffee… only to realize that I was totally out of milk. Since I typically don’t drink my coffee black, I switched to tea instead – and was very grumpy about that decision. I then proceed to go sit on the couch and half-watch Shark Tank while playing Cubistry for 90 minutes. Not exactly a productive Saturday!
There were a million things I had to do, and none that I wanted to. I had originally intended to start my morning with either a hike or a long run, but the uncharacteristically gray day made me not want to do either. I was already in my gym clothes, but I just didn’t want to go outside! So, I finally sucked it up, got my butt off the couch, and started doing a few rounds of a no equipment kickboxing workout while watching the premiere of Grandfathered.
Verdict? Well, Grandfathered was just okay – I’ll probably watch another episode but I don’t think I’m sold. My workout, on the other hand, was awesome: sweaty, intense, and wonderful. It was exactly the first domino I needed to get me going for the rest of the day. I spent the rest of the day running errands, grocery shopping, doing laundry, and generally being fairly productive. My friends were coming over that evening for a game night, and while I didn’t get done quite as much as I would have liked, I felt like the day wasn’t a total disaster.
On Sunday, I reminded myself how important momentum was. So when I got up, I immediately wrote my Links I Love, spent an hour deep-cleaning after game night, stocked up on some essentials at Target, and then hit the trails up at Chatauqua. All before noon!
Of course, then I went home and fell asleep on the couch for two hours instead of catching up on email… oops. But better that I got some rest to hit the ground running today, I guess?
I’m a little stressed about the week I have ahead at work, as I have definitely missed a lot being out to orchestrate Discover. There is so much to catch up on, and I didn’t get done nearly as much as I wanted to over the weekend! But, I feel good that I’m going into the week feeling energized and motivated.
Today, I was able to put that energy to work by being a really vocal contributor to my team in an all-day innovation challenge… and we won first place in the challenge! Although that challenge wasn’t really within the main scope of my project, I was pretty pumped by the ideas we generated and presented, and it’s now gotten me fired up for the rest of my work that I’m tackling tonight/tomorrow. Sometimes you just need that one small victory to change your mindset and keep you hooked on achieving other things.
Happy Monday, y’all 🙂
There is something about household chores that make it this way. I always put off folding laundry / doing dishes / mowing only to find out that it takes like 20 min and (like you say) gives me more energy to get other things done.
Maybe if I just lay here with my eyes closed, I”ll wake up………
Folding laundry is always SO much faster than I think it will be! That is a perfect example of something that I dread doing but it’s really easy and gets me going when I’ve finished.