My high school yearbook quote was “Nothing great was ever accomplished without enthusiasm” by Ralph Waldo Emerson. I recognized that we need energy to push us forward, that our emotional state can support our efforts. With enthusiasm, we can move forward and find momentum.
I love helping my clients find momentum. There is nothing like finding your flow, searching for answers, doing the work necessary to deal with our doubts and uncertainties. My hope for every session is that clients leave energized and excited to move forward. Momentum is the third stage of my process and you can see how I define it below:
Build Momentum
You can see and prioritize next steps, create actionable goals and follow through.
Once we have cleared away the clutter, identified where you want to go, we can get to the hard work of figuring out how to move in that direction.
I am here to support and uplift you, providing gentle accountability and practical support so you can begin to make progress. Each small step builds on each other.
Taking steps in the right direction, crossing items off the list, seeing progress, is energizing. Sometimes we need to face the scariest part of the process first to move forward. Other times we need to focus on low hanging fruit so we can build up to the more challenging aspects of the project.
Sometimes your progress hinges on revealing the facts. I encourage clients to find a financial advisor to help talk through finances, or to have an important conversation with a spouse about your plan or research to see the viability of their goal. When confronted with reality and facts, we can better make a plan to go ahead. Limiting hypotheticals allows us to move forward.
Often momentum involves choosing one pathway to start with even if you have several in mind. I had a client who always had a secret suspicion that he might want to a teacher. This would be a significant career pivot but he couldn’t get it out of his mind. So we decided he should dive in. He would focus exclusively on finding out what it would mean to pursue a career in teaching. His single mindedness allowed him to move forward one step at a time, eventually revealing that teaching was actually not a great path for him. This opened up his ability to pursue the next path without doubts and he ultimately found a great job.
With momentum, we quiet the “what ifs” and “what about” and just plug along. When our head is swirling with thoughts and doubts, action is the solution. Doing the work to figure things out is the simple (yet often challenging) way forward.
If you are seeking momentum, I have several openings for 1:1 coaching. Click here to schedule a discovery call. Together we can pull up our sleeves and seek to answer each question one step at a time.
Photo by Kyle Glenn on Unsplash
Scroll down for:
My Blogs about Momentum- From the Vault
Meetings Are Now Your Culture Carrier
Raviolis Day of Reckoning Has Arrived
14 New Books with Older Protagonists
How to Choose a New Career: The Four Step System
Continue scrolling to find out What I Am Reading Now…
Below are blogs I have written that reflect my thoughts about Building Momentum:
Choose Your Anchor - How to deal with overwhelm
You Are Just Getting Started - Finding optimism by just getting started
Acting As If - Play pretend before committing
What Does Wordle and Your Job Search Have in Common - How to get out of your head
The Winter Solstice - Making small changes
Meetings Are Now Your Culture Carrier
Priya Parker, the guru of how to put together effective gatherings, wrote this article about how to create a gathering when some people are virtual and others are in the same room together.
“The art of virtual and hybrid gathering – when we are not all in the same physical space – is the ability to create psychological togetherness.”
Here are her suggestions:
Treat people on Zoom like they’re guests, not spectators.
Ask "magical questions" to create shared context.
Build feedback loops between the two gatherings.
Use tech to form invisible stitches.
She gives helpful suggestions and reminds us to be intentional when planning gatherings. You can see the full article here.
Raviolis Day of Reckoning Has Arrived
I couldn’t help but laugh out loud when I read this article. If you are a ravioli lover like I am, this article is for you. I am so glad I am not alone with my dissatisfaction with ravioli portion sizes at restaurants. What gives?
I’m not interested in talking about the overall absurdity of NYC dining prices (when did we agree to pay $24 for a side of broccolini?!), but I am interested in telling you why ordering ravioli at a restaurant is a scam. It doesn’t matter whether you’re dining at Eleven Madison Park or stuffing your face at an Italian joint off the NJ highway with clear ties to the local mob, we as a society are being criminally under-served ravioli at every turn.
I feel seen…..
14 New Books with Older Protagonists
I just finished reading the book Leaving (scroll down to the bottom of the newsletter for the summary) and I really enjoyed that the main characters were in their 60s. I was surprised by how unusual that seems to be. Here is a list of new books with older protagonists. Below are a few less new books that I would add to the list:
Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk (one of my favorite books)
What are your favorite books with older main characters? Click the button below to share and grow our list.
How to Choose a New Career: The 4-Step System
This is such an informative overview and is very similar to what I do with my clients when they are thinking about pivoting careers. The article includes lots of insightful questions to contemplate when considering a career move. The article also provides resources to learn more about other career options as well as career quizzes to figure out what direction might be right for you. Check out this article if you are considering a new career.
Good Material By Dolly Alderton
"Like Nora Ephron, with a British twist....Delivers the most delightful aspects of classic romantic comedy--snappy dialogue, realistic relationship dynamics, humorous meet-cutes and misunderstandings--and leaves behind the clichéd gender roles and traditional marriage plot."
--The New York Times
Andy loves Jen. Jen loved Andy. And he can't work out why she stopped.
Now he is. . .
Without a home
Waiting for his stand-up career to take off
Wondering why everyone else around him seems to have grown up while he wasn't looking
Set adrift on the sea of heartbreak, Andy clings to the idea of solving the puzzle of his ruined relationship. Because if he can find the answer to that, then maybe Jen can find her way back to him. But Andy still has a lot to learn, not least his ex-girlfriend's side of the story...
In this sharply funny and exquisitely relatable story of romantic disaster and friendship, Dolly Alderton offers up a love story with two endings, demonstrating once again why she is one of the most exciting writers today, and the true voice of a generation.
What You are Looking For Is In the Library by Michiko Aoyama
For fans of Before the Coffee Gets Cold, a charming, internationally bestselling Japanese novel about how the perfect book recommendation can change a readers' life.
What are you looking for? So asks Tokyo's most enigmatic librarian. For Sayuri Komachi is able to sense exactly what each visitor to her library is searching for and provide just the book recommendation to help them find it.
A restless retail assistant looks to gain new skills, a mother tries to overcome demotion at work after maternity leave, a conscientious accountant yearns to open an antique store, a recently retired salaryman searches for newfound purpose.
In Komachi's unique book recommendations they will find just what they need to achieve their dreams. What You Are Looking For Is in the Library is about the magic of libraries and the discovery of connection. This inspirational tale shows how, by listening to our hearts, seizing opportunity and reaching out, we too can fulfill our lifelong dreams. Which book will you recommend?
Leaving by Roxana Robinson
"I never thought I'd see you here," Sarah says. Then she adds, "But I never thought I'd see you anywhere."
Sarah and Warren's college love story ended in a single moment. Decades later, when a chance meeting brings them together, a passion ignites?threatening the foundations of their lives. Since they parted in college, each has married, raised a family, and made a career. When they meet again, Sarah is divorced and living outside New York, while Warren is still married and living in Boston.
Seeing Warren sparks an awakening in Sarah, who feels emotionally alive for the first time in decades. Still, she hesitates to reclaim a chance at love after her painful divorce and years of framing her life around her children and her work. Warren has no such reservations: he wants to leave his marriage but fears how his wife and daughter will react. As their affair intensifies, Sarah and Warren must confront the moral responsibilities of their love for their families and each other.
An engrossing exploration of the vows we make to one another, the tensile relationships between parents and their children, and what we owe to others and ourselves, "Leaving is a tour de force--unfailingly clear-eyed, and its final impact shatters." (Washington Post)
I’m in the middle of Good Material and am pretty bored but knowing there’s a good ending (or two?!) will keep me going!
A few books that I’ve really enjoyed recently with older main characters: Do You Remember Being Born?, The Thursday Murder Club series (I’ve read the first two so far), Remarkably Bright Creatures. I’m going to move Lillian Boxfish up on my to-read list now!