Momentum.

If you want to be a strong runner, you can’t just go for one run. You have to go for runs over and over.

If you want to be the best chess player you can be, you have to keep playing chess.

If you want to be a great public speaker, you have to speak publicly, and then speak publicly again, and again.

If you want to get stronger in any thing, act, or being, you have to repeatedly engage yourself in it.

I was thinking about this concept recently in regards to my former and current fitness goals. My former fitness goal was to workout at least 5 days a week for 25-30 minutes a day at moderately-high to high intensity. With this goal in mind I started the Focus T25 10 week challenge three weeks ago. Today, at the beginning of week 4, I saw that I needed to change my goal, because the day or two I’d take off during the week lead to a loss in momentum. In the past, this kind of momentum loss has lead to me falling off completely when on other workout regimens. Learning from those past experiences I see that I need to focus on working out daily to keep my momentum going.

Momentum, in this sense of the word, is “strength or force gained by motion or by a series of events.” For me, just that day or two off decreased a kind of strength I gained by repeatedly engaging in these workouts. Sure, my body might not have become noticeably weaker…but my mental tenacity decreased! And if my mind isn’t engaged, my body ultimately won’t be engaged too.

So it’s important that, whenever you’re going for [insert difficult to obtain goal here], that you do your best to keep your momentum going. If it means you might have to engage in the activity slightly more often than the expert would recommend – fine! If it means modifying the level of activity you’re doing in order to stick to the overall regimen – fine! Do what you have to do in order to increase your mental and physical ability, to stay on track towards your goal.

Just keep moving.