Businesses are built through momentum. So what happens when you lose it?
Businesses are built through momentum, not through motivation or willpower. This is probably contrary to what you’ve learned from hustle culture, so I understand if you’re skeptical, but hear me out.
You see, motivation is a feeling, and you get it when you really want something. It’s telling you, 'Yes, let’s do this thing I’m really excited about right now!’. The problem is, motivation is fickle. One day you have it, and the next day it's gone. So when the motivation isn’t there, you fall back on willpower.
Willpower is the determination to get up and do that thing you least want to. But you can’t rely on willpower either because it can fade. Like when you grit your teeth to get through a day of admin, then halfway through, you find your willpower has vanished (probably along with your will to live).
So if motivation and willpower are so unreliable, what are we left with?
It’s momentum. In physics, momentum is the measure of mass in motion. The bigger the mass, the more momentum and the harder it is to stop. So how does this apply to you? Every step you take adds to it. So the more you build, the easier it is to keep going until you’re moving without having to talk yourself into it.
And the thing about momentum is that if it’s not there, we can create it.
To understand why momentum matters, think back to the beginning of your business, when getting things done felt effortless. It’s because you had momentum.
Why it came so easy in the beginning
The start-up phase of a business is the easy part (relatively speaking, of course). Which is especially true if you’re really good at starting things but you’re not good at keeping them going. The hard part of building a business comes when the business gets boring. And there’s nothing that will douse your momentum faster than a big bucket of boring.
Because you felt so enthusiastic when you were getting your business off the ground, this vibe shift might come as a surprise. You still love what you do, and you’d rather eat your desk than go back to a nine-to-five, so what’s changed?
It’s simple, really. In the early stages of founding a business, it’s all firsts, and these are like reward signals being fired in your brain (hint: it’s our friend, dopamine). Progress feels constant, and it’s visible, so you’re feeling engaged and motivated. But what’s actually happening is you’re riding a wave of momentum that’s driven by novelty.
You figure out how to build your sales page—you get a hit of dopamine.
Someone comments on your first social media post—dopamine hit.
You get an inquiry, and then a sales call, then your first sale…dopamine, dopamine, dopamine.
You send off your first invoice—more dopamine. But now you’re sending out your 100th invoice and it’s the last thing you feel like doing.
Because when the firsts run out and the shine wears off, what’s left is the reality of the day-to-day of actually running a business. It’s mundane, which, if you are someone who is driven by passion, interest, novelty, challenge, and urgency, could be a problem.
The messy middle aka the boring part
The messy middle is a transitional phase, and it comes after the initial excitement of the launch and before the business starts to run like a well-oiled machine. Think of it like purgatory, but for entrepreneurs.
One of the clearest signs you’ve arrived here is a loss of interest in the things you need to get done in order to keep the business running. But this doesn’t mean you’ve failed or chosen the wrong business, because there are good reasons why it happens.
The firsts I spoke about before are fewer and way less frequent.
Urgency only exists for you if you’re close to a deadline or if someone else sets the deadline.
The daily tasks that held your interest when you were figuring them out have become a drag.
You have so many goals, or they’re so big you’re overwhelmed by them. So you don’t know where to start, or you’re always feeling like you’re behind.
You know where you want to go, but the route to get there is becoming increasingly vague.
All of these things mean that, when you’re in the messy middle, it can feel like you’re making no progress at all and that there’s no end in sight (kryptonite for brains that work differently).
And unfortunately, momentum has a tendency to die when progress becomes invisible. Which isn’t to say we give up or do nothing. We try all sorts of things, but they’re usually the wrong things.
What keeps us stuck
And that’s why you end up with a graveyard of abandoned systems, tools and routines. They worked great in the beginning, but then the novelty wore off after a few weeks, or they weren’t even right for you in the first place.
Or you keep yourself busy with work that feels productive but doesn’t actually move you any closer to your goal. I, for one, have done things like clear my inbox, organize my Google Drive, build new templates that I don’t really need, and the list goes on. I did these things because I felt overwhelmed by the thing I actually needed to do, whereas this kind of work felt manageable and gave me a false sense of accomplishment when it was completed.
Or you try to chase the buzz from when you first started by rebranding, overhauling your website, or creating new offers (again, I have done all of these). Or you map out a new plan (because you’ll definitely stick to it this time), but you end up scrapping it the moment something unplanned happens.
You think the answer is more discipline, and then you beat yourself up when it doesn’t show up.
So if more discipline and willpower aren't coming to save us, what will?
The strategies that will get you through
To create momentum, they say you need to just start. They’re not wrong, but if it were as easy as that…well, you wouldn’t be here looking for answers, would you?
When you have a jumble of ideas, all competing for your attention, or your brain just flat-out doesn’t want to cooperate, it can be hard to know where to start. So the goal is to stop relying on your brain to generate momentum and instead set the conditions that will create it.
If the thing you need to do feels monumental and daunting, break it down into manageable pieces. Because if you’re looking at the whole picture, your brain’s going to go ‘nope’ and check out.
If your brain responds to deadlines someone else sets, manufacture urgency through accountability. Written goals, weekly commitments, and reporting on progress to someone who’ll actually follow up.
If you spin out when the unplanned happens, anticipate the setbacks and plan for them, or make adjustments along the way instead of starting over each time.
If you’re demotivated by a perceived lack of progress, then make your progress visible. Track your weekly tasks, and mark them ‘done’ when they’re complete, and document your wins (even if they seem inconsequential).
If you’re overwhelmed by carrying the entire business in your head, then find the kind of help that takes the thinking load off. A VA can take tasks off your plate, but you need someone who’ll hold the plan, keep an eye on the priorities, and tell you what actually matters.
Let’s make the next step easy
Motivation will keep doing what it does, which is showing up for the exciting bits and ditching you
when you need it most. Momentum is different because we can create it, and it will carry you through the days when neither motivation nor willpower shows up. But if you’re still relying on willpower, you’ll stay stuck in the messy middle, wasting time on another rebrand, implementing another tool you’ll never use, and spending another year feeling like you're behind.
The Breakthrough Strategy Session is designed to get you moving again. As someone who has spent the last few years under the hood of other people's businesses, I know the pattern, and I’ve helped founders break it.
We take the big, overwhelming goals and break them down into a 90-day plan with a clear start, a clear finish, and manageable next steps. We plan for the setbacks before they happen, and we make a call upfront on what gets filtered out when the next shiny idea comes along.
If you know you’ll need someone to keep you to it, you can add weekly accountability calls. An hour each week to report on your progress, commit to the week ahead, ask for advice when you’re stuck, and adjust the plan when life does what life does.
If you want to grow and scale, or you’d prefer to keep things small and manageable, we’ll build your plan around your specific goals.
Book a free business diagnostics call and we’ll work out whether it’s the right next step for you.
