As a Creative, Treat Your Momentum Like an Egg

Summary

The article emphasizes the importance of maintaining momentum in creative endeavors by consistently showing up and engaging in daily habits, likening the fragility of momentum to an egg that, once broken, is difficult to repair.

Abstract

The author discusses the delicate nature of creative momentum, drawing a parallel between maintaining it and protecting an egg from breaking. They share personal experiences, particularly with sending cold emails and writing, to illustrate how easily a skipped day can disrupt a productive routine. The article highlights that while missing one day may seem harmless, it often leads to a pattern of procrastination and loss of discipline, which can quickly erode the momentum built up through consistent effort. The author stresses that talent alone is insufficient and that discipline plays a crucial role in overcoming the resistance to work daily. The momentum created by this discipline forms a strong chain, with each day adding to its strength, but missing a day can break the chain and make it challenging to start again.

Opinions

The author believes that skipping a day of work due to laziness can significantly weaken one's momentum, making it difficult to regain.
They suggest that the mind adapts to routines and that continuous effort solidifies habits, while interruptions in routine can make it harder to return to productive patterns.
The author warns against the self-deceptive nature of giving in to excuses, as it conditions the mind to believe that skipping days is acceptable.
They equate the fragility of momentum to an egg, implying that once momentum is lost, it cannot be easily restored or pieced back together.
The author asserts that discipline is more critical than talent because it enables one to push beyond natural resistance and maintain a consistent work ethic.

Don’t let it break

Sometimes, skipping some days can be risky because it all starts so innocently — especially for habits.

On the first day, you might console yourself with the fact that it’s just one day, then one day becomes two, then before you know it, it’s a week already.

This happens to me a lot — especially sending cold emails. I have a reminder on my phone to send cold emails. The first few weeks I put the reminder, I was all pumped up — sending the emails every day, and reaching out to every CMO, CEO, Blogger, and Editor I could get my hands on. I was hyped up and kept on pushing. Some clients agreed while some gave the usual, “we’ll put you in our files to see if anything comes up” message, but I kept pushing.

Then the day things went out of hand was when I went the whole day without sending emails. Usually, my cold emailing schedule is to send it out first thing in the morning, then do other work-related stuff, but on that day, I didn’t do it and gave myself the, “I’ll do it tomorrow” excuse.

What I didn’t know was I was setting a trap for myself. I was teaching my mind a pattern — a risky pattern.

The next day came, and I didn’t have the vibe to send emails. I did, but I just sent out 2 out of the 10+ I send every day, and things went downhill from there. The next day came, and I couldn’t even send anything. I was just lazying around and kept procrastinating.

I went on like that for the whole week — all because I missed one day.

I struggle with this with my writing too, but I take writing articles for Medium very seriously. It’s a necessity for me. Even if I don’t publish my articles every day, but I still write every day.

Some nights I feel like just sleeping and hold off writing till the next day, but I make sure I write because I’m scared that if I stop for a day, it would be hard to regain the momentum.

Momentum is like a chain. Every stride, every effort, every day you show up, you add an extra clip to the chain, and it gets longer and stronger, but missing one day ruins it.

Talent is never enough. Discipline is more important. It is difficult to go against your natural will and show up every day to do something that would stress you.

But it’s risky to skip a day out of laziness or whatever because once you do, your momentum would grow frail. It’s okay if that’s the day you’ve set to rest, what is not okay is if on the days you’re supposed to be working, you give an excuse — it will cost you big because you’re telling your mind that skipping days is okay.

Our minds obey routine. If you do things continuously, your mind accepts the routine and makes you do it often — in the form of a habit.

But when you break a routine, it becomes harder to go back to it again. That’s why I call momentum an egg because once it gets broken, you can’t piece it back together (easily)