When I think momentum, I think about my car going down a highway. How much energy does my engine exert to reach 70 miles an hour? Now consider how much less energy it takes to stay at that speed. That’s momentum. We can see this in the amount of fuel that our engine uses when its accelerating compared to when it’s cruising, in the city we may get twenty miles to the gallon and on the highway we may get 40. Momentum is what lowers the amount of energy and resources consumed in reaching our destination.
Momentum affects Life and Leadership in the same way. When we have momentum everything is easier. We certainly can arrive at our destination without great momentum but how long will it take? We need to keep ourselves going, but without consuming all of our energy on the journey. After all we want to enjoy the destination!
We also don’t want to exert too much energy in building momentum. We want progressive steps that move us forward and create momentum. What does instant explosive energy look like? An Atomic Bomb? We surely don’t want to blow our lives up. Again, let’s go back to the car metaphor and think about the individual pistons that are firing within an engine, how many cylinders it is and each one of those cylinders burns a certain amount of fuel, and creates a controlled amount of energy. All the cylinders together work in harmony to move the vehicle forward.
Look at your life and the different compartments that create energy. What are they? Is there fuel in the engine?