Maintaining Momentum

Changing your habits and routines… it’s not as simple as it sounds.

In theory, it should be.
“Just do it,” right?
Or on the flip side, “just say no.”

Clean. Clear. Decisive.

And yet… we don’t seem to work like that.

At least, I don’t.

And at the same time… sometimes we do.

Which is where it starts to feel like a bit of a paradox. On the one hand, behavior change can feel like pushing a boulder uphill. On the other, there are moments where you simply decide—and then you follow through, almost effortlessly.

So what’s the difference?

I don’t have a perfect answer, but I’ve found myself coming back to two strategies that seem to help me maintain momentum when I do get it going.

The first is pretty straightforward, but not always easy in practice:

Do the thing you’ve prioritized most… first.

You’ve probably heard some version of this before—“eat the frog,” do the hardest or most important thing early in the day before your mind has time to negotiate you out of it.

I follow this whenever I can because I know what happens if I don’t.

Take this blog, for example. I’ve committed to writing and posting every day for a year. Is the writing itself hard? Not really. Most days, once I get going, it flows.

But starting? That’s the friction point.

And I know from experience that if I let the day get away from me—if I check a few things, run an errand, drift into something else—my energy drops, my focus scatters, and the simple act of starting becomes… not so simple anymore.

Add in the unpredictability of a day—something comes up, plans shift, time disappears—and suddenly something I fully intended to do gets squeezed out.

So I try to remove that risk. I start there.

Same thing with walking.

I’ve set a goal of 15,000 steps per day for this current stretch. Is walking hard? No. But it can start to feel heavy if I treat it like something I’ll “have to get to later.”

So instead, I front-load it a bit. Get a solid 30+ minute walk in early. Knock out a meaningful chunk before the day gets complicated.

Then later on, when I hit that inevitable wall—mental fatigue, boredom, whatever it is—I use another walk as a reset. Get outside, move around, clear the head. It stops feeling like a chore and starts feeling like a release.

Make it a little enjoyable… and suddenly it works a lot better.

The second strategy is even simpler, and maybe a little more blunt:

Don’t quit until you’ve done the thing you said you would do.

No TV. No scrolling. No “I’ll just do it tomorrow.” No early shutdown for the day.

You don’t end the day until it’s done.

Period.

Now, I realize that sounds rigid. And maybe it is, a bit. But I’ve also noticed that when I give myself too much flexibility here, that’s exactly where things start to slip.

We’ve all heard the idea that it takes 30, 60, maybe 90 days for a habit to stick. There’s probably some truth to that.

But I’ve also had plenty of habits that made it past that window… and then quietly disappeared anyway.

No big event. No dramatic decision. Just… drift.

So why does that happen?

When I look at it honestly, it usually comes down to some mix of three things:

The habit feels harder than I expected.
It’s less enjoyable than I hoped it would be.
Or the results I thought I’d see… don’t show up fast enough to keep me engaged.

And once those creep in, it gets a lot easier to let things slide.

I’ve also noticed there are certain moments where I’m especially vulnerable to dropping something.

Early on is one of them—that initial stretch where the habit isn’t automatic yet. That’s the classic New Year’s resolution problem. Strong start, quick fade. Most of that happens in the first 30–45 days.

But another one, for me at least, is any kind of disruption to my normal rhythm.

Travel. A break in routine. Even something positive, like a vacation.

Which is funny, because we’re told to look forward to vacations as a way to recharge.

And they can be…maybe.

But I also think there’s something to the idea—talked about in Your Money or Your Life—that a vacation can become a way of “vacating” your life.

You enter full escape mode. You escape your routines, your structure, your identity… and sometimes, often actually, it’s harder than expected to step back in.

So there’s a balance there.

Because when you look at people who have lived long, healthy, engaged lives, you do see some common threads.

The obvious ones show up first:

They tend to eat reasonably well.
They move their bodies.
They maintain relationships.
And yes, genetics plays a role.

But there are a few others that don’t get talked about quite as much, and I think they matter just as much:

They keep a sense of humor. They find ways to enjoy things.
They manage stress and don’t carry anger around forever.
And they stay engaged in meaningful “work”—something that keeps their mind active and gives their days a bit of structure and purpose.

And I don’t think they “vacate” their lives. Period.

Which brings us back to momentum.

Because momentum isn’t just about discipline. It’s about creating a rhythm you don’t constantly feel the need to escape from.

So, since it’s Saturday, I’ll leave you with this:

Keep going. Whatever you’ve decided actually matters—whatever you’ve said “yes” to—keep showing up for it. Even when it’s a little inconvenient. Especially then.

At the same time… go have some fun. Don’t make this whole thing so serious that you forget to enjoy it.

And if you’re not quite sure what you should be doing?

Take a little time. Sit with it. Think about when you feel most like “you”… and what your days look like when that’s true.

Then ask the simple question:

How do I build more of that in… and keep it going?