Are You Building a Snowball or a Snowman

Momentum can make all the difference between achieving your goals and having to live with the disappointment and frustration of never actually realizing what you desire. Momentum is a powerful force that is not only necessary, but essential in achieving real success.Without momentum you have to consistently apply a lot of effort and willpower that will eventually cause you to just give up. With momentum your truly leverage your actions and empower yourself to have a greater effect with less effort.

You want your actions to become "effortless" and be in a state where everything just flows. This is where you create "magic" and where the process of achieving becomes just as joyous and fulfilling as the actual achievement. With momentum your actions become self-reinforcing and the more you do the more you are capable of doing.

Momentum is what arouses action and puts things in motion. Once something is in motion it tends to stay in motion and as you build up speed you become unstoppable. Annie Lennox once pointed out that once you are really successful it is hard to tell whether you have created the momentum or whether it is creating you.

Once you realize that you are the one creating it, then you can start to consciously use it to produce results and excel at anything you attempt.The hardest part in achieving anything is taking the first step. This is usually the hardest step. If you want to create momentum you need that initial action that is usually the hardest part because the greatest amount of effort is required to get it going. It is what sets things in motion and once it is in motion you don't have to consistently use the same amount of force.

Think of creating momentum like boiling water: in order to get the water to boil you have to add a lot of heat until it starts to boil. You can then turn the heat down and the water keeps on boiling. After you've created that initial action that gets it all started you have to keep taking action.

Momentum is not a one-off action but a consistent process. If you turn the heat off completely the water will stop boiling.The key to building momentum is to do something immediately.

As soon as you get the impulse to achieve a specific result ? take action on it. If you don't do it immediately you get caught up in the "some day" trap and we all know that "some day" never comes. Momentum or moment-um is about what you can do in the moment. What can you do now to move you forwards? No matter how small the action you must take action immediately and start the momentum while you feel inspired and motivated. Most people mistakenly think that small actions are insignificant.Small actions are nothing but the building blocks of big actions and great successes.

Every big goal only consists of a series of smaller goals. When you act immediately your action puts you in a psychological state that encourages more action and consequently greater results. Some people look at the size of their goal and it just seems too big and too hard. They think that a small action just won't get them there so they start procrastinating. Ironically they often make the task too big in their minds mainly because they don't understand how powerful momentum can be in propelling them towards their results.The other typical pattern that is even more heartbreaking to see, is that someone would want a change, usually knowing that they have to, but they procrastinate.

Then finally they will reach a point where they realize that they can not carry on like that. They have to change. They will then jump in and take massive action and do all the hard work by starting to create momentum. As they do this they start to see results and consequently they slack off and break their momentum until the water eventually stops boiling. Before they know it they are back to square one and this is very discouraging and can create limiting beliefs and break down self esteem.With momentum you tap into one of the most powerful concepts in the universe.

Einstein wrote extensively on the subject of compounding and most of us know this concept as the snowball effect. Like a snowball your small actions build one on top of the other and the bigger the snowball gets the faster it moves and the faster it moves the bigger it gets and the bigger it gets the faster it moves until the movement becomes unstoppable. The challenge is that most people, instead of building a snowball, spend their time building a snowman.

When you build a snowman it is really a one-off thing and it's kind of fun to do, but not something you would want to do every day. It looks kind of nice and gives you a sense of satisfaction that you've done it. You can even feel good by telling others that you've done it, but soon the sun comes out and melts your snowman and by summer there is no sign of your creation.You don't want your actions to be a wasted effort.

When you are intelligent you make your actions work for you and it starts by being in charge of your life. The quickest way to take charge of your life is to immediately take action on any of your goals or dreams and then use the feedback to keep taking action. Remember that it is your consistent actions that will create the real results in your life and not that what you do every once in a while.

Don't allow procrastination to steal your future from you. Take action and do it now; use this moment to build momentum. Starts to build your snowball and see yourself become unstoppable.

By: Deon Du Plessis