Maintaining Momentum

Hi, welcome back to Eat Your Cress Podcast. I'm Crystal and I'm G-Soo. Did you know it's crazy? We're like almost halfway through the year. That is very crazy. So because we're getting closer and closer to halfway and then end of year, we thought it would be fun to talk about maintaining momentum in your life. Now is a good time to check ourselves and make sure we're still writing those waves of momentum as we get closer to, you know, the middle of the year and as the year progresses. So let's talk about what maintaining momentum even means. To me, it kind of means being able to almost convince yourself to keep doing what you need to do. I think that's like an aspect of how I think about it. Yeah, I think that's a good way to put it. Momentum is to me like forward moving progression. It's interesting like sometimes momentum is going well and I can tell because I look forward to what I'm going to do tomorrow. Like I'm like, oh, today I was able to achieve A and B and tomorrow, I can't wait to do C and D and it feels like so easy and so effortless. But I think other times momentum is more manual. It's not like an automatic push. It's like, oh my god, I can't believe I was able to get through today and tomorrow I'll like continue to move forward by doing B and C. Yeah. So I think both times are very important. Sometimes it just requires a little bit more effort. Yeah, totally agree. I feel like when momentum is rolling, like you described when things are exciting and easier to start and finish, it's a really good feeling. Not only do you feel accomplished for completing things, but like you said, you do have a continued excitement to do the next things. I feel like sometimes it feels almost too good because it makes moments when your momentum is slowed feel that much harder, I guess. Yeah, that's so true. And I feel like sometimes you can kind of manufacture a system where you can feel good by seeing trackable progress. If I have a fitness goal or something, am I increasing the weight that I'm lifting at the gym? Because my mile time getting faster, that momentum where I can see the progress move might make me feel more motivated or if I have like a task clean out my closet or finish my taxes. These are things where by doing the steps to make progress on it, I can see the task getting closer and closer to the finish line. I think it motivates me to continue my momentum. But on the flip side, it makes it that much harder when the task is like more difficult or more challenging to finish. Sometimes a task might require input from other people that might throw a little bit more slowness into the achievement. Other times it might be something that you're like constantly working on for the rest of your life. And it's like, I don't know how to measure this, you know? Oh my god, so true. A system-fin task. I have at least one follow-up question for you. Okay, one of them is when you get excited about seeing progress, but then you start getting really close to the end. Does momentum continue strong through that end portion? Or does it start to slow down a bit almost? Because you're like, oh my god, I'm almost done. And you like let loose a little. That's a really good question. I think I'm definitely the type of person to be like, oh my god, I'm like 90% done. All right, time to like chill out. Okay, I ask because I'm the same way. I'm like, oh my god, it's the last stretch. I'm going to go sit on my coach. Yeah, yeah. What is like your fix for that? Because the only thing that I've been doing recently is to like keep moving out my goal so that I'm constantly at a state of 50 to 70% done, but I'm like, is this a state of all? I think I'm definitely still working on a good fix for that. I think I'll try to let myself indulge in the break at least a little bit. You know, you are almost done. And maybe you do deserve a little break before you get into that final stretch. That's true. Sometimes that does help a bit. Of course, it's easy to then get trapped in the, oh, I'm still resting right now. It's like the last 5% or something left of your task. But sometimes I think it also helps when there's other upcoming things to do. So then it's like, okay, I can take a break right now, but I do need to still finish this because I got other things lined up to do. Makes sense. So then do you think for you when you come up with your goals and like have things that you want to maintain momentum on? Is it like a revolving door of goals where you're working on one goal, you finish it or like a close finishing, you move on to the next goal, etc, etc. Or is it like you work on three or four goals at a time and then you take a break to chill and then you work on another three to four goals at a time? You know what? I think because I work right now, it's maybe more the second one. You know, there's like some things that are work related, some things that are personal related. So naturally, there's more than one goal happening at a time. Right. But they might just not be super related. And I think because of that actually, it can be a little hard because, and I'm sure you feel this too, but if work picks up and is starting to be a bit busy for maybe like a month or two, it's so much easier to like put aside your own personal goals or sacrifice them in a way to put all your energy into whatever needs it at that moment. I guess there's definitely a balance that needs to be considered. I think also when there's multiple goals, I maybe even split them up to like weekday goals and weekend goals almost. Oh, interesting. How do you decide what is what? Okay. I think weekday goals tend to be more like educational or like, I don't know, you just get the vibe, you know, it's like a weekday goal, like a working goal or something like that. Homework 5. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Okay. And then like a weekend goal is more fun and casual. An example could be like golf. The next goal can be to hit under a certain score. That is kind of a weekend goal, right? This is a thing I do for fun, and I don't want to like put so much pressure on it. I'm not so obsessed with it that I would put aside weekday hours just to work towards a school. But if I had some free time on the weekdays and I wanted to work on this goal, totally fine. But it lives in that weekend goal category. That makes sense. I think I also do something similar, but I'm realizing now that the really homeworky weekday goals, I just like keep pushing out. So it's like constantly moved out by one day because I don't want to do this. Okay, I could totally see that. I mean, I'm also a procrastinatorist. Dude, that's why it has to be a weekday goal because there's more weekdays than weekends. That's so funny. But when you have your goals, do you feel like they all have a certain end date or like a timeline or are they kind of like floaters that sort of exist in your goal world until they're achieved? Well, this is a good thought exercise. Okay, I think I sometimes actually do have timelines for some goals, but on average, I tend to not. I did give myself a timeline goal recently though. Even though it has a timeline, it's not a strict one. It's just like, oh, let's see what happens in the next four to eight years. If I don't succeed in this goal or if I need more time, that's totally fine. I think that makes sense. I guess it's also a question of does a timeline or a deadline motivate you or does it make you not want to do the task anymore? I think I'm just bad with timelines to be honest. I mean, it makes perfect sense. If it's not a motivating factor, it's like why add it into your routine, right? Yeah, there was this one time where I was studying wine. I had a given timeline. There's the test date. And so I was studying and in the beginning, I had good momentum and I was studying almost like every other day or something, which is also very surprising for me because I'm very bad at studying. But then in the middle, because I think I had about three months before the test when I first signed up. In the second month, I just like completely stop doing anything. And I was like, what is wrong with me? I need to study or also I'm going to fail this test. Yeah. But I just can't bring myself to do it. And that's when my momentum died. But I did figure it out and start studying again, maybe partially out of panic once the date was getting closer. I wonder if almost there's like a sweet spot of what kind of timeline motivates people. I'm realizing that a timeline of one to two years is incredibly motivating for me. Like if I know something's going to happen next year, I'm like super excited to work on it. Maybe up to six months. If something's coming up in six months, I'm like, this is so exciting. But I need closer than that. I'm I'm like, I'm not doing this. You know? (laughing) It's like the last thing I want to do right now. Whoa, that's interesting. I think when it's too far for me, like maybe like you said a year or two, it's easy for me to forget. So then I maybe don't work as hard until it gets closer because I'm like, "Shit, it's like next one now." Everyone must have their ideal timeline because I know a lot of people who like to do really short-term projects, right? We're both three months on this, three months on that. But for me, I feel like my goals work the best when it's like slightly more nebulous and kind of not urgent, you know? Yeah. So then one of the things that I've been trying to work on this year is like improve my VO2 max. And there's no set number I want to hit. I just want to like generally improve it. But I think the timeline that I'm working towards is like before I have kids. Like that's like the timeline that I'm applying to everything. Like before I have kids, I want to do this. And because that's like a couple of years out, I feel like it is very motivated. Oh yeah, that's a good one. I also feel like that's such a good timeline motivator because having kids is very health-related too. So then when you make health-related goals attached to that timeline, I feel like it's doubly as motivating. That's true. We've briefly mentioned this a bit. But like what about when you're working on these goals and your momentum is pretty good, but then suddenly there's a bit of a lull or like a tough period. How do you pick yourself back up and like find that way again? This isn't really good question because I feel like the lulls are not like infrequent. You know, it's like not a rare thing to be in a lull after maintaining momentum for a while. Yeah. And I feel like there were definitely times in my life where my life was basically a lull/tough period and then the momentum moments were very rare. So it's like times where it's really easy to maintain chasing goals and times where it's incredibly difficult to even have any goal at all. I feel like what has always worked for me to kind of get through that is drop all my goals, pick one goal. That's like sustainable/easy work on that. I find it very important to still achieve something, even if it's just one thing. Yeah. I think back a couple years ago, I was like not doing really great and I was finding it hard to like work out. Even my social life was suffering a little bit. All I wanted to do was lay down and rot and I didn't want to do anything else. And what I remember was that year I read so many books. It was like the one thing, you know, that I like clung on to. And I'm glad that I did that because at least when I look back on that time, I'm like, "Oh, that's the year that I feel like I read a lot." Instead of being like a year of nothing. So at least I had that one thing going for myself. Yeah. I wonder, do you feel like that was intentional or almost unintentional that you like read so much? I think it was intentional because I set like a high number of books to read this year goal for myself and then I like stuck to that one thing. But in some ways, I didn't realize it was probably the only thing keeping me going in that time. It's like unintentionally very motivating and like a tough time for me. Hmm. Oh, that's nice. I'm glad that it ended up feeling motivating as well. Yeah. Do you think it took time for it to like build up to feel motivating? Maybe like towards halfway of the year, you're like, "Oh wait, I've actually like done so much." Or was it maybe every time you finished a book, you're like, "Nice. Good job, me." I probably felt, I think, many moments of achievement or like a accomplishment as I finished each book. Hmm. I think it probably took some time for like true momentum to build back up based on those achievements. It probably just felt like, "Oh, it's hard enough as is to like even finish these books." Yeah. Maybe towards the end of the year, I was like, "Okay. If I'm able to read this many books in the last like 10 months, then I could probably do other stuff." In my life, I think that's like what momentum is. Taking accomplishments from one aspect of life, keeping the ball rolling through other aspects of life. So it was like a very slow build up in momentum. Dude, but that momentum buildup has lasted for the past two years. That's true. Something has been happening positively. Yeah. I like that. No matter what, just try to figure out a way to keep something moving even if it's little winds along the way, but they'll add up and eventually become a big win. Right. Start the tiniest snowball you've ever seen. Slowly make it normal size. Okay. Do you think reading is a weekend goal or a weekday goal? Damn. Low key. I feel like there was a time in my life where it was a weekend goal and now it's more of a weekday goal. Oh, whoa. It shifted. Maybe other weekend goals became more weekend-y and then now it's like a weekday goal, you know? I see. Long curious how you kind of bounced back from lulls and tough periods. I don't even know. Let me, I think I need to analyze this in real time because I think I don't actually have true plans I kind of just indulge my feelings and maybe that's a bad thing. Wait, what do you mean by true plans? Like I don't always have a plan, I guess, to get myself out of a lull. I see, I see. But I do think earlier this year and some periods during last year, I definitely hit a decent amount of these slowed momentum/lolls in my energy level/ just life. And I guess what I do know is that these can often happen after an intense period of hard work or busyness. And so then I just want to like sit on the couch all day and like raw and not do anything because essentially I'm burnt out. Right. Yeah, so I guess that's where the indulging my feelings come into play. Because if I'm burnt out, I just really don't want to do anything and I'll usually allow myself to not do anything. So I guess that sometimes helps because then maybe if it's not too bad after a few days or a week or something, I'm starting to feel a little better again. I got some good sleep and like I'm ready to take on some more tasks. But then at the same time, it's really easy to get stuck in that like rotting phase. That's true. So I guess maybe what I mentioned earlier sometimes helps too is if I have an upcoming task, but not something really overwhelming, you know, like it has to be very, I guess easy in a way, like I know exactly how to approach this upcoming goal or task. And I know that I'll be able to succeed. Okay, this might sound kind of silly, but even something like planning a vacation could fall into this goal category and it does like two things for you, right? One, it'll give you the time and space to relax and get some rest. And two, it gives you tasks to do that hopefully aren't too difficult to achieve a goal. And that goal is to like, you know, take a vacation basically. Right. Right. Right. So I think sometimes that helps like planning your next break. Yeah, that's true. Then you could also kind of like take a step back from your current reality and like daydream a little bit and just get into this good positive mood while also achieving like a smaller goal. But to me actually planning a vacation is like a big goal. I find it really hard for some reason. A lot of people say it's relaxing, but I'm always like, oh, like I'm like dreading this a little bit. I can totally see that too. I think it's even easier if you're just planning for yourself. Okay, also though, I feel like there's a distinct difference between a vacation and traveling. Oh, vacation, like you should not have to do anything once you get there. Maybe you find a place that has resorts because then you can also just like stay at the hotel and have everything at your fingertips. But traveling is like you go somewhere and you go out into the city and like go out and see different things like museums, landmarks, all that. That's like not vacation. Because you're doing a lot. You're like walking around. You're like planning. So a vacation is like minimal planning. You're there to do nothing and relax and be in a place where other people can take care of you essentially. Okay, now I'm realizing I've never been on a vacation in my life. I'm like, I don't understand this concept. Like for example, cruises are kind of like forced vacations. That is true. Right. You're usually just on the cruise and you can only do what's on the boat. And when they do stop at places, you get like a day. So sometimes people don't even debord at those places. So cruises are like a good vacation starter vacation spot. So I think you're basically saying that when you want to recover from like really tough periods where you're perred out, you've accomplished so much already. You're like, I don't want to even think about a goal. Just set yourself a mini layup with a small goal and then see where the ball gets rolling from there. - Yeah. And if I can't plan a vacation, I'll just rot around for a while. (laughing) - Maybe recovery is the goal, you know, after a burnout period. Sometimes it's like almost challenging to get back to your baseline motivation. If you've done so much at work, so much in your social life, done a ton of travel back to back, even feeling normal again is like a week-long task in itself. - Mm-hmm, so true. I'm trying to think back because recently in, I think I was like February or something, I was really busy at work and I was pretty tired and burnt out after. And I'm like, what did I do to like get back on my feet? I don't even know, I definitely rested. And I did think about vacation a lot, but I didn't end up planning once. Actually, now that I'm really thinking about it, I occupied my mind with other things and I did actually set a certain task for myself that was like health-related. So for some reason, I went to sleep on December 31st, feeling fine, and when I woke up on January 1st, I had lower back pain. - Oh God. - I just stayed for like two or three months. And I was like, is this just my welcome to like 30s? (laughing) But once I was in that little period after the really intense working period, I slowly came to my senses and I made it a goal to like fix my back basically. (laughing) - Honestly, that's a big goal. And I feel like it's also a goal with a questionable deadline, you know? It's like as soon as possible, but also that's like out of my own control. (laughing) - Yeah, I was kind of like, oh my God, once it hits three months, then it counts as chronic. - Oh God. But I think that was maybe a little bit of an easier task 'cause I had a plan going in. I was like, okay, I'm gonna either need to make an appointment with like a physical therapist or a chiro, whoever is available the fastest, they'll tell me what I need to do. And it was just like a bunch of small tasks that had to be done to reach that bigger goal. And they were all tasks that I was realizing was very doable and very reachable. So once I did those tasks, it like actually healed my back. It was crazy. (laughing) - Dude, I'm so happy your back is back to normal. - It was like a group Pilates class we did recently and you were just casually like, oh yeah, this like really triggered my sciatica. I was like, are you okay? - I was like, I think I have sciatica. - Also, now that I'm thinking about it, in a way, it's kind of similar to your reading goal. Each smaller task is like finishing a book kind of. - True. - And then that in itself helps and adds up. Like now that my back feels better, I also feel better. I'm ready to make more goals. (laughing) - I feel like the small task thing too is very important 'cause it's the real life version of putting one foot forward as you like, pick yourself back up, take small steps forward, right? Don't focus on the her rise and just like look down and take one step at a time. And I feel like sometimes when you're really mentally overloaded, that's literally all you could do. One thing at a time. - Agreed. I wonder too actually if health is just a big motivating factor, especially as we get older, 'cause earlier you mentioned how you wanna raise your VO2 stats and that's a health related goal. And it's like very motivating for you. - Yeah. - With the addition of a little timeline too, to give that extra push. And then I'm talking about healing my back and that's also health related and it was pretty motivating 'cause I'm like, oh my god, can't wait to be pain free. (laughing) - And I also feel like health related goals just have a lot of different benefits. Like you focus on one metric, but the rewards that come from achieving that one goal is very multi-layered. Like you might feel better, you might be setting yourself up for better health long-term, you might look better, things might feel easier. There's so many different things that come from it. Versus other goals might feel like you only get one or two direct rewards. - Yeah. So maybe that's the secret to long-term momentum. Making sure that your body and mind are in good health. - Right. So we've talked a lot about the benefits of building momentum, but I feel like the challenge of maintaining momentum is to not let things break it. And for me, I found that sometimes it's not even the big moments that break momentum, but it could be the small moments. So do you ever encounter like maybe small steps in your day to day where you're like, oh god, I really don't wanna do this. Or vice versa, like small moments that can build momentum. And I'll start this off by giving an example. Sometimes I feel like with my health goals, I have to like get myself to go out and run or get myself to go to the gym. And sometimes it's literally that seven minute drive that's the most challenging, you know? - I definitely know. And it can definitely relate. Sometimes it's like the fact that you have to get up from where you are right now. - Yeah. (laughing) - And you're like, I do wanna do this, but I just wanna sit for longer. Or can I just, you know, rest for a few more minutes? - Right. - Ignoring your alarm. If you snooze that alarm, you might fall back asleep. - Yeah. - It's true. - And I think it's also dangerous because in this day and age, there's a lot more things you can do from the comfort of your home. For example, you can order food and have it delivered. And you know, you can order stuff online and it gets delivered in a few days. Even if we think about it, just when we were kids, you could order food and call, but you'd have to go pick it up yourself still. - Right. - So I think the conveniences of today make it even easier to have those moments of momentum breaking, 'cause of the habits that they cause. - Yeah, that's very true. It's like we're addicted to convenience, but sometimes maintaining momentum or like doing things to achieve your goals are very inconvenient. - Yeah, and sometimes it's something as simple as like, "Oh, I need a grocery shop today." And then I'll drive home from work and then I'm like, "Oh, I'm tired. Maybe I'll do it tomorrow." So true. And then that maybe almost even breaks the momentum in a new way too, because I don't know about you, but sometimes when I come back from a grocery trip, I'm like, "Oh, nice. I have all this food. I'm kind of excited to eat it throughout the week now." But if I procrastinated on that trip, then I'll come back and I'll be like, "Okay, I have like not much in the fridge right now, I just need to throw something together." And maybe it like dampens the rest of the day a little bit too even. - I think one of my bad habits is definitely ordering food in like you mentioned. And if I don't have groceries, I'll definitely order food in and it might be a multi-day thing. So I have to make sure I go grocery shopping. - Yeah, that's a really good one. - Also another one that kind of breaks my momentum and/or state of mind overall is not keeping up with my personal chores. So for example, if my living room's kind of messy, it kind of reflects how the state of my life is too. (laughing) So if I'm finding myself pushing off, doing laundry or doing the dishes, then that probably means that I'm hitting a low or I'm like being a little burnt out. And I need to take action to get out of it. And sometimes the only way to get out of it is just to do what you need to do. (laughing) It's like, okay, I finally did laundry today. And I'm feeling good about it. (laughing) - Yeah, that's a good one. I think household chores just build up so quickly. My toxic trait is I'll run all the laundry, usually a couple, like four or five loads, right? Like towels, like athletic wear, et cetera, et cetera. And then I'll just like let it sit. - Oh, it gets wrinkly. - And I'm like, oh God, it's been sitting there for two days. Like I need to fold it, but I don't wanna do it. So when things like that happen and I find it building up, I feel like I have to do something rewarding for myself to even get myself to do the task. So if it's like folding laundry, I'll find a really good YouTube video and put it up on the TV as I fold. Or if it's like the house is dirty, I'll place a music on the TV, will myself to get up so that I'm like singing and dancing through the chores. But even like doing that requires a lot of self motivating, like pep talks, you know? You can do it. - Definitely. But I think once I do get myself through it by doing the task, like you said, I immediately see energy kind of spike up. So for example, yesterday I forced myself to fold all the laundry after like a couple of days of procrastinating. And once I put all my clothes away, I was like, oh, it's April. Like it's a good time to do spring cleaning. I should probably block some time on my calendar to like go through and donate some clothes or shuffle things around into the shed and make sure that I have like a clean and kind of like up to date closet. And I never would have thought that until I like finished doing the laundry and put all my clothes away, you know what I mean? - Yeah. - Even getting to kind of higher level organizational tasks. requires me to maintain the lower level day-to-day tasks. So it was exciting to see the momentum build so immediately, even though it was just like a small thing. That makes total sense, just maintaining that baseline, so that we can have higher thinking, so that we can ascend. Okay, but I have another question actually. What if you're in a state where some things are just out of your control? Certain timelines maybe or whatever's happening around you, that in itself is a bit of a block to your accomplishments. I feel like when that happens, it also feels like a lull to me because I can't take action and make things happen. So does that ever happen to you? How do you handle that? I mean, honestly, I'm not really good at handling things that are out of my control. Just don't have that chill bone in me, but I feel like there are definitely times in my life where the top three goals or tasks are things that I just have to like get through. So say I know there's like a certain really busy quarter at work. I know that's going to take up a huge chunk of my time and energy that quarter. Then I just have to sort of like we set up drop to baseline and focus on like one thing. My life is just going to be work and going to the gym this quarter can't do anything else. Or there's been times in my life where I'm planning multiple really big events for other people and like other larger groups and at that time in my life it felt very like all consuming. The only thing that I could and should spend my free time on after work, then that I guess became like my goal. Doing those tasks and then everything else was kind of just be a normal person like maintain my normal life as best as possible. Maybe the answer to this is like the momentum is sustained only by giving up some of my goals and lightening my load. So it's almost like if certain things are out of your control, you let go of that for now. The best you can to focus on other things. Yeah, I guess it's about prioritizing almost like my mental health by not breaking my back, trying to achieve, you know, achieve or a handle whatever is out of my control slash four or five other like massive goals. Being realistic about my expectations and what I can handle during that time. Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, so I have an example. Let's say like your lease is coming up and you want to find a new place to live and you're very excited because you have certain things that you want to look for that your current place doesn't have. But the thing is there's a timeline issue because let's say you're excited about this in March, but like, you know, your lease doesn't end until June or something. So that is like kind of out of your control, right? So you can either be excited about it, but then sad every time you find something good and you're like, oh wait, but then I would have to break my lease and like deal with all this other stuff. So I guess I just have to like wait this timeline out. Do you feel like that kind of situation would put a low in your momentum? Oh, that's a good question. Like, I'm waiting for something positive to happen, but there's like a timeline or something. So I can't like push the issue. I mean, I think in that case, like there's probably other things that I would try to focus on. How do I decorate my new place once I get it? Are there things that I want to sell and donate before I move out and whatnot? So I think the correct answer here is to like pivot my energy into other smaller tasks that kind of contribute to the larger goal. But in reality, I think I would just obsess over the fact that I can't like change this and just complain about it until it happens. I mean, I think this kind of stuff comes up to during like wedding planning. It's very weird in wedding planning. There's like certain things that you have to do really early in advance, like booking your venue, maybe like sending out, save the dates, etc. And then there's things that you can't even really do until you're like three months out. So like talking to your florist, booking out like certain things or like sending out formal invitations. There's like certain timelines that you have to follow. And then in the meantime, there's a four month chunk where there's really not much to do. You bought your dress already and you did this, but it's not yet time to do, you know, things x, y and z. During that time, I remember just feeling really frustrated while also not working on the things that could have carried me through the middle. Oh yeah, I feel like if you're just forced to wait, I guess it's like a forced pause. Right. In this wedding scenario, yeah, I think I would also be like, oh, why can't we just get some stuff done? Okay, I see now. You're right. The correct answer would be to to distract ourselves with other things at hand that are not related to the thing on pause, but the reality is to obsess over the thing on pause. Exactly. I think I'm similar to you where I do end up obsessing over some things because it's like, well, why don't we have control over this? Like, why can't we just like do it, you know? Right. I have very similar feelings to you. I wonder if it's like almost a skill, you know, to like transfer this energy that we have, because I think even feeling something like frustration is a sort of like pent up energy system, but to be able to transfer this energy and like preserve it to a different goal or like a different movement of momentum, I feel like it's something that I just need to learn how to do, but it's challenging. I think it requires a little bit of like imagination or something. Yeah, some patience, some imagination. But I have a final question for you. We've been talking a lot about maintaining or working with the momentum or energy that we have, but sometimes there's sparks of energy that we get from like random moments or random tasks or actions. Is there anything that you do that will give you an unexpected spark of energy that can sometimes be translated into big moments of momentum for you? Actually, I do. I think if I solve a small problem, sometimes it like can bring forth a spark. So I have a maybe funny example, which is when I was first moving into my place, I was like, okay, I need a TV. And then it was like kind of exciting because like, okay, what kind of TV am I going to buy? So I find my TV and then I set it up and then I'm like, oh my god, wait, I want to mount it on the wall. So then get a wall mount and mount it up. And these are all like these little tasks that are happening and they're like kind of sparking the next idea. So you know, once a TV is mounted, I'm like, oh my god, this looks so good. Now I need to set up like all the peripherals. And I need to like set up my Wi-Fi and all that stuff. Just as these things got accomplished, just more ideas spark up. I'm like, oh, well, I want to hide my Wi-Fi in my TV stand unit thing. But since that's closed, I need to like put a fan in there and you figure out air flow in there. It becomes all- it's suddenly the first thing that it started out with is like putting a TV in or like, you know, getting the Wi-Fi up. And then it has become this whole like setup and like project. So I think it definitely happens, especially with just maybe things related to like optimizing. I feel like you also kind of like your tech setup stuff too. So there's probably some synergy from that. But it's so funny the way you talk about, I guess like the sequential order of these goals because it's very video game like to take away. It happens. It's like, oh, you have mounted your TV. Next two quests are like, you know, tuck in Wi-Fi. Like, well, I'm like, oh my god, like, I've never thought about goals in that way before. Oh my god. Yeah, it is kind of video game. It's like, you don't know what the next task is until you've like done it. Then you unlock the quest. Yeah. I'm like, okay, my desk is set up now. Oh, maybe I should get wheels for my desk. You're like collecting your little achievement. So I think definitely doing a small task that excites you will oftentimes spark more tasks once you reach the end. You're like, oh, this is great now. Like I achieved a whole thing. I like that. To me, it feels like a very positive way of looking at things that come up actually. Because I feel like if I were you in that situation, I'd be like, oh, okay, like we finally put our TV up. Oh, now we have to do this like Wi-Fi thing. I would almost think about it negatively, you know? Oh, I see. And I would tunnel vision on the end goal of like getting our living room set up and then all these tasks that come up if I didn't account for it beforehand, I would almost be like, oh, this is like kind of negative or like I don't like that I have to add this task. So I like the way that you kind of approach it in like a positively unlocking new things to do. I guess it really depends on the nature of the task at hand too, though. Like to me, doing that set up is exciting. But if there were something else, I might also be like how you would react like, oh, I can't believe there's more to this now. Well, I feel like it's funny because your answer is very different from mine. I was trying to think about things that can kind of give me a spark of energy. And sometimes I feel like it takes me having exposure therapy almost. And what I mean by that is, I think there's been moments in my life where I'm like not really having a good time or I feel like I can't do these things because of these factors. And I've had these very real moments where I'm like complaining to a friend and I'm like franting like, oh, I can't do this because of that. Or like I don't wanna go to the gym because of this. And as I hear myself rant, I'm like, oh, I guess this is something that felt so big and heavy, you know, like a huge weight dragging me down in my head that makes it impossible to do this task. But hearing myself say it out loud, I'm like, maybe this isn't that big of a deal or like maybe this isn't something that should keep my energy trapped. And then after I rant, I just feel better. One, I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders because this thing that has been like haunting me in my head is now spoken out loud. And then the other aspect is like, okay, like maybe mentally it felt like a huge deal, but in reality it might not be as big of a problem as I thought, just the act of ranting, I think has sometimes helped me pick myself back up. Now I can be like a real person again because these terrible thoughts are kind of not just in my head anymore. - Yeah, you've released them. - Yeah. I feel like that's also a little similar to when people are like write down what you need to do next. And that sometimes helps too. - Right. - So you're kind of like writing down the problems almost and then when you say slash write down these problems, you're like, oh, actually it's not that bad. - Yeah. It's true. And I think it's very freeing. I think I'm someone who can sort of think in extremes. Like I assume the worst or I can feel like something is very, very daunting, but talking to a friend, you're like, oh, this is actually not that big of a deal. And it can be encouraging too. Like sometimes your friend might have words of wisdom or they might have gone through something similar too and they tell you the things that they've done to like pick themselves back up. So it's always good to have some like human input. - Yeah, I agree. Even if it's just to be like a wall to listen to you rant. - Yeah. - Totally. I feel like we talked a lot about different stages of momentum that we have experienced, you know, whether it's a low, whether it's picking ourselves back up or even the slowing down of momentum. I feel like it was very nice to hear that we go through similar struggles and oftentimes even think of it in the same way. So it was very fun chatting about our momentum issues today. So for our listeners out there, if you have any thoughts on things that keep you going or spark energy or ways to recover from low energy, feel free to reach out to us. We have social media at e-recrustpod and we also have email, [email protected]. - And if you'd like to catch our other episodes, then don't forget to follow us on Spotify, I will podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. We upload new episodes every other Wednesday morning. - Thanks for listening. And don't forget to eat your crust. (upbeat music)