How To Use Psychological Momentum To Stop Feeling Stuck

Three components of frequency, intensity, and duration are crucial.

capPhoto by Valerie Blanchett on Unsplashtion...

When I was 11 years old, I discovered two important principles.

My mom was out running an errand, my dad was upstairs taking a nap, and I was bored. At that time, we didn’t have cable TV. Cable existed, just not in our household. Instead what my family had were three local channels—three, five, and eight—and I wasn’t remotely interested in watching yet another episode of Inside Edition or The Maury Povich Show.

The garage was my refuge. After all, that’s how Rocky beat Ivan Drago, by training in the loft of a cabin that looked a lot like my garage (at least it did in my 11 year old mind), and if it was good enough for Rocky, well, then it was good enough for me.

I set a goal to do four sets of 25 pushups. One hundred pushups seemed like a good number to aim for. After all, I had never done more than 60 pushups in one sitting before so I wanted to see if I could do it.

Four sets of 25. I can do this, I thought. I took a breath, assumed the pushup position, and knocked out 25 pushups.

Nineteen sets later, I called it at 500 reps.

Holy shit! I thought, I just did 500 pushups! Dad’s gonna be so proud. I ran upstairs to tell my dad, “Dad! Guess what?! I just did 500 pushups!”

“Oh my God,” he said, waking up from his nap. “I can’t imagine doing 500 pushups right now.”

And then, I couldn’t move my arms for two days.

The Power of Goal Setting

What I learned from doing so many damn pushups in the garage that day was two things:

1. The power of short-term goals

2. The benefit of psychological momentum

Much has been written about SMART goals, which is an acronym for setting goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time bound. The only problem with SMART goals is they’re incredibly boring. That’s why I prefer SMART ASS goals (they also speak more to my personality).

Anyway, the real money-maker for achieving any kind of goal is identifying the short-term goals—the stepping-stones—that will funnel you along your path toward goal achievement. Short-term goals are important because they offer you feedback, so you can pivot on your goal strategy if need be, and they generate momentum. A study of 409 participants found that increases in goal progress positively influence subjective wellbeing. Personally, this sounds like a “The Sky is Blue Report” because, I mean, who doesn’t feel better about themselves after having done something for themselves?

Short-term goals are great for getting unstuck. I used them every day during BUD/S when thinking about the enormity of the day became too much to bear. To minimize stress, I would make it a goal to make it to the next meal, and when that became too much to consider, I would focus only on the current evolution we were doing, such as Log PT or an Elephant Walk. And when the current evolution became too intense, my sole focus was on placing one foot in front of the other, or pushing out the next rep, or running until the next sand dune.

Short-term goals are great because they give you something tangible in your mind to aim for, but the real benefit in achieving those short-term goals is the byproduct they yield: momentum.

The Power of Momentum

Performing five-hundred pushups that day was never my intent, but it became so after my short-term goals culminated in set after set. This culmination created psychological momentum, and I didn’t want to stop. It reminds me of the story of Jerry Seinfeld and how he marked an “X” on his calendar every day he wrote a new joke for his stand-up skit. After a while, he accumulated so many “Xs” that he didn’t want to break the chain, he wanted to keep the momentum.

Momentum is ubiquitous and applies everywhere, from sitting in a car while stuck in traffic to trading stocks to playing sports. The premise is that when you experience success, your self-confidence and competence grow, which lead to:

• higher expectations

• greater mental and physical effort in executing the task

• increased perception of positive momentum

• greater feasibility of success

Let’s take the traffic example. If you’re moving ever so slowly in traffic and somebody cuts you off, they just destroyed your perception of momentum. As a result, you now think you’ll be late to your appointment or are somehow falling behind in your travels (i.e. decreased perception of momentum) when in reality, it’s really not gonna make a difference.

Do you see the problem here? It’s your mind.

You don’t want to be interrupted because interruptions mean you must start the performance all over again. That car that just hopped in front of you somehow sent you to the back of the line, and now you’re angry because you’re somehow “behind.”

Interruptions thwart psychological momentum and slow performance. One study revealed how in Division I basketball games, task performance was reduced by 56% when the opposing team took a time-out in an effort to interrupt the opposing team’s momentum. Why? Because interrupting momentum changes your perceptions of how hard the task is and what’s necessary to complete it successfully.

3 Parts of Momentum

Psychological momentum consists of three parts: frequency, duration, and intensity.