Momentum

January 16, 2008

Elephant Burgers

Ordinary things done consistently produce extraordinary results.~Alex Mandossian

I was out of town for over a week from Christmas through the beginning of the year. When I got back my first entry to my career change blog Twisting Road was about things that happened to move my business forward without me guiding them.

Actually I was harvesting the fruits of previous effort that set things in motion weeks before. I took a series of smaller, simple steps to find a name for my business and have the papers drafted to change my corporation’s name. I dropped them in the mail just before I left. When I got home the confirmation letter from the corporations office in my state had arrived.

In thinking and writing about “Elephant Burgers,” breaking things into manageable steps, I have overlooked some important things. I want to acknowledge them here. They come from the power of momentum.

The Momentum of Courage: When you take small steps with things that are scary, you overcome your fears. In the future similar steps aren’t as scary so they are easier.

The Momentum of Familiarity: What you broke into five steps before might become one step in the future, and might be a whole lot easier.

The Momentum of Serendipity: You finally call a person on your list as a potential client or information source to help find clients. He asks if you’ve joined the Chamber of Commerce. You tell him it’s on your list to check out but you have not talked to anyone yet. Turns out, he’s on the membership committee, walks you through the process, and offers to introduce you around.

The Momentum of Intention: You look up a local professional writers’ workshop on the internet and find out where they meet. You print out a map and plan to drive by. Within a few days you realize you’re on nearby streets often, you drive by and see it’s easy to get there. You realize how you can fit meetings into your schedule by planning to do your errands in that area on the day they meet.

The Momentum of Actualizing: As the ideas and plans start becoming real, actual things, the steps get easier. When you finally publish your new web site, you feel more intensity and excitement about editing and correcting text than when you were planning it out on paper or in a document file.

The Momentum of Accomplishment: When you are working on steps towards a distant goal, but you’re reaching the finish line on previous goals, the enthusiasm will lift you, encourage you, and lighten the work on your current steps.

Posted in Elephant Burgers, Zine 4: January 2008