Serena had been at the company for almost nine years, and her rise had more than once been called “meteoric.” From day one, she appeared to be on the fast track to VP, her success a combination of her ruthless hours, remarkable problem solving, and some good fortune.
The pace was nonstop, but staying in motion seemed to suit her. In the past year or two, though, the momentum seemed to be slowing. Stretch assignments weren’t coming as often. She heard fewer mummers about her future at the top. She started to wonder when – and even if – the next promotion might happen.
Should she start looking for a new role? Was this the right place for her after all?
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TJ launched the literacy nonprofit seven years ago, reading to kids online while their parents tried to work in the early days of the pandemic. Turning her project into a 501(c)(3) was the boldest thing she’d ever done. She now had over a hundred volunteers throughout the state.
She was proud of the impact, but she couldn’t help but wonder why her volunteer count wouldn’t budge. Early on, she was turning people away. But now, nothing she was doing seemed to move the needle. Donations and community partners also seemed so much harder to find these days.
Was what she was doing even needed anymore? Was this still where she should be spending her time?
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When Holly met Patrick just over three years ago, she’d told her sister that she finally understood what people meant when they said “The One.” It wasn’t just physical chemistry, but an intellectual and emotional fit that she’d never quite experienced before. By the end of month one, they were spending nearly all of their time together, and it felt exactly right.
But things felt so much harder lately, though she didn’t exactly know why. Everything seemed laced with just a little more friction – making weekend plans, how they’d respond to his mom’s requests, how the dishwasher got loaded. They’d been building a future together, but now she sometimes just wanted to hide.
Maybe he wasn’t “The One” after all? Was it really supposed to feel like this?
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It’s disorienting when you hit the wall.
You’d been riding the momentum like a wave. It wasn’t as if you weren’t working at it all along – you absolutely were. But for a while you could feel the force of the wind at your back. Even in the trying moments, the exhausting ones, that wind wouldn’t let you stop. Its force left no question about whether you were moving in the right direction.
And then, the wall.
Sometimes it’s like a sea wall that you smack into with a thud, undeniably there and seemingly impassable. Sometimes it’s more like a subtle slowing of the wind at your back. You’re bobbing there in the water, not drowning by any means, but starting to be pulled around in circles.
This is often when the chatter in our heads gets loudest. The doubts. The irritations. The questions. We want to understand what’s happening and why things have changed. We want to understand what it all means for us.
For some of us, the wind at our backs has been felt as some kind of divine force, a sign of the rightness of what we were endeavoring. Others of us may not have assigned it a special meaning, but we’ve very much come to rely on it. We are willing to put in the work, but we need the energy of things flowing in our direction to sustain it.
So what do we do when the momentum seems to slow – or even stop? Is it a sign that we’re no longer on the right path? Suddenly out of alignment? Do we have strength to keep going without it? Should we?
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Let me say here that I believe that if we do anything in life long enough, or even just sincerely enough, the momentum of it will eventually wane.
I’ve had people disagree with me on this. They say that the universe will always be at our back if we are where we are meant to be. They say that things won’t feel like a struggle if it’s right. The right relationship won’t feel hard, it will feel natural. In the right role, you’ll feel more confident and sure. I’m sure you’ve heard versions of this – maybe you take this view.
Where we agree is that the universe is pulling for us. My personal view is that we are each enrolled in our own You School, where we undertake a very special and individualized curriculum that teaches us – not always so gently – exactly what we need.
In my view, the slowing of momentum is very often a core part of that curriculum. It gives us a particular window into ourselves that nothing else could.
For one, when momentum slows, we get to witness what happens when that activating energy turns down. To put it in more neurobiological terms, many of us have become reliant on – maybe even addicted to – that more stimulating drive, often fueled by dopamine and cortisol. We are used to being what we call “up-regulated,” in that state of higher nervous system activation. Even if we wouldn’t exactly describe it as feeling good, it has certainly felt familiar. (As I’ve discussed before, our brain will always seek out what’s familiar, even over what is healthy or pleasant.)
When the excitement or novelty isn’t pumping the dopamine for us, we might be left in a more “down-regulated” state. If we’re more up-regulated at baseline, the slowing of momentum lets us see how well we can tolerate a different state, a different pace. What I’ve often observed is that those who tend to live more up-regulated will say that they are desperate for things to slow down or get easier, but the experience of things slowing is deeply uncomfortable. It feels wrong in the body.
What happens when something feels off or wrong in our bodies? Our minds will search for reasons (also known as stories) – or even create them. (I explain more about how and why this happens here.) Our minds will tell stories that correspond to our old templates, such as that we need to work harder or that things don’t ever work out for us. Our minds will fill the quieter situation with questions, such as whether we’re actually capable or should be doing something different or
Meeting ourselves here in this slower, down-regulated state, with all of the accompanying self-chatter and self-questioning – this is so often our real work. This is the state that many of us need to find our way through.
When the momentum slows, we have the opportunity to examine other sources of power, ones that we haven’t gotten practice turning to as often. When the momentum slows, we have the chance to look toward something deeper than dopamine. We can look toward our core values.
There’s a reason that most of us don’t give up parenting our kids even when it feels like nothing is going our way. We tap into our love for them (yes, sometimes we have to dig deep) and the identity we carry as a parent. For roles where we feel a bit less bound, we might tap into what about it feels aligned with who we want to be.
I’ve found that it’s often in the time after the momentum has slowed that the opportunity for real expansion takes hold. Maybe the role or situation is not where we are meant to be forever, but that doesn’t mean that there’s not still something there for us to learn about ourselves – a place in which we still need to grow.
We sometimes fear that we’d better move on quickly so that we don’t waste time, but too often that’s leaving a heap of opportunity on the table. We can set down those fears that we’re making the wrong choice by reminding ourselves that there are no wrong choices when the goal is not some notion of perpetual happiness (I hate to remind us that this is a fantasy), but instead a life of learning and expansion.
Speaking of fantasy, here is the last thing I want to say about the experience of momentum slowing down: for some of us, it’s really about the pain of meeting disappointment. Even when we ‘know’ better, we often can’t help but hope that this thing – this relationship, this role, this new way of living – will be the answer we’ve longed for. We can’t help but want it to smooth the edges of our existential discontent or be the answer to the eternal question of, “Where am I going?”
We all want that, on some level. And our work as humans is to learn how to meet the absence of clear pathways or tidy solutions with a sense of deep acceptance.
I’m not suggesting that this is easy. Importantly, I’m also not suggesting that we stay in dysfunctional situations for longer than is safe or healthy. There is a difference between momentum slowing and enduring harm. But I am suggesting that the places where momentum is no longer carrying us – and we have a chance to discover what else might be able to – that’s where a lot of true work begins.
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What Serena, TJ, and Holly decide to do next is anyone’s guess, and the beauty is that there can’t be a wrong answer. There are simply different pathways that allow for different learning. The only tragedy, in my book, would be in assuming that hitting the wall was the end of the story. Very often, it’s the start of the most exciting chapter.
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Questions for Reflection
- What tends to happen inside of me when what I’m doing gets harder or I feel more friction?
- If there’s a place where the momentum has slowed in my life right now, what might that experience be calling me to learn about myself?
- What is my relationship to disappointment or frustration like?
- Are there ways I can lean in to trusting myself and my capacity to learn from whatever path I choose?
