Often with my work I feel a sense of oncoming dread. Not quite full on fear, but anticipation of hardship that leads to anxiety. Hence, trepidation. I know I should ignore this feeling… But you try ignoring gut instinct. Not so easy is it? Usually this comes about when I need to make something new in my project or need to learn a new technique or skill. I just have this expectation that things will go badly. And the “logic” of my fearful mind is that: as long as I don’t start the thing, the bad thing won’t happen. I know this is foolish, I know it is nonsense… and yet…

So where does Momentum come into play? Momentum is the other side of the coin. Once I work myself up enough to get past my trepidation the coin turns to its side. No longer shackled by trepidation I can get work done, but I am not yet fully productive. But if I maintain this long enough I fully flip the coin to momentum. That is when I have gotten so into the work, done thing after thing without stopping, that I don’t have time for trepidation to set in. In that state I simply don’t have the time to think about “What if this goes bad?” and just get on with the work.

Sometimes my work slows down and the coin flips back to its side or even fully back to trepidation. But that is why it is “trepidation and momentum”. Like a rolling stone gathers no moss, once I get moving I have no time for trepidation.