35 | Does This Kill Your Creative Momentum Too?

What is your biggest momentum killer when it comes to making a change, launching a project, or embarking on a meaningful pursuit?

If you're anything like me, it might be…a lack of celebration.

In this episode of The Gentle Rebel Podcast, we explore the importance of celebrating success and how intrinsic it is to momentum in almost any endeavour.

By success, I don't mean external rewards and appearances. I'm talking about moments of "shine" that occur in the immediate wake of a good thing happening. And celebration, in this context, is a simple physical acknowledgement in response to that feeling.

Last week, Blubrry (the hosting company for The Gentle Rebel Podcast) published a feature, naming it Podcast of the Month for September 2023. Exciting! This is one of the reasons I've been thinking about celebration and momentum.

After feeling a spark of joy, my inner critic (yep, Rod was back) piped up with reasons not to get excited. So, I've been experimenting with ways to playfully subvert his and Pincher's (another one - that's him in the photo) judgements and demands so I can allow the momentum to flow.

The Moment Finds Meaning in Momentum

We might think of momentum as a series of moments linked together in the same direction. The mmmmmm between moments is the gluey bridge of satisfaction that connects them. Moment-mmmmm-moment-mmmmm. OK, please humour me.

This is to say that celebrating small moments is integral to growth through momentum. Without it, we might end up in a state of moment-aghhhh, where moments are isolated and disconnected rather than united and connected.

But what does a celebration look like? It sounds a bit strange.

The Concept of "Shine":

What do you do to celebrate when you manage to turn an intention into an action?

With no word in English for the feeling he wanted to describe ("authentic pride" didn't capture it), BJ Fogg coined the term "shine". In Tiny Habits, he explains how important it is to celebrate when we do behaviours that contribute to the habits we want to establish. Celebration rewrites our neural pathways, associating feeling good with doing what we want.

This is an excellent example of moment-mmmm because each momentary action, when celebrated, reinforces the chance of the next one occurring. So celebration and momentum go hand-in-hand.

Ranking and Linking

Elaine Aron talks about linking and ranking as two models for interpersonal engagement. When in "ranking mode", we measure our value by comparing ourselves to others. This tends to happen more when we perceive that we have suffered a "defeat" or failure.

Aron writes, "After a defeat, research finds that all social animals become depressed, showing the same physiology and behavior as depressed humans have. If we could ask them, I’m sure their self-esteem would be low. Unrealistically low. “I’m no good at all.” This innate “involuntary defeat response” serves to keep a defeated animal from continuing to fight and probably being injured.

These instincts work the same for us. Following a defeat, we tend to undervalue ourselves, leading to endless lost opportunities."

As we apply this, we might see how momentum is lost when we lose connection b...