Creating momentum with moments – 1

Can you prod your memory a bit and zero in on a particular incident that happened in your life in the past but which continues to evoke in you feelings of joy and excitement each time you recall it? Conversely, I would also like you to try and recall another event but which continues to leave you in despondency every time the memory of it is recalled.

The emotion attached to each of these events is a function of the peculiarity of the impact each had on you at the time it happened. As a result of such impact, you have, even without being deliberately conscious of it, owned those moments as integral parts of the continuum of the linkage between the past and the future. This underscores the importance of special moments in our lives. Most of our emotions are regulated by the way we perceive critical moments of events that happen to us or that we actively participate in.

Momentum in any venture is a product of passion fuelled by positive memories or experiences which in turn are products of special moments. Momentum in any organization can only be generated and sustained when the leader can continue to create new experiences that become current realities that his followers participate in or can vividly recall and relive over and over again with glee!

A moment has been defined as a very brief period of time, an appropriate time for doing something, an opportunity, an exact point in time, a particular stage in something’s development or in a course of events. In Physics, it is a turning effect produced by a force acting on an object at a distance

The word ‘moment’ is derived from the Latin ‘momentum’, ‘movimentum’, ‘movere’. Moments always have something to do with movement or moves made at specific, definite, given times and with specific memorable outcomes. This clearly tells us that you can hardly create or sustain momentum without first creating moving moments.

Momentum can be defined as impetus gained by a moving object. It is the quantity of motion of a moving body, measured as a product of its mass and velocity. Of note here is the fact that it is not just about motion but the quantity and quality of motion.

Moments are key to human existence because they are specific features of the sequence of life and time. Our life is the big picture, but it is divided into chapters of moments. Some we hardly remember and others we remember with uncanny precision. Special moments are memorable snapshots in a continuum. The continuum is the big picture and it is made up of a multiplicity of memorable incidents, encounters, experiences, relationships and utterances that can be etched in the stakeholders’ memory bank.

Every human being is a captive of moments yet you cannot imprison or freeze them. However you can recognize or seize them by taking advantage of the opportunities they provide.

Moments are the coded opportunities that life offers us to change, to grow, to love, to examine a relationship or a course of action or direction, to learn depending on our perception and attitude to the moment that life presents us with such chances. We capture or lose moments by what we do in and with them and the meanings we attach to them.

We seize moments by experience but we can only recapture moments through our memories. This is illustrated by the interesting experience the disciples of Jesus had with Him on the mountain of transfiguration. The incident is narrated in Matthew 17. Jesus had gone to the mountain with three of his followers Peter, James and John. Suddenly, they saw an enthralling sight of Jesus being suddenly transfigured with His clothes whiter than they had ever seen them in all the time they moved with Him. In what looked like multiple apparitions, they saw Moses and Elijah, two prophets who had died centuries earlier. Awed by this sight that could provide a perfect script for a blockbuster mystery movie, Peter could not hold himself back. In a trance-like moment of excitement, Peter attempted to perpetuate the transfiguration experience and ossify the moment. He did not realize when he blurted out,

“Let us build three tabernacles; one for you (Jesus), one for Moses and one for Elijah”

What Peter was saying in essence was that the experience should be preserved for ever. It took the interjection of the voice from heaven to shake him out of his stupor and return him to reality.

Moments are the critical seeds of our destiny because the greatest gift that moments give to us is not the experience but the opportunity to take decisions on how we want to appropriate the experience of those moments and the attendant opportunities and lessons.

Joy is what you get when you have effectively appropriated the gift offered by a moment. The opposite happens when you feel or know that you lost it.

When you hear an inspirational message that challenges you to change something about yourself, that is an opportunity to redesign your strategy for entering into your future. Why? The word of that moment just opened your eyes to the limitation of your current strategy with an awareness that you cannot continue to do the same things the same way you always have while you expect a different outcome. If you lose the opportunity offered by that moment, you have lost a part of the future. This is why you should treasure the times spent with mentors.

Education in a group environment provides you moments of instruction, formal and informal; honing of relational skills, building new networks, learning about other people’s values, culture and behavioral patterns.

By their uncanny specificity, moments create excitement or dread – excitement at what could be or dread of what is or might be but which could have been avoided, for example, a business idea or an encounter that speaks of great potential. Compare that to sitting in front of a doctor who tells you that you have a weak heart or a disease related to your habits and you will understand what I mean.

We should treasure moments because moments give us treasures… continued.

Remember, the sky is not your limit, God is!