Sometimes when things slow down, the immediate instinct is to create movement.
Do something!
Send the message.
Start the project.
Make the decision.
Launch the next step.
Not always because the timing is clear or the direction has fully formed (we haven’t probably even thought of those yet), but because movement relieves the discomfort of waiting. Activity restores a sense of control, even when clarity has not yet returned.
Yet movement, by itself, is not the same as momentum.
Many of us have been trained to measure progress through visible activity. If something is happening, we assume things are working. If things quiet down, we assume something is wrong. As a result, uncertainty triggers action (because stillness feels unfamiliar).
Over time, this pattern creates a costly misunderstanding: the belief that speed equals progress.
In reality, action taken primarily to reduce discomfort rarely produces sustainable results. Instead, it often leads to exhaustion that rest alone cannot fully resolve. This exhaustion doesn’t come only from doing too much. It often develops when leaders repeatedly act from misaligned states, continuing to execute according to expectations, rhythms, or values that no longer match who they’ve become.
From the outside, this can still look like consistency.
On the inside, it often feels like quiet self-abandonment.
Momentum operates differently.
Momentum is not speed; it’s coherence. It forms when direction, timing, and internal state begin to support the same movement. A person can move quickly and still feel strained, scattered, or heavy. Another can move even slowly and experience clarity, continuity, and stability building underneath each step.
The difference is not productivity.
It’s alignment.
Human systems don’t function in straight lines with same pace at all times. They operate in cycles, periods of focused effort followed by integration, recovery, and recalibration. When movement respects these cycles, energy sustains itself more naturally. When it overrides them, effort becomes increasingly expensive.
This is why sustainable leadership requires a different relationship to action: not constant pace, but intelligent pacing; not urgency, but alignment; not more activity, but truer movement.
When action is driven primarily by urgency, the nervous system often shifts into a stress-activated state. Muscle tension increases, breathing becomes shorter, attention narrows, and decisions may feel rushed. Movement becomes reactive rather than intentional.
When action comes from an internally aligned and regulated state, the body typically feels steadier, breathing more even, attention clearer, and decisions more deliberate. Even when the step itself is bold or unfamiliar. In this state, progress becomes self-reinforcing. Each step supports the next, and effort no longer needs to be forced.
Momentum begins there: in regulated, internally supported action that allows movement to build naturally over time.
Leadership isn’t sustained by how quickly a person acts.
It’s sustained by how consistently their actions remain aligned.
True progress doesn’t require constant motion.
It requires movement that is coherent with who you are becoming.
With grace,
Paula
xx
If this post met you, you’re welcome to join Sacred Notes, a quiet weekly rhythm I share by email: https://paulaimmo.myflodesk.com/sacrednotes.