Coaching practices for I Keep Lurching From One Big New Initiative to the Next Each One Wiping Out Whatever Momentum the Last Was Building and I'm Exhausted with Nothing to Show I Want to Pick One Direction and Just Keep Pushing Steadily Until it Builds Its Own Weight
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For I Keep Lurching From One Big New Initiative to the Next Each One Wiping Out Whatever Momentum the Last Was Building and I'm Exhausted with Nothing to Show I Want to Pick One Direction and Just Keep Pushing Steadily Until it Builds Its Own Weight, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- I keep lurching from one big new initiative to the next, each one wiping out whatever momentum the last was building, and I’m exhausted with nothing to show
- I've got five big things going at once and I bounce anxiously between all of them, so none of them ever really gathers momentum
- I throw myself at a dozen unrelated things and a few years later I’ve got nothing to show for any of them
- The size of what I’m trying to achieve is so overwhelming that I keep trying to move the whole mountain at once and end up paralyzed
- We keep piling new initiatives on top of old ones we’ve outgrown but never stopped, so the team is overloaded and there’s no room to start anything fresh
Practices that may help
- Build the flywheel through consistent small pushes
Great results come from sustained, consistent effort in one direction — not a single dramatic transformation.
Level 5 Leadership: Humility and Will in Great Leaders - Keep only one major open loop at a time
Limit yourself to one large incomplete project so the pull is focused, not scattered.
The Zeigarnik Effect: Using Task Tension to Stay Motivated - Organize effort under one top-level goal
Arrange your day-to-day goals as a hierarchy serving one overarching aim.
Grit: Passion and Perseverance, Honestly Assessed - Line up your dominoes
Knock down one right thing and it builds momentum to topple progressively bigger ones.
The ONE Thing, Made Practical - Use Start-Stop-Keep reviews to drive continuous improvement
Regularly ask what the team should start, stop, and keep doing — and act on the answers.
The Rockefeller Habits: Scaling Up with Rhythm and Focus - Letting yourself finish and stop
Choose a small number of projects and actually complete them before adding more.
Four Thousand Weeks, Made Practical - Use the "little and often" approach for long projects
Chip at big projects every day in small doses rather than saving them for marathon sessions.
Do It Tomorrow, Made Practical - Change one thing, not everything
Concentrate all your behavior-change budget on a single keystone instead of spreading it thin.
Keystone Habits: The Few Changes That Cascade - Use discipline to build the right habit
You don’t need endless discipline — just enough to install the few habits that matter.
The ONE Thing, Made Practical - Choose the smallest workable next step
Break committed action down until the next step is small enough to take today, even in a hard moment.
Committed Action, Made Practical
Related concerns
- When Stretch Goals Post Stretch Consolidation
After hitting a stretch target, take time to stabilise the new level before stretching again.
Consolidate and celebrate after a stretch goal is reached
- When Grit Cultivate A Top Level Goal
Arrange your day-to-day goals as a hierarchy serving one overarching aim.
Organize effort under one top-level goal
- When The 12 Week Year Pick Few Goals
Choose one to three goals for the 12 weeks so effort concentrates instead of scattering.
Commit to only a few goals per cycle
- When The Seinfeld Strategy Chain For One Goal At A Time
Start a second chain only after the first has run for at least 30 days without breaking.
Run one chain at a time to prevent dilution
- The Minto Pyramid Principle During A Big Change
Barbara Minto’s Pyramid Principle says to lead with the answer, then support it with grouped, parallel reasoning. The approach originated at McKinsey and is widely adopted in consulting, law, and business writing. Direct evidence for its superiority over other structures is limited — it is established professional practice rather than an experimentally validated method.
- The Rockefeller Habits Scaling Up With Rhythm And Focus On A Budget
Verne Harnish’s Rockefeller Habits (updated in Scaling Up) distill John D. Rockefeller’s management practices into a system of priorities, data, and meeting rhythms that keep growing companies focused and coordinated. The framework is practitioner-developed and widely used in scale-up companies; the evidence base is primarily case-study and clinical rather than controlled trial.
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