How tightening your grip makes you lose momentum

When progress slows, motivation dips, or the year feels heavier than it did at the start, our instinct is to pull in harder. We set stricter rules, demand more consistency, and tell ourselves to try again, only harder than before. This tightening often replaces intention with effort and pressure with urgency. What began as self-guided growth becomes a self-imposed strain.

What if that tightening is exactly what keeps us from moving forward? There’s a useful analogy in learning how to kitesurf. In kiteboarding, beginners are often told not to hold the bar too tightly or to pull it in when afraid, even though it feels instinctive to do so. Gripping the bar harder in moments of confusion or perceived loss of control tends to make the kite behave more unpredictably, sometimes even crashing it entirely. Instructors encourage students to let go of the bar or lighten their grip to depower the kite and return to stability. That letting go, which feels counterintuitive, actually creates more control; not less.

Momentum in life works in a similar way. When we feel ourselves slipping, the response to clamp down more tightly often produces tension and resistance, not progress. The nervous system perceives the tighter grip as threat, not support. Just like a kite’s power surges when we yank the bar, our internal energy tightens and distorts when we try to force movement through pressure alone.

Getting off track rarely happens suddenly. It happens through small acts of disconnection: ignoring fatigue, overlooking emotional signals, overriding discomfort without reflection. Over time, enthusiasm turns into unsustainable effort. The path is still there, but we are no longer truly present on it.

Staying on track is not about forcing consistency or clinging to motivation. Motivation is emotional and inherently unstable. What sustains direction is awareness: the ability to notice when resistance rises and when avoidance begins to feel easier than engagement.

Many people respond to losing momentum by increasing control, tightening expectations, and demanding better behaviour from themselves. However, just as pulling the bar harder can crash a kite, tightening our internal grip can fuel anxiety, frustration and retreat. Sustainable momentum comes not from force, but from supporting the whole system.

To regain and maintain momentum, begin smaller than your mind wants. Favour manageable actions over heroic efforts. One aligned choice, gently repeated, builds trust between intention and behaviour. Momentum grows from credibility with yourself, not from pressure applied to yourself.

There is often grief involved in staying on track too: grief for the old ways of coping, the familiar stories of identity, and the habits that once felt protective. Progress asks us to loosen our grip on what once kept us safe, even if it no longer serves us.

Staying on track is not rigid adherence. It is responsiveness. It means noticing when something is no longer working and adjusting without self-betrayal. It means choosing curiosity over punishment, compassion over control. Those who sustain momentum are not the most forceful; they are the most attuned.

The path is not a straight line. It curves, pauses, and sometimes disappears from view. Getting back on track is not about returning to who you were at the start of the year. It is about meeting who you are now, with honesty, respect, and the willingness to let go of the bar when life feels too heavy. Only then do you find the rhythm that carries you forward with less strain and more grace.

Letting go doesn’t mean giving up. It means trusting the breeze beneath you, not your clenched hands. Often, that is the moment you finally begin to fly.