The Treadmill Trap: Why 2026 Requires Momentum and Meaning

Well—I’m back in the gym. Determined to reach my goals, get moving, and start 2026 on the right foot. But here’s the problem: it feels familiar. Like I’ve said all this before. And I know why—last time, I had plenty of motion, but no meaning. I was doing the work, but I wasn’t connected to the why behind it. That’s not how I’m starting this year.

Momentum is seductive. It feels like progress. It sounds like purpose. It looks like productivity. But anyone who has ever been on a treadmill knows you can be drenched in sweat and still go nowhere. As we step into 2026, many of us are exhausted, not because we haven’t been moving, but because we’ve been moving without meaning. We had expectations. We also have disappointments. Both are real. And if we are honest, most of us are carrying them at the same time.

We expected healing. We got loss.

We expected stability. We got volatility.

We expected justice. We got noise.

Yet here we are; still moving. Still scrolling. Still hustling. Still trying. That’s momentum. But is it formation? Is it direction? Or are we simply drifting faster?

Neuroscientist Dr. Caroline Leaf reminds us that the brain is literally shaped by the direction of our thinking. In her work on neuroplasticity, she explains that positive, intentional thought patterns build healthy neural networks, while chronic negative patterns, fear, rumination, and hopelessness. These toxic pathways make clarity and resilience harder to access. In other words, momentum is not neutral. It is neurological. The direction of what you repeatedly think, believe, and act on is wiring your future. Positive momentum strengthens the brain’s capacity for creativity, regulation, and hope. Negative momentum hardens anxiety, impulsivity, and despair.

Now stretch that insight beyond the individual to the collective.

America, right now, has momentum, but not necessarily meaning.

We are moving faster than ever: more information, more outrage, more technology, more money, more weapons, more noise. But our movement is not matched by moral clarity. We are accelerating in the wrong direction. We have momentum without maturity. Innovation without wisdom. Freedom without formation. A nation can be busy and broken at the same time. History is full of empires that collapsed not because they stopped moving, but because they refused to turn.

That prophetic tension between motion and meaning is also alive in our personal lives.

You prayed. You worked. You sacrificed. Yet some doors didn’t open. Some relationships didn’t survive. Some dreams didn’t come true. It’s tempting to either deny the disappointment or drown in it. But formation requires both honesty and hope. 

The truth is: disappointment does not cancel destiny but unexamined momentum can delay it.

So what does it mean to move into 2026 with direction, not just speed?

Here are two practical strategies for building formation-based momentum:

1. Establish Directional Anchors, Not Just Goals

Goals answer the question, “What do I want?”

Directional anchors answer the deeper question, “Who am I becoming?”

Goals can change. Anchors stabilize.

Instead of only setting financial, professional, or fitness goals, define three directional anchors for your life in 2026. For example:

• I am becoming emotionally healthy.

• I am becoming spiritually grounded.

• I am becoming relationally present.

Every major decision should be filtered through these anchors. Does this opportunity move me toward who I am becoming, or away from it? This is how you prevent momentum from becoming misalignment.

Direction gives motion meaning.

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2. Build Formation Rhythms, Not Just Motivation

Motivation is powerful, but temporary.

Formation is what happens when habits reinforce identity.

If you want sustained momentum, you need rhythms: daily, weekly, and monthly practices that shape your nervous system, not just your schedule.

This might include:

• A morning stillness ritual to calm your brain and reset your emotional baseline.

• A weekly digital Sabbath to interrupt anxiety loops.

• A monthly reflection practice to evaluate what is forming you.

These rhythms literally reshape the brain, according to Leaf’s research, creating space for clarity, peace, and strategic thinking. You don’t just feel better; you think better.

And better thinking leads to better direction.

We are entering a season of deep uncertainty. Economically. Politically. Spiritually. But uncertainty is not the enemy of faith, it is the environment where faith is formed.

You are not behind.

You are not broken.

You are being shaped.

2026 is not calling you to move faster, it is calling you to move truer. To let your expectations be refined by your experiences. To let your disappointments become data, not defeat. To allow God, wisdom, and intentionality to give your momentum meaning.

So keep moving, but turn your face toward what is forming you.

Because in the end, it is not how fast you go that changes your life.

It is who you are becoming while you go.

Ready to trade motion for formation?

This isn’t just a message—it’s a checkpoint for your next move.

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Let’s move with meaning—steady, anchored, and together.

-Matthew L. Brown