The Power of Consistency
While many believe that knowledge is power, knowledge is only powerful when it’s consistently applied. A small step forward each day adds up to a lot of mileage over time. Consistency may be the most important component of succeeding in anything you want to accomplish in your personal or working life.
Are the little things you do each day adding up to something positive? Or is the quality of your life slowly slipping away?
With consistent action over the next 10 or 20 years, what could you accomplish? Ten minutes of meditation each day / 5 days per week equals 61 hours of meditation a year…that’s amazing!
Just show up everyday! I tell this to my friends, my family and myself when going through a rough patch, when feeling about to quit or discouraged or tired of not seeing fast results.
Use the power of consistency to enhance your success:
If you re-lived today for the next 10 years, where would you end up? If you saved just a small amount of money each day, you’d eventually be wealthy. If you overeat slightly each day, you’d weigh 400+ lbs.
- An effective way to predict your success is to examine your average day and project the likely outcome into the future. An hour each night spent practicing the piano would give different results versus spending an extra hour watching television.
- Your teeth aren’t clean because you brushed them for an hour straight. They’re clean because you brushed them for 3 minutes for 3,000 days straight.
- Consider where your daily habits and behaviors are leading you financially, socially, spiritually, and physically. What are the logical conclusions of your daily activities?
Realize that many changes in life come slowly. Many success gurus advocate taking massive action to see massive results, but that strategy is difficult to apply and maintain. I’ve been there, done that and bought the t-shirt.
- Consider weight loss: You can’t lose 25 lbs. in a day. I remember after giving birth to the twins I wanted to loose all that baby weight fast. It took me a year! But to succeed I made a daily habit of exercising and eating healthier and eventually, those small, regular changes added up to great results. I showed up!
- Building a fortune, the perfect body, or a great relationship all take time and consistency.
Consistency requires habits or discipline, or both. Use your discipline to develop useful habits. Relying on discipline day after day is a losing battle for most of us. While discipline can grow with effort, having effective habits is more effective and much less painful.
Learn to act in the moment. The greatest barrier to consistency is the belief that you can postpone an action to another day. Each day has the power to bring you closer to your goals. There is a saying in Spanish that translates to this: “don’t leave for tomorrow what you can do today”
- The only real discipline required is the discipline to act right now.
Have reasonable expectations. When your time horizon is unrealistic, it’s not easy to be consistent. When you ask too much of yourself too soon, it’s just as challenging. Be positive and enthusiastic, but be reasonable. Put your focus on regular and consistent improvement. Perfection isn’t required. You can use goal setting techniques for this.
Use reminders or triggers in your environment to encourage consistency. Think about the things that you do every day that could serve as reminders.
- For example, every night I have a routine where after putting the girls to bed, I prepare my gym clothes, work clothes and all I need for the next day, in order to get out of the house on time so I can have time after I leave the girls in school for my meditation time. That was a lot even reading it! but it serves my purpose of meditating daily.
What you do once in a while doesn’t impact your life significantly. Rather, it’s what you do consistently. Consistency is a major predictor of success in any endeavor. Develop habits and routines that guarantee success. Consistent behaviors determine your outcomes, so choose behaviors that make sense.
Let me know if this helps you in becoming more consistent and feel free to leave me your comments below!
XO, M
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