Let’s face it: being consistent is not easy, but we all know how it can make our lives better. If you have had trouble with consistency, then you’re not alone. Let me elaborate through a personal experience.
I once had ample time during a break. Yet, I couldn't find the time for the gym or reading—those "I'll do it someday" activities. This led to a frustrating realization.
Why is discipline so hard?
Why do we procrastinate?
Why is forming a new routine so challenging?
I found this extremely strange. Is it aiming for perfectionism? Is it the fear of criticism? Is it the effort? Is it the lack of confidence? Upon giving it some thought, I realized starting something for me is never a problem, but consistently doing it is.
To understand why this happens, I had to understand what consistency means.
Here’s the right definition.
Consistency = Constancy = Unchanging. Being consistent means you believe in the “why” of staying constant around that activity.
The next obvious question is how does one stay consistent?
I have identified two major steps that have helped me stay consistent for the past 2 months.
Step 1: Identify the Why
Every action has a reason. If you look back into anything that you do, you’ll always be able to associate a reason to that activity. That’s the ‘why’ of doing it. It is critical for us as humans to associate a reason to any activity. If we don’t, we often find ourselves unable to perform that task wholeheartedly.
I would love to illustrate this with two examples:
You brush your teeth daily. Effortlessly. It takes roughly 5 minutes to brush your teeth, yet you do it daily. But you don’t like to meditate for 5 minutes daily.
You eat food daily. It takes somewhere about 30 minutes to eat food. But you don’t like to walk daily for 30 mins.
It’s surprising that some tasks we just do on autopilot while some tasks take a lot of courage to do. Even though the results of both the tasks could be highly rewarding. For instance, in the above example it takes the same time to eat food and walk daily. In addition to that both the tasks are equally rewarding. Yet, we often don’t do the second one.
To understand the reason behind it, you need to associate the why. For instance, taking the first example of brushing your teeth. You brush your teeth daily because you know if you don’t, you’ll have a bad breath. And in the long term, you may carry diseases, which might hurt you and your wallet, both. You have associated ‘the why’ with brushing your teeth.
Let’s take another example. I am sure this must have happened with you at some point in your life.
One fine day you decide to go to the gym. Super pumped!
You went to the gym, and worked out for 30 minutes. Felt extremely proud and happy about it.
You did the same the next day.
The day after that..
But then..
Your motivation starts to wear off.
Why?
Because your mind hasn’t correlated the WHY attached with going to the gym.
Once you have figured why:
it’s important for you to stay healthy
it’s important for you to treat your body like a temple
there is a need for you to stay fit and healthy
Then you don’t need motivation to be able to go to the gym. It’ll happen on autopilot. Similar to brushing your teeth :)
Step 2: Start small
We often overvalue grand ambitions and underrate staring small. Unfortunately, in doing so we often find ourselves lost. This is reflected in almost anything we wish to start new.
I’d again like to illustrate the importance of ‘starting small’ with an example
Imagine, it’s your first day at the gym and you decided to do 50 push-ups. What do you expect will happen the next day? Your body will hurt. And you will do everything in your power to avoid going the next day.
Learning: If you take on a big task on day zero, it will be difficult for you to keep up with that task.
Start as small as say, doing 5 pushups a day BUT for 30 days straight. If you were to follow this, you could see yourself developing the superpower of being consistent.
Still not convinced?
Here are some added benefits of being consistent:
You automatically create momentum: Because you are eager to do something daily, you are creating progress daily. As humans, we love progress. That helps us create momentum. Which helps us keep moving forward.
You amplify skill: It increases your practice to do something regularly which amplifies the skill. Say if you wish to learn design. You practice only one flow per day but do it for 30 days. In no time, you have developed a hard skill with the superpower of being consistent.
Increases your willpower: When you start forming multiple habits on a daily basis, you’ll realize you were more than ready to pick on new things and do it flawlessly.
Funny disclaimer:
I became a regular at the gym. Though, I found myself treating myself to a bar of chocolate every time I came back from the gym.
1 session of gym = Great = 1 bar of chocolate.
1 bar of chocolate meant eating 600 calories in a few seconds (forming a bad habit alongside a good habit). It wasn’t a wise choice. I realized why this may defeat the entire framework. That’s when I realized, associating a reward with the activity is good. But understanding the actual reward is of great importance.
In this case, my actual reward was the fact
How I would look when I am healthy
How I would feel when I am healthy
That was it. From there on, it was a new journey. A truly healthy journey.
Concluding thoughts:
Being consistent is having a great super power by your side. The best part is it’s not something that you are born with. You can acquire this skill and change your life.
If someone is able to understand the power of being consistent, the effects of that could be everlasting rewarding. If you do so, you have achieved something beyond. You have just acquired control over yourself. Control to change your behavior at any point in time.
I am happy to be your accountability partner in helping you develop this super power. RT and email me on how I can help at akshay.reachme@gmail.com. Let’s take you to heights :)
