To be truly successful, you have to be consistent. Unfortunately, this can sometimes be very hard to do. It’s so easy to make excuses and justify procrastinating on something because you don’t feel like doing it at the moment, or you think that tomorrow will be better and more productive than today.
But when you’re looking back on your life with all of your hopes and dreams coming true, you won’t care about how hard it was getting there; just that you got there anyway and that consistency got you where you wanted to go.
Stop trying
Of course, consistency isn’t easy, but it’s also not impossible. For example, why not try focusing on one new habit at a time? You don’t have to tackle everything at once.
Another good strategy: Only think about long-term goals on your weekly day off or while out running errands, and leave every other moment free for short-term goals like eating lunch or working out.
If you can carve out space in your life for both long- and short-term thinking and planning, you’ll be more consistent over time. You might not be perfect — who is? — but what matters most is that you keep trying to be consistent without blaming yourself when you slip up. And that’s how it’s done.
One of my favorite quotes comes from former track coach John Jock Elliott — and it resonates every time I think about discipline and consistency. The harder you work, he once said, the harder it is to surrender.
When you reach that point, continue until you drop. There will be no humiliation greater than having to quit when within sight of your goal.
Trying doesn’t work because it’s passive. Telling yourself that you have to be consistent isn’t going to help much either.
Focus on the present
We live in a day and age where instant gratification is at an all-time high. Take Amazon Prime, for example, You can have anything delivered within two days. Or faster. When it comes to our fitness goals (or any goal for that matter).
We want results yesterday and we want them fast! It’s great that we’re so ambitious about what we want out of life; it’s also limiting if you don’t know how to make sure you get those results without immediate gratification. And that’s why consistency matters more than almost anything else:
If you can be consistent with your efforts in achieving a goal, even if those efforts are small, something amazing will happen — you will achieve your goal! We promise!
We all have things we’d like to improve about ourselves. Many of us use these items as excuses: I’m sorry I missed that deadline, but my health problems make it hard for me to be consistent.
It may be true that you can’t help having a headache from time to time — but if you want to be on-time more often than not, focus on what you can control: writing consistently and well in your planner.
One of the most common mistakes that businesses make is not focusing on today. Instead of doing all they can to be successful in a day, they’re worried about tomorrow.
Being consistent and focused on today gives you more opportunities for success. If you want something done properly, do it yourself: No one knows your business as well as you do — and no one will care about its success more than you.
Create rituals
Once you know what habits you’re looking to build, think about how you can stick with those daily goals and rituals. For example, if it’s important for you to wake up early every day but have a hard time doing so currently.
Your goal could be something like waking up at 6:30 am every day. Your ritual might then be something like keeping my alarm clock across my room, so I have to get out of bed to turn it off. Whatever you decide for your goals and rituals needs to work for your schedule (and life).
If waking up early fits into your schedule easily but getting out of bed is still difficult after trying all of these strategies, that’s ok — adjust accordingly!
Here’s how to make consistent action part of your weekly ritual. Create a consistent environment: Make it easy for yourself to succeed by creating an environment that supports you and makes action automatic.
Schedule reminders: One of my favorite pieces of productivity advice is from Neil book The Now Habit. Create daily rituals for yourself that make being consistent easier.
So instead of worrying about how you’re going to have time in your schedule for both work and exercise, create a ritual where each day before you leave for work you put on your gym clothes.
When you do it every day without fail (because when you fail to follow through with creating these rituals it turns into a reason not to go), it becomes just another thing that you do like getting dressed in the morning.
Celebrate your success,
Focus on what you’ve accomplished so far. That helps you avoid making excuses. We all have off days where we feel unmotivated — but there’s no place for that inconsistency.
Instead of focusing on how tired or busy you are when things get tough, celebrate your progress. Remind yourself that you’re already doing more than most people who claim they want to change but never make it happen.
Rewards will come eventually — and trust us: They’ll be well worth it in advance, and after they happen. And if you fall short on a day?
Taking time each week to celebrate your successes, no matter how small they may seem, will help you build consistency into your life. Make a list of things you’ve done consistently for at least one month.
Celebrate them in a journal or in front of friends and family. And remind yourself that it’s a big deal to be consistent; people who are inconsistent don’t make it far in any field or industry.
It can be hard to maintain consistency in your work — that’s why you must celebrate it! By recognizing and even taking advantage of your small successes.
You’ll be able to keep a big-picture perspective on your overall progress. If you take every little step forward and view it as a success, then you’ll feel encouraged by how far you’ve come.
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