How to work with consistency [#39]

You achieve extraordinary results by doing ordinary things for an extraordinary amount of time.

Problem Statement

I recently noticed this comment on LinkedIn:

“This is one area I need to improve: consistency. I’m great at sprints, but short bursts of energy don’t have the same compounding effect.”

Right down my alley.

Let's dive in.

Intro

Consistency is magical: you achieve extraordinary results by doing ordinary things for an extraordinary amount of time. 

In “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft”, Stephen King notes that he writes 2000 words every workday. While 2000 words is nothing to scoff at (that’s about 6 full pages in a Word doc), it’s nothing out of the ordinary. 

Yet over his career, he has published 65 books and over 200 shorts stories, making him one of the most prolific writers in history. 

That’s the magic of consistency. 

Context 

Doing things once with high energy isn’t worth much. What’s the ROI on one workout? Basically zero. That workout is only valuable of it is chained to consistent other workouts. 

While you can white-knuckle your way through one or maybe ten workouts, the magic lies in doing them consistently: 3-6 times a week, every week. 

Most of us fail at being consistent because we rely on willpower. But willpower is finite. 

To not deplete it, we need systems. 

Solution

“I only write when inspiration strikes. Luckily, it strikes every morning at 9am sharp.” - W. Somerset Maugham 

[1] Have a routine

Steadiness in your days is key to consistency. So try to make your workdays as “routine” as possible. You could, for example: 

• Wake up every day at the same time
• Go through the same morning routine 
• Block out the same hours for focused work daily 
• Have a similar daily pattern on every Thursday (eg. No meetings on Thursdays)

This might sound incredibly disciplined, but in discipline, there lies freedom. By executing your days following a similar pattern, you can free up mental energy needed to do good work. 

[2] One hour per day

Whatever you’re looking to achieve, it likely is impossible to do today. 

Take building a business: you can’t build a business today. 

But you can: 

• Work on a new product for 30 minutes
• Reach out to 5 potential clients
• Create one piece of content around your product 

If you do this daily for one year, you will have:

• Worked on a new product for 100 hours
• Reached out to 1000 potential clients
• Created 200 pieces of content

In short, a business. 

All it takes is one hour. 

[3] Pace yourself

When I first started working with a personal trainer, I was surprised how “easy” the workouts were. When I asked him, he replied: “well, I need you back here tomorrow to get after it.” 

Don’t always overexert yourself so much that you’re sore the next day. Intensity is important, but so is rest. It’s good to go the full distance every once in a while, but not all the time. 

[4] Measure how far you’ve come 

Leave some sort of paper trail of your activities. It’s incredibly rewarding to see the amount of work over time accumulate - so make sure you track it somewhere.

My girlfriend does this beautifully: she created a separate Instagram account where she posts whenever she works out. Looking back, she's accumulated a lot of workouts over time. I think that's beautiful.

Your metrics could be:

• Posts published
• Pages written
• Workouts completed
• Sales Calls made 

Looking back to the last month and seeing that you made 1000 cold calls / wrote 100 pages / completed 20 workouts / published 10 posts is cool. And will motivate you to continue adding to it. 

And if the breakthrough isn’t there yet, just keep going.

Because the only way to fail is to quit. 

Action Items

1. Identify one small thing you'd like to do daily
2. Pick one project that you can work towards with one hour (per week or day)
3. Next time you get tired, simply stop working. Rest, and when recovered, start working again.
4. Start tracking your activity and/or outcomes.

That's it. Thanks for reading.

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