When you learn how to be consistent, you learn how to steadily better your life over time. It’ll only be a matter of time before you actually get there. People don’t better themselves because they put in 24 hours of work in a single day. They better themselves by putting in 1 hour per day over 24 days.
I know the feeling. It’s New Years’ Resolution time so you make a resolution to go to the gym every single day for the next two months. However, that just doesn’t work. By the end of January, the gyms are at half capacity. By the end of February, it’s pretty much a ghost town. Consistent effort is better than intense burst of short term effort.
One of my new year’s resolutions for 2022 will be to go to the gym 2 – 3x a week. It’s been almost three years since I stepped foot inside a gym. I don’t want to set a resolution to go to the gym seven times a week because I know that’s not realistic. My new employer has a gym inside the building which I will take full advantage of.
I am looking forward to putting in the work on a consistent basis rather than working out 5 hours in a single day and not going back to the gym thereafter. Once I figured out how to be consistent is when I put in the effort in order to get to my goals. Your life isn’t because of big events happening sparingly here and there.
it’s because of the accumulation of little things that make up your entire life. It’s unbelievable just how important consistency is until you actually experience it throughout the years. Remember that negative consistency can impact you just as much as positive ones.
Why People Struggle with Consistency
Many people struggle with consistency because they want quick results. Things that are worth doing in life require substantial time. So because people want quick results by putting in minimal effort, they think a short burst of effort is all they need. That couldn’t be further from the truth.
Too many people give themselves a pat on the back for taking 3 hours cleaning the house for a single day. That’s not how it works. Cleaning the house is a maintenance activity that requires effort across time. Just because you clean the house thoroughly for a single day doesn’t mean that it’ll stay clean.
It requires effort and time to maintain it. The burst of dopamine that hits them for finishing a task is enough to last for the next coming months. That’s why people struggle with being consistent. They know how to be consistent. All you have to do is do the same thing over and over again until results show up.
However, most people don’t actually practice consistency. Turning $100,000 into millions after 40 years at an 8% interest rate isn’t any new voodoo math. People knew the math 40 years ago. However, only about 8% are millionaires today. That’s shocking. Even after knowing how to be consistent, only about 8% actually practiced it.
That’s what most people struggle with. Knowledge is useless without application. And 92% of people don’t actually apply the knowledge that can change their life forever and create generational knowledge, power, and wealth. It’s difficult to show up every single day and put in the effort. There’s a reason why showing up is half the battle.
Once you show up every single day, you already won.
How to be Consistent
How to be consistent? You can SMASH that social share button and post to your favorite social media! Day in and day out, it’ll help the world be a smarter place.
In seriousness, let’s get into the tangible steps to take to be consistent.
1) Keep Track of the Day to Day
You can’t be consistent if you don’t track or even remember what you did yesterday. Write down the important events that happened yesterday. See if you can replicate it for today. If you can’t, what’s stopping you from doing so? Part of knowing how to be consistent is actually knowing what to be consistent on.
My day to day need to do’s on the weekend is to write blog posts. Day in and day out, without fail. I’ve given up on blogs before and it still pains me how much further I would be if I hadn’t done that. Sit down and find out what you want to be consistent on and make sure you are actually doing it every day.
It takes so much effort to do something over and over again, only seeing marginal results. Do you know how hard it was to save a majority of my money only for my net worth to go up like 1%? It was demoralizing what I was giving up but I emotionlessly stuck with it until today. That was a wise decision.
2) Control Your Emotions
Your emotions are the number one reason keeping you from being consistent. A robot emotionlessly executes its code without fail. So consistency is second nature to robots. It’s much harder for humans to be consistent because we have emotions. However, once you learn to tame it is when you’ll do just fine.
In my younger days, I would create a New Year’s Resolution filled with so many things that I want to accomplish for the year. I would look forward to the new year with beady eyes filled with hope and optimism. “This is it!!”, I would think to myself. Then my day job gets in the way, my weekends are filled with errands to run.
I end up not accomplishing anything that I want to accomplish. Sure, my net worth went up every year and that was a very enjoyable part. However, other than that, there wasn’t anything else. I wanted to take a self defense class, for example, and never got around to doing it.
I am now in a place of cautious optimism and that’s helped me more than I know.
3) Write it Down to Remain Consistent
Writing down goals and having to-do lists are powerful inventions. Our memory is great but it oftentimes fails us because we have so much new information to cram every day. If you want to be consistent, you have to write it down. Then come back to it after a couple of months to see if you got to where you wanted to go.
I’ve written down every single New Year’s Resolution then I see if I got to where I wanted to go after some time. Most years, I don’t accomplish everything on the list. It’s mainly because I figured out that I have a health problem that forces me to not be as adventurous as I would like.
The biggest problem that I want to solve in 2022 is that health problem, mainly digestive problems. That is my number one goal for the new year and something that I know I can accomplish because I already know the how. I just need to execute on the goal.
The important thing is that I wrote it down so that I can actually come back to it later on.
4) Show Up As Often As You Can
Don’t give up and just show up every day. I don’t care if your quality is declining, I care if you are actually putting in the effort to show up. Maybe instead of working out for an hour like usually, you work out for 30 minutes only. However, what matters is that you just show up and keep putting in the work.
I must say that my motivation for blogging has declined in the recent months but I know I’m never going to give up on it. I committed to putting out content 2x a week for at least two years to see where it’ll go and I’m not backing down anytime soon. As long as I continue to fire up the laptop and show up, I know I’ll get there.
The key part is just starting. No matter what you have to do, just figure out a way to start. Then you’ve won. If you want to work out, then just start by getting in your car and driving yourself to the gym. If you have to do some work, just fire up the laptop and log into your work credentials. Just show up and your mind will do the rest.
5) Mimic Prior Days’ Actions
The point of consistency is to do the same things over and over again until one day you wake up a success. So then it’s so much important to actually mimic and do what you did yesterday to continue and keep up with the streak. It’s important to mimic what you did the day before.
Whenever I want to lose weight, I keep track of what I ate the day before, see how much pounds I lost or gained and adjust accordingly. After I adjust accordingly, I stay on the same diet for a prolonged period of time. It’s what allowed me to lose 20 pounds during the pandemic while many were gaining pounds.
Yes, I gained all of it back within the past six months due to work stress. However, I figured out the general principles. If I want to lose 20 pounds all over again, I can easily do so. In fact, I already lost 8 pounds of the 20 pounds that I regained. If I just wanted to, I can get there again. That’s the great part.
6) Figure Out What Went Differently
Sometimes, we actually can’t do the same things over and over again. That’s when you need to figure out what went differently. Is it because you got a phone call from a friend who haven’t talked to in years? They interrupted you for hours on end which led you to losing the streak you built up?
It doesn’t matter what it is, sometimes one off things happen more times than we would like. When you lose a streak because of one-off events like that, then it’s time to give yourself a break. Part of knowing how to be consistent is knowing when certain inconsistencies are fine. It’s impossible to do the same things all over again.
Until the rest of eternity. It’s just not a realistic goal. As much as I would prefer that schedule, I know it’s not even close to being a possibility. When one-off things like these happen, figure out what went differently and adjust accordingly. I fiercely protect my weekday hours because I know how important consistency is to me.
Whatever is necessary and important for you, protect it with all your might.
7) Accept that You Can’t Control Everything
Sometimes, things are going to pop up that are outside of your control. A friend you haven’t talked to in years is getting married so you attend their wedding. Or any infinite number of different things can happen. Accept that these things happen and give yourself a break when you’re not consistent.
I went to a wedding in December 2021 and my parents came to visit me all the way from South Korea in August 2021. I can’t control those events from not happening and I wouldn’t have missed those events for the world.
Understand that it’s just going to happen and there’s really nothing you can do about it because you don’t want to miss out on those moments.
It’s great to know how to be consistent and it’s also great to know when it’s OK that you’re not practicing consistency. It always makes me feel bad that I’m losing a streak when I’m on a roll. Trust me when I say I wish I could keep those streaks alive.
However, I’m always glad to make time for the people who matter in my life.
8) Be Mentally Present Every Day
There are times when you don’t even know you’re being inconsistent because you’re so busy and caught up in the moment. When I’m working on an interesting transaction at work, I get into it and don’t even realize time passed. This is a state I like to call, “work flow”.
This is the hardest scenario to watch out for because you don’t know when it’s going to hit you. I don’t control what kind of transactions come to my desk. All I can control is my recognition of the external stimuli as they come to my desk. Control your mind and don’t get so swept up in the moment that you’re not mentally present.
Once someone else gets you distracted away from what you’re truly feeling in the moment is when you lose. You are completely at the other person’s mercy and under their spell. You have to be mentally tough and strong in order to break free from the many external stimuli that will distract you and stop you from the goal of being consistent.
Learn How to be Consistent for the Long Run
The long run is what matters the most in life. It doesn’t matter what happens in the short run, it matters what happens in the long run. Part of knowing how to be consistent is to focus on the long term. And let me tell you, long term is LONG. It feels like an eternity. The best way to prepare for eternity is to manage expectations.
Don’t expect yourself to be a really buff person after 3 months of working out. People who work out for years haven’t figured out how to be ripped. Just expect yourself to maintain a healthy weight and healthy vitals and that’s a good expectation. If anything more happens after that, then that’s just a bonus.
When I started my wealth building journey, I didn’t expect to be an overnight millionaire. Not by a long shot. I just wanted to save and invest my money so I just patiently put in as much dollars as I could onto the S&P 500. I saved bonuses, employer match, and many more in the hopes that I would one day make it.
While I haven’t made it yet, I know that it’s only just around the corner. I hope to be a millionaire by mid 2024. It’s wild to know that it’s only 2 – 3 years away. That all of my efforts will just pay off and show up after just 2 – 3 years. That makes me giddy thinking about all of the possibilities.
After you know how to be consistent, now it’s time to actually manage expectations and set low expectations for yourself. Anything that you do above those low expectations is just the icing on the cake. That’s how you trick your brain into continuing to do positive things that add value to your life.
How to be Consistent Shortlist
- Keep track of the day to day
- Control your emotions
- Write it down to remain consistent
- Show up as often as you can
- Mimic prior days’ actions
- Figure out what went differently
- Accept that you can’t control everything
- Be mentally present every day
