Why is consistency so important? Imagine if you were training for a marathon, and one day you decide to stop running. You might be able to get away with that for a few days or even weeks at the beginning of your training, but eventually, it will catch up with you. It's the same thing when it comes to achieving success in life: consistency is key!
What it means to stay consistent
Consistency is the critical driver for success. Being consistent means dedicating yourself to your goals and staying focused on the things and activities to achieve your goals. Consistency requires a long-term commitment from you and involves sustained effort in doing actions repeatedly until you achieve your goals. Discipline, accountability, and responsibility are all parts of staying consistent. Consistency can spell the difference between failure and success. Being consistent can help anybody to achieve success in any field of endeavor.
It can be pretty easy to see why many people cannot be successful in their lives nowadays because of the way our society works and the proliferation of technology everywhere. The world today revolves around providing instant gratification, and the presence of technology has made people more impatient, and they want quick results. With just too many distractions, people's minds have become muddled about what they want to achieve in life, and there's a lack of focus on what they want to do. Pair this all up with the lack of discipline, accountability, and responsibility, and it's easy to see why many people struggle with maintaining consistency.
How to practice consistency for personal development
The power of consistency is integral to achieving success in whatever we wish to do in life. So the first thing that you can do to maintain consistency is to have a clear goal in mind. Without a clear goal, it's hard to get motivated in anything that you do. If you're having difficulty having a goal in life, maybe you can take some inspiration from other people's experiences and stories. Try reading some books or get a life coach who can help guide you in giving clarity and focus in your life. Your goals are the ones that will serve as the driver for your motivation and consistency.
Once you have your goals, the next step is to create a plan to achieve your goals. Your overall goals are broad in vision and scope so break it down into smaller bits that you can achieve in shorter periods. For example, if your dreams will take ten years to complete, plan in detail what you will have to do for every year and then focus on the first year: what you must do for every month, then weeks, and then days. By creating a schedule and timetable and doing all these breakdowns, you will see what you need to do precisely at specific points in time, and everything becomes clear.
Once you set your goals and plans, next comes the hard part: doing things repeatedly and maintaining consistency over a long period. Many people can start with the goal-setting and plan-making steps, and then when they start doing something, they give up midway through the process, or maybe not even halfway through. It's essential to prepare ourselves mentally to develop consistency in what we are doing. It's important to remember that long-term goals involve making incremental progress over time and not snatching the big fish immediately. To help maintain a steady focus, we should direct our energy and minds to these things: focus on what's truly important, do things one at a time, and focus on the process and execution of the activity. Being present at the moment is a crucial thing here. Avoid dwelling too much on the future outcomes as that will distract us from what we have to do in the present moment.
Another thing that can be a great deal of help is to practice the idea of doing things 1% a day. Accomplish something every day, learn from it, and improve the next day once you start doing the same thing again. The percentages accumulate, and eventually, you will see yourself meeting the bigger goals that you have set in the first place.
Reasons why staying consistent is a key to success
There are several reasons why consistent hard work and maintaining it can lead us to achieve tremendous success in life.
1. Accountability
Performing actions consistently involves doing the same activities almost every day (we do need breaks sometimes). The moment we skip doing something for a day, or even two, and then our objective fails, it's easy to see why such a thing happened. Being consistent makes us accountable for all our actions. There is nobody else to blame if you are the one doing the activities needed to meet goals. We are missing out on a workday or two means we might need to adjust our actions and behaviors to complete plans.
2. Trust
Practicing consistency in our everyday lives helps build our trustworthiness with other people. It's easy to preach to others, but it might be harder to do what we say. People who "walk the talk" look very credible and trustworthy in the eyes of other people. When other people trust you, it makes you feel good about what you are doing, and you know that what you are doing is well worth it. Being trusted by others also helps build self-confidence and creates the momentum to push forward with meeting all of our goals and objectives.
3. Relevance and reputation
Concerning trust, maintaining consistency in our actions can make us relevant and build our reputation to others, especially if you are in business or a leader in some endeavor. Consistent hard work leads to long-term results, and people would like to work with someone who has a proven track record of accomplishing things. In business, this can mean more opportunities for clients. Doing your work consistently and earning good results can make a big difference in getting a promotion or staying a rank-and-file employee in a company setting.
4. Discipline and self-control
Being consistent can be challenging as it requires a lot of self-control, and it can be an entirely new habit if one is not used to being consistent in doing things. Practicing consistency instills discipline and makes us focus and more aware of what we have to do. It can be pretty tough to let go of old habits, but if we want to improve things and achieve personal growth, we have to be consistent in everything we do.
5. Goals become measurable
When trying out to do something new, you can only determine if it will be a success or a fail if you do it consistently for some time. If obtaining quick results is your cup of tea, chances are you might stop or drop doing things that you don't immediately see any success from doing it. Having the discipline to do something consistently will allow you to push through doing things and see if they will be effective or not. For all you know, there might be only minor changes that need to change in the process for an initiative to work, and it is only something you might see if you persist in doing it before deciding to give up.
Practice consistency now
Maintaining consistency in everything that we do in our life (as long as it's not consistency in making bad habits) can make all the difference between achieving success or not. It's not easy to practice consistent action, especially if it involves doing the same thing every day, which can look dull and repetitive. Practicing consistency consists in playing the long game, so don't expect immediate results. New habits need to form, and change is something that people can be hesitant to do. It is never too late to practice consistency, especially once we want to improve ourselves and meet our goals several years down the line. It can be tough to do it alone, so seek some guidance from other people, like a life coach, to help improve your way of doing things.
