The Five Pillars of Consistency
A reminder to you and me both
I spent most of this week working on an article for this newsletter that I hated. I was just about done with it when I crumbled it up and Steph Curry’d it into the trash can–actually I was writing on my laptop so I right-clicked and deleted it, but you get the point.
Earlier this year, I committed to writing one article per week. Up until now, this task hadn’t been terribly challenging. I was highly motivated and excited by this new and shiny goal. Aside from writing, things have been going pretty well in my life. But, this week things changed, and I was bombarded by a tornado of work, family issues, and general life challenges that were pulling me away from my writing commitment. Distractions, enter stage left.
Being consistent in our objectives is easy in smooth seas, but when the storm winds blow, that’s the true test of our resolve.
I started writing on Monday motivated by my fear of inconsistency, rather than my actual love of writing. I read my first draft, and quickly realized I had spent hours throwing dog poop at the page hoping it would stick. In other words, I was quite literally forcing myself to write just for the sake of fulfilling my goal of one article per week. Wait a second, I thought, there are easier ways to do this consistency thing.
So rather than write you a long story or reflection as I usually do, I decided I’d leave you with five practical ways to stay consistent in any endeavor, as a reminder to you and me both.
GET YOUR SH*T TOGETHER
Organization is the most important tool in my arsenal, but that wasn’t always the case. It took me over 23 years of life to develop a system for organizing my life. All throughout my childhood and even through college I was an absolute mess. How I made it all the way through grad school without even having so much as a daily schedule or planner is beyond me.
It may seem obvious but if we want to commit to a daily habit or complete a major life goal, then we need to actually set aside time to do it. For me, this is the biggest obstacle I face when I am working toward a goal, whether it be meditation, writing, or working out. I always think, Oh yeah, I’ll definitely do that. How could I forget? But simply saying I’ll do something is flimsy. It lacks commitment. If something else comes up, or I get distracted then, bye-bye, there goes my goal.
The only way to ensure consistency is to make whatever it is I want to accomplish a part of my schedule and adhere to it with religious piety. If I decide that I want to write every Monday and Tuesday between 4 and 6 PM (this is a real example), then I need to set aside everything else to accommodate that commitment. When I sit down to write, nothing will pull me away.
One extremely useful tool I’ve been using this year is the Hobonichi Techo planner. It’s a tiny pocket-sized little booklet that has yearly, monthly, and daily calendars plus space to journal, doodle, and brainstorm. I love it because I can see what I have planned for the year, month, and day all in one place. I can also brainstorm writing ideas, doodle, and plan my day. Every day I make sure to write out my daily schedule by the hour. This way, every morning, I have a clear idea of what the day will bring. This has been immense in helping me reduce stress because I don’t have to remember to do anything; it’s all right there. On top of that, I take a photo of my daily schedule on my phone and upload it to Notion, which is a great organizational app. You can organize almost anything on Notion, it’s like having a second brain.
Anyway, I digress. My point is, it’s vital to develop a system of organization that works for you.
TAKE THE FIRST STEP, FIRST
When I was younger I used to have many grand goals, and I could never quite figure out how to consistently work toward them. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that focusing on the grand objective will only get you so far. Of course, dreaming big and envisioning success is great, and it might get you pumped and motivated to start working toward your goals, but eventually–at least in my experience–that initial infatuation with our shiny new objective is going to wither away. That might be why everyone’s enthusiasm for their New Year’s Resolutions usually dissipates by mid-March. New Year’s Resolutions tend to be lofty objectives rather than clear-cut plans of action with daily micro-objectives.
When I decided to start focusing on the small steps of my goals, AKA the process, instead of the entirety of the goals themselves, I found it a lot easier to stick with them. Climbing a mountain is hard, but if you just focus on taking one more step every day, then it’s actually pretty easy.
I recently came across a poem by Irish author, David Whyte, called Start Close In. Here are two stanzas that perfectly address how to get started on working toward a goal:
Start close in,
don’t take the second step
or the third,
start with the first
Thing
close in,
the step
you don’t want to take.
Start with
the ground
you know,
the pale ground
beneath your feet,
your own
way to begin
the conversation.
We all want to achieve something, but we don’t really want to do the work. The work part sucks. So as Whyte says, the key is not to worry about the big picture, just take the first step, the one you don’t want to take. Start small and go from there.
One of my favorite books that I read in 2021 was Atomic Habits by James Clear. In the first few chapters, he talks about the idea of “continuous improvement” and reframing the way we measure progress. Essentially, Clear says if we simply improve 1% every day then in a year we will be 37% better. Clear’s whole point is that we need to get rid of this idea that we will set and accomplish large goals quickly. Big changes are the result of consistent, continual improvement… many small steps, not a few big leaps.
Seems pretty easy to stay consistent if all you have to do is move 1% closer to your goal every day, right?
GO EASY ON YOURSELF
There are going to be bad days, days where you don’t improve by any percentage. I had a couple of those days this week, and I decided to try to bash my head into my keyboard and force myself to write something I didn’t even like. That’s probably not the best way to go about it.
Note to self: don’t sweat it. Take a step back and reassess the situation. What is causing you to feel like this? What is motivating you and putting you in this headspace?
Judgment and self-criticism are going to lead to burnout and eventually giving up on our goals. Instead of criticizing ourselves, we can analyze our behavior and pinpoint what is causing us to flounder.
Remember, all you have to do is improve by 1% and sometimes that 1% equals learning from our mistakes.
FIND ACCOUNTABILITY
Shame is bad… right? Well, maybe it’s not that bad? Who knows… but I recently set a goal of improving my finger strength for climbing. I set up a workout routine that included hangboarding in the gym two times per week before climbing. I told my fiancée and some of our climbing friends about my goal and they decided to join me. Now, if I skip out on my pre-climb hangboard routine they’ll all know about it and burn me at the stake. Just kidding, but it would be at least a little embarrassing if I flaked out. Even this small amount of shame is enough to help keep me consistent.
In other endeavors, perhaps we require a little bit more accountability. But nonetheless, having people in your corner when you undertake projects is important. I don’t think I want to publicly announce all my projects but knowing that at least someone expects some sort of progress from me is helpful.
HAVE A SOLID ‘WHY’
This week I could have easily scrapped writing and said ‘F–it I’ll pick it up next week. But I thought about why I wanted to write in the first place. I feel like writing is more than just an objective, more than just an activity. To me, it’s a vocation. I feel called by a higher power to write and share stories. Yes, it’s vague but it’s also deep, and indescribable. My spirit feels whole when I write. I know that if I want to continue to improve and hone the craft of writing, then I need to do it as much as possible, no matter how hard it feels.
This might be the biggest factor in maintaining consistency. If my activity aligns with my soul and fills up my spiritual cup, then it will be easier to do it consistently. Of course, there will be challenges, but if my motivation comes from something beyond my ego, I can overcome the obstacles and resistance that keep me from working toward my goal.
Loved this article; full of practical advice.