“I’m doing everything I can, but why do I struggle with consistency?” - does this sound like you?
You get that momentum going, giving it all you got, hustling left and right and before you know it, POOF - your effort and motivation expires as fast as the broccoli you promised yourself you’d eat but ends up in the trash.
Leaving you frustrated and wondering “why am I not consistent?”, something that seems so basic and trivial.
If you wanna know how to stay consistent in business, you’re in for a transformational read, so make sure you wipe your reading glasses clean.
WHY IS CONSISTENCY SO HARD?
Your brain has a very complicated relationship with consistency.
Why?
Cause consistency is so fucking boring!
Consistency means repetition and the idea of repeating the same activity over and over is the equivalent of getting ‘baby shark’ stuck in your head.
And since consistency involves feeling like a broken record, you involuntarily end up being dissuaded from it all together.
Who can blame ya?
The other invisible side of the coin is that our schooling and educational system failed us.
It conditioned us to be extremely impatient!
Here’s how…
For the first 18 years of your schooling: involving preschool, high school and college, you attended a series of classes, studied and received a final grade.
And this is all condensed in a 3-4 month semester period.
You memorized whatever was taught to you, spitball it back on your exam paper and at the end of each quarter, you knew exactly what your grade was.
Getting a good grade is predictable!
You know that the roadmap to getting an ‘A’ involves:
Participating in class
Delivering & acing your assignments
Pulling your all-nighters to study for the tests
And in a matter of a short few months, BOOM, you got your ‘A’ allowing you to know exactly where you stand.
But this resembles NOTHING to the real world! Especially if you’re grinding like crazy to get your own business off the floor.
Let me tell ya, it takes a shit tonne longer than just a semester or 2 to see any sort of progress, let alone, SUCCESS.
And because we were trained based on our schooling systems, we end up being extremely impatient without having the slightest clue about it.
You probably end up in a wallow of misery convinced that you’re “not good enough” wanting to spill your brain guts out.
BRAIN GUTS CLEAN UP ON AISLE 7! #AmIRite?
The other thing is that consistency involves creating, And we have this wild misconception that creating is as fun as getting birthday cake everyday of the week.
But this couldn’t be further from the truth...
Creating is messy and is as nerve-wrecking as a teenage girl waiting for her pregnancy test results.
And this perpetuates even more IMPATIENCE! Because you’re so frustrated with the process failing to understand why isn’t this coming naturally to you?
NEWS FLASH - it doesn’t and it shouldn’t!
Expecting any differently is like hoping your 90s dial-up connection works as fast as 5G.
WHAT MAKES A PERSON CONSISTENT?
Ok, ok, so how do you overcome lack of consistency?
The answer is extremely simple (but make no mistake, it ain’t easy).
It’s by ignoring your urgent need of the outcome & throwing instant gratification out the window then replacing greater value on ‘compounded effort’.
What the hell does any of that mean? Compounded effort? Are you having a stroke, Nadine?
Let me paint a picture for ya…
Think of your best friend! And no, I don’t mean your dog. Think of an actual 3dimensional human.
Can you pinpoint the exact day you became best friends? Do you have an exact metric?
It’s difficult to measure, right?
Having a best friend is an accumulation of events that occurred over an extended period of time.
It happened through:
Exchanging personal stories
Planning their surprise birthday party
Going over for wine nights
And all that is what’s referred to as ‘compounded effort’. It happened bit by bit by being there for them consistently.
If you get angry at your sunflower seeds not turning into a sunflower the week after you planted it, it’s as laughable as expecting the same acceleration of growth for yourself (or your business).
Detaching your expectation out of the action you’re currently performing will rewire your brain on progress and not perfection.
The other point is to make room for your “dip”.
“Dip”? What’s that?
Thank you to the works of Seth Godin, the “dip” refers to the time when your unmotivation successfully penetrates, like it were poison ivy vines wrapping itself around your brain.
The dip is inevitable. IT’S GOING TO HAPPEN.
So the question is, what are you going to do when it does?
For the days you’re eager to fold like a deck of cards, what do you plan on doing to power through it?
Having mental preparations for when this inevitable day comes is a cornerstone to your consistency.
For example, write a letter to yourself reminding you why you’re doing what you’re doing, and sneak it into your boo’s bag, jeans pocket, whatever! And when that unfortunate day comes knocking on your door, call ‘em up and tell them to read that letter to you out loud.
Going that extra mile by sneaking it to your bae, will give you that extra accountability that you know wouldn’t power through had you just read it yourself.
You can thank me later.
HOW CONSISTENCY LEADS TO SUCCESS?
Who said consistency is key?
Consistency is no different than a complicated 1,000 piece puzzle. Almost impossible to solve overnight, but when you tackle it section by section over an extended period of time, you got your puzzle solved.
Ok, but why is consistency important in business?
Simple, because consistency leads to trust.
Let’s take a deep look at the wiring of the brain.
Your brain favours one thing and one thing only: FAMILIARITY. The more familiar something seems, the more trusting you become.
Your content, product, or service doesn’t even have to be that good. Yes, really! But if it’s familiar, you’ve already won people over like a Mariah Carey chart topper.
And you achieve that ‘familiarity’ status by consistently showing up on social media, people’s feeds, explore pages, etc - even if your content sucks!
It takes 7 points of exposure until someone acts on their impulse to work with you and that’s why consistency will always outperform perfection!
If perfection is the “hare”, consistency is that pesky little “tortoise” who miraculously wins the race.
The consistency to success involves you scheduling your priorities and not prioritizing your schedule.
