Why do I have to be consistent? How do I compete with Talented people / Large Corporations? What are the ways in which I can become more consistent?
While watching a Youtube video of Simon Sinek (@simonsinek) I came about this wonderful value of Consistency and how it impacts every aspect of our lives.
A declaration, I am still trying to imbibe this value of Consistency in myself. I know how crucial this is as an individual when you are playing different roles such as a Father, Husband, Son, CEO, Friend. And so I was more interested in finding out the Why? of Consistency before I get to the What? and finally the How?
If I may explain a bit more on these points, as a Father, am I consistently sitting with my son for 10/15/20 min a day giving time exclusively to him or its just a 1 off affair? As a Husband, am I consistently taking out time every evening to talk with my wife about her day?
As a Team member in my company, am I consistently asking my team members about their family members? As a CEO, am I consistently asking my team members about daily reports? As a Friend, am I consistent in taking the time out of my schedule to give my friends a call?
Trust & Consistency
I believe Consistency directly or indirectly is connected to Trust. Consistency in doing the boring tasks will improve my trust factor in my relationships. I say them as boring tasks because I may not find any value in them in the short term.
You build Consistency and slowly you build Trust. Consistently spending time with my wife helps me build trust. Consistently giving the same quality to a customer would help my company build trust in the long term. Consistently spending time with a new connect will help me build trust and eventually form a long term professional relationship.
An example that I can share is this blog post. I have declared in my first post (See here), that my viewers will see my blog every Sunday. If I maintain a consistency in posting a blog every Sunday, it would send a message to my viewers and they would trust me. What If I dont post for the next 2-3 weeks? The trust of my viewers on me would be broken and they would be disappointed. It would also be a question on my integrity. Consistency Lost, Trust Lost.
Bit By Bit
Consistency is showing up every single time. It has nothing to do with the scale at which I do things. I can have bursts of working hours so can anybody. It also has nothing to do with the intensity. I could give my 100% for 2-5 days on improving my Tennis skills but can it help me compete in a Club Tournament? I have my doubts.
Example, going to the gym for 1 day, 2 day or 7 days will not show me much progress. I would think, ok maybe this does not work. But if I ask any gym trainer, its the consistency in going to the gym for 3 months / 4 months / 6 months does really makes the change.
If I am trying to develop a skill of say playing Tennis, I know for sure that the skill to play a full game does not come in 1 or 2 sessions. I have to become athletic, build stamina, improve on my serves and then I can be sure of playing a full game. This is a slow and painful process.
What it really requires is Consistency, Consistency in showing up at the session on time, consistency in eating a balanced diet, consistency in doing a warm up before a match. Consistency is a long term game.
I had mentioned the importance of Habits and how to cultivate them during my post of Review of Book – Atomic Habits By James Clear. You can find the post here. Consistency has a lot to do with nurturing good habits and I request you to read this post and if you are interest, the book.
What Comes Next!
After I have realized my ‘Why’ to be consistent, next question is What to become consistent in? Ideally, consistency should have an overarching effect on our life. Each and every area of our life should be consistent. Too much to ask for?
I can give you the example of how I am practicing consistency in my own life. I struggled with being consistent and I decided to slowly make those changes in life that will make me more consistent. I started with a new habit. I daily write reflections (i.e. journal). My idea was to form a habit and make it easy to follow.
So daily at the end of the day, I write 2 events during the day and what I learned from those events. Plain and simple. Also, I have intentionally kept the size of the book as small, kind of like half of A4 size. This takes around 15-20 min. When I started, I could not have imagine myself writing those reflections 110 days later. But today is the 110 day and I will be writing my learnings for the day.
Once, a small habit has become consistent, I do feel certain confidence. I believe that I could take up another task in which I can become consistent. My idea in developing consistency is to really break different areas of life in which I want to be consistent and go after 1 area at a time.
How Matters Most!
After I have decided the areas in which I want to be consistent, the next part of the puzzle that I wish to solve is How to do it? I can suggest you some tools that helped me become consistent. I have already discussed this tool called the Habit Tracker Tool in one of my earlier post. You can find it here. There are a lot of other tools that help you being consistent.
A Habit Tracker Tool is like a mirror to me. It shows me if I am true to myself. When I start to have too many crosses, it will hurt. Trust me, I ‘Press On’ and try to do my part the next day. Overtime I feel good about myself when I start to get ‘ticks’ consistently.
End Note
Repetition can be boring or tedious, which is why so fewer people master anything – Hal Elrod
Imagine you get electricity on somedays and no electricity on others. Imagine you get your ‘data’ or ‘internet’ on some days while a total blackout on others? If we are expecting consistency from others, why cant we be consistent?
Consistency is the hallmark of Leadership. Consistency helps employees guage what to expect from their Boss. Consistency helps customers decide which Vendor to choose. Consistency helps you improve on your relationships be it of Husband – Wife, Father – son, Brother – Sister.
Hope that I have put myself across clearly on this topic. I am no Master and still it is a work in progress. I can at best say that I have made some changes in my life for which I am very proud of, as far as consistency goes. I do hope that you would have got some interesting ideas to implement. If yes, do share with me on my social network.
Talent is Overrated, Consistency is Under-rated”
~RG~
P.S. Following were some of the tools / resources that I utilized while working on this blog posts:
- Youtube Video of Simon Sinek – Why you only win with Consistency? Link Here.
- Blog on Medium – Consistency beats Talent, Luck, Good Intentions & Even Quality – Anthony Moore. Link Here
- My Gratitude to Canva.com for giving me a beautiful image for this topic. You can use Canva to create your own set of digital marketing assets. Click Here.