The Power of Consistency
It’s hard to stay consistent. It’s hard to keep up the habits we’re trying to establish, like new years resolutions that we do for a while, but then the balloon deflates with our enthusiasm. We go back to the old ways because they’re ingrained deep into our routines.
Humans are creatures of habit. Sometimes that makes it difficult to create new ones. Staying consistent will help us build the habits that we want to create.
Consistency builds trust.
Have you ever made plans with someone just to have them cancel on you? Did you trust that their excuse was genuine, or did you suspect that they were just flaking out? Chances are you base your judgement on your experience of their past behavior, their consistency.
Have you ever been surprised by a person’s judgement of you? Chances are they based their judgement on their past experience with your consistent behavior toward them or others.
Staying consistent is how you build connections with people. Staying in touch, working or playing together, you build a rhythm with people based on consistent behaviors you exhibit.
When someone does something out of character (according to our knowledge), it surprises us and puts us off. We lose that rhythm that we created. It makes us wonder just a little bit if we were wrong. Not enough to break a relationship, but we hesitate.
Remaining consistent will help people build trust in you. Do the things you say you’ll do and people will learn to depend on your promises. Carrying those promises through every time will build that trust in you and create a better relationship overall.
This is important for every day relationships as well as newfound relationships.
Consistency builds on your work/content.
Of course we’ve heard the story of the race between the tortoise and the hare. Slow and steady wins the race. Or as Nick Stephenson, an author/entrepreneur puts it, “Even a 1% improvement every day doubles your results.” Little drips into your bucket of awesome build overtime.
Think about diets or working out. Hitting the gym no matter how hard once or twice a month isn’t going to help you achieve your goals. The recommended amount of exercise by Health Professionals is 30 minutes of exercise at least 3 times a week. It’s fantastic if you can do more than 30 minutes. It’s awesome if you can do more than 3 times a week.
It’s really about the consistency of the action that will propel you toward your goals. We’re building momentum, compounding our results with each new action that builds on the last.
Nanowrimo’s premise is to write 50,000 (or essentially a novel) in a month. They have a daily suggested goal of 1,667 words novelists should write a day to make it to their goal. Falling behind makes it hard to catch up, because what we didn’t write yesterday, we have to write today to stay on track. Writing more than that suggested goal, makes it easier to complete.
Their goal is to break novel writing into a manageable, daily habit so that writers can finish whatever projects their struggling with. It’s just a small daily adjustment that we can make.
It’s like flying. If a plane going from point A to point B is off by even a degree after take off, without course correction, that plane will end up miles away from it’s original destination. If we want to achieve our goal, we need to make consistent course corrections to make sure we’re heading the right direction.
1,667 words a day for a month will get your novel written. Working out daily, even just doing what you can to build every day will get the results you want. Making your work a daily habit will eventually take you where you want to be.
Consistency builds habits.
It takes approximately 21 days of consistency to build a habit. If you want to build the habit, you need to make time for the task in your daily routine, scheduling it between routine tasks, and accomplishing it every day to make it stick.
Once a habit sticks, it’s difficult to give up. I used to bite my nails constantly. I had to make the conscious effort to break the habit, but consistently catching myself every time and reminding myself to stop, I was able to quit.
Being consistent helps you attain your goals, build habits, and recommends you as a trustworthy person to others. It’s a powerful tool that you can use for yourself and for whatever dreams you want to accomplish.
