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Why Being Audacious Is Better than Wasting Energy Being Consistent
How the audacity principle can work for you
One of Churchill’s favourite maxims was a simple three-word utterance.
Always more audacity.
It was a willingness to be bold that enabled Churchill to declare Hitler untrustworthy. When others wanted peace with Germany, Winston Churchill stood alone, saying the UK needed to rearm. There was no crystal ball to foresee the future. But Churchill, having read Hitler’s book, Mein Kampf, had an insight as to what was coming.
No one wanted war again. The horrors of the 1st World War were still raw in everyone’s minds. Churchill didn’t want war either, but he understood peace accords wouldn’t be enough.
His audacity was breathtaking. Deemed outright arrogant and misguided at best, Churchill spent much of the 1930s sidelined, with his criticism not improving his profile. The UK foreign ministry even went so far as to rein in the tone of Winston’s writings for fear of upsetting the Germans.
This is one example of Churchill’s audaciousness; there are many others to be found in the hundreds of books and articles that describe his life.
My interest was the maxim. ‘Always more audacity.’
The first two words offer a firm push to keep being audacious. There is no resting on your last act of boldness. No, Winston’s maxim is to keep bringing it on. Always more…and the same afterwards, and then more again.
Winston wasn’t one for taking baby steps.
The consistency trap
Consistency is the train everyone wants to be on. The 20-mile march from Jim Collins is an ode to the persistent power of showing up and doing what needs to be done. There is no place for sprints, the only requirement is hitting the line, each and every day.
Consistency, it seems, appears easy. The call for courage is small, and that makes consistency an attractive way to make progress. The magnet-like attraction of Atomic Habits from James Clear is rooted in two words, consistency and progress. If you’re consistent, you’ll make progress.
