The Missing Link For Developing Consistency

(This is a part of the book I am writing on Consistency. As promised, I will create in public and try to engage you in the process by sharing parts of the book as I write it. If you haven’t already, you can read the first part that I shared, How Consistency Saved My Life.)

One of the missing links for developing consistency is mindset.

And I know some of you are going to think, "Oh, here we go. Another person talking about mindset and the power of your mind without providing any concrete advice."

If you are thinking this, fortunately, you are wrong.

I am not here to talk about that type of mindset. Not because I don’t believe that it can help you.

But because whenever you tried to make improvement in any aspect of your life, 95% of the time you’ve been hearing about mindset, but not about any concrete and actionable advice.

Before I continue, just to make sure that I don’t sound like I’m dismissing the power of mindset, let me say it once: At the end of the day, it’s all up to you, and it’s all within you. If we are talking about consistency, it is absolutely in your power, that is, in the power of your mind and your will, to show up every single day.

However, the reason I’m writing this book is so that you don’t need to rely solely on your willpower in order to be consistent.

So what kind of mindset am I talking about then?

More than anything, I am talking about understanding why you need to focus on developing consistency.

And you might say, "I already know why I want to be consistent. It is the "how" that I need help with."

Well, let me put it like this: if you actually knew why it is that you need to develop consistency, you wouldn’t have so much trouble being consistent.

What do I mean by this? Being consistent is considered a virtue by almost everyone. We all (at least secretly) admire those who are able to show up every single day for the things that will move them closer to their goals.

Being consistent is "good." That’s where, for most people, motivation for developing consistency begins and ends. And that’s not enough.

Consistency isn’t one of the things that you need to develop. It isn’t one of the things that would improve your life or get you closer to your goals.

Consistency is THE thing.

Consistency isn’t something that you just need to develop. It is something that you need to focus on and forget all other things that might be used to measure progress on the journey towards your goals.

And two of the most famous things we use are quality and quantity.

The old debate, if it was ever really a debate: quality or quantity?

Neither. The answer is consistency.

It is only when we have consistency that we can even talk about quality vs. quantity.

Let me explain.

We can say that quality is the ultimate goal. In most cases, the quality of a certain action that we want to perform is more important than its quantity.

However, quantity precedes quality. Quality cannot be achieved on its own.

It is by putting in the reps, hours, or however you measure the quantity of your activity that you develop quality over time.

Quality might be better than quantity, but it cannot exist without it.

And this is a fact that people have finally started waking up to in recent years.

But this still doesn’t paint the whole picture of what is needed in order to move confidently towards your goals.

You can accumulate a fair amount of quantity, maybe even plenty of it, and still never reach quality or make any significant progress towards your goals. And that’s actually what happens with a lot of people.

This happens when you are inconsistent, when your quantity is scattered around. When you go days or even weeks without doing what you were supposed to be doing every day. And then you think you can make up for it by doing extra work in a short period of time.

This is why, if you haven’t absolutely mastered being consistent, then:

Doing a 15-20-minute workout every day of the week is superior to doing a couple of 1+hour workouts per week.

Reading every day of the week for 20–30 minutes is superior to reading 2-4 days per week, even if the total reading time in the latter case ends up being 5+ hours.

Writing 1 sentence in your journal every day of the week is superior to writing 10 pages in a single day and not writing anything on all the other days.

Meditating for 5 minutes every day of the week is superior to meditating for 3 hours 2-3 days of the week.

Going on a 15-minute walk every day of the week is superior to going on a single, 3-hour walk once a week.

And I know some of you will read this and say, "Okay, I get the point about the importance of consistency, but you are taking it too far with these examples."

I know there will be someone who can say that there is a study that shows that doing one of these activities a couple of times per week with great quality and intensity is the most optimal way to do it and brings the best results.

Well, let me ask you this: are you trying to get the best measurable results in a controlled study that has nothing to do with what real life looks like? Or are you trying to get the best results over a long period of time and hopefully continue doing that activity for years to come?

Let’s take physical training as an example.

You might say that, from a scientific perspective, it is more beneficial for you to go to the gym 2-3 times per week and do a killer 1.5-hour session instead of doing mini workouts 6-7 times per week.

Okay, fair point. If you have developed a solid habit of physical training, and all you are looking for are physical results, this is actually true.

However, if you are still struggling with consistency, this optimal results-focused approach works only if you were a robot or if you were living in a perfectly controlled environment where those studies you’ve been reading were done. It works if there are no family members, holidays, mood swings, work stress, heartbreaks, basically, no life, that would disturb your scientifically based plan to achieve maximal results.

But let’s get back to real life. Who makes the most progress in anything over a long period of time? The person who has been consistent.

Who is most likely to stay consistent over long periods of time? We are talking about years, not weeks or months. The person who has developed a strong habit.

And who is more likely to develop a strong habit and make something a part of their life? A person who does something 2 times a week, or a person who does something every day?

There is no doubt that, in the vast majority of cases, the person doing something 2-3 times per week will eventually fall off track, simply because they haven't developed consistency. In the meantime, the person who does something every day has made that thing a rock-solid part of their routine.

And besides just developing a habit, you don't really have a chance to fall in love with an activity by doing it occasionally, no matter the intensity and quality of your work. However, if you do something every day and, besides making it a habit, you fall in love with it, there is no stopping you.

By focusing on consistency rather than on short-term results, you develop a habit. Once you’ve developed a habit, it’s easy to be consistent. It’s the most positive feedback loop that exists.

This is why I say that mindset is one of the missing links for developing consistency.

It is a mindset that you need to have on those days when things are not going according to plan, when life happens, and you cannot do the thing that you are supposed to do.

On those days, if you don’t know why it is that you actually need to develop consistency, you say, "I will skip it today and make up for it tomorrow with extra quantity or quality." So you neglect consistency and later end up wondering why it is that you keep falling off track.

But when you know why consistency needs to be your priority, you sacrifice quality, quantity, intensity, and every other measurement unit for the sake of consistency. You put in the amount of work that you can, no matter how small that amount is. Not for the sake of results it will give you short-term. But for the sake of consistency.

And long-term, where all results worth pursuing lie, consistency wins every single time.

Thank you for reading.

If you like my work and get some value from it, there is zero-cost support in the form of subscribing, liking this post, commenting if you have any thoughts on it, and of course sharing this with anyone who would find it interesting.

Or you can consider becoming a paid supporter of Existential Espresso for 5$ per month. By doing this you would be helping me to keep investing time into researching and writing all the content on the daily basis.

What you get by becoming a paid supporter is access to the locked essays (such as “Why Having a Price on My Head Didn’t Upset Me”or “Why Living With a Bulletproof Vest is The Best Thing to Ever Happen to Me”), as well as an opportunity to recommend topics for future essays.

However, even taking the time out of your day to read what I have to share with you means more to me than you can imagine. Thank you.