One of the most obvious factors that separate the successful and the unsuccessful is the power of consistency. Successful people can produce extraordinary results because they choose to follow their plans and take the necessary action almost every day, with or without motivation.
Life has its ups and downs. Even though this roller coaster ride is part of living in this world, everyone is looking for ways to be more consistent. With consistency, you will have an easier time maintaining relationships with your family members and friends, meeting your goals, and performing well in school or at work.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who have trouble being consistent in life.
What is consistency
Consistency means different things in different situations; however, the definition of consistency is putting forth a consistent effort day in and day out no matter what you do. There are numerous ways where consistency can be applied.
For example, students need to put forth a consistent effort in their classes. Employees and managers should put forth a consistent effort in their jobs every day.
If you would like to achieve your goals and maintain your relationships, you need to be consistent in the effort you put forth. Even though it is possible to be at your best every day, you should try your best every day.
How to be more consistent in your life:
1. Confront and get rid of your barriers.
The first thing you need to do to be consistent is to get rid of all the things that are stopping you from being consistent. We need to confront our barriers and find out what is stopping us from taking action or being consistent. When the roadblock is gone, we can do things more smoothly and follow our plans.
The problem with most people is that whenever they feel like they are not being consistent, the first thing that they tell themselves is that they need more motivation, which may not always be the case.
Once you get rid of these barriers that are stopping you from sticking to your plan, you can go forward faster and you feel that you will have more motivation to take action.
2. Develop consistent habits.
If you are looking for a way to be more consistent in your life, the first thing you need to do is develop more consistent habits. The only way you will be more consistent is if you start from the ground up. There are a few ways you can do exactly that. These include:
- Be realistic in your goals: You will have a difficult time being consistent if you do not have an idea of what you need to do. Therefore, create easy, simple goals that have objective results that are easy to measure. Then, you should come up with smaller steps you have to follow to reach that goal.
- Stick to a schedule: To be consistent, you need to know what you have to do every day. Therefore, you should create a schedule for yourself. Whether this is a planner, a calendar, or a list of reminders on your phone, this will help you stay on track.
- Use reminders: This is a new habit, so you need to remind yourself what you are doing. Try to place reminders on your belongings, around your home, and throughout your workspace or school. It is easy to forget new commitments and calls, especially when you are trying to change your routine.
3. Handling mistakes in your routine.
No matter how hard you try to be consistent, you are going to make mistakes from time to time. Therefore, try to keep going even if you make a mistake. If you make a mistake, try not to beat yourself up for it. This is something that happens from time to time.
Always figure out what you can do next. That way, you can figure out how to improve. Remember that consistency and perfection are not the same things. Nobody is perfect. Be forgiving of yourself; however, do not make a habit of letting things fall through the cracks.
4. Increase your willpower.
You do not expect to step outside your front door and run a marathon if you haven’t done any athletic training. It will take some time for you to build your willpower as well. If you become more consistent, you will increase your willpower, allowing you to perform well even when you do not feel like it.
Furthermore, you should remind yourself of the long-term benefits of being consistent. Whenever you need a source of inspiration, take a look at your list of goals. This could motivate you to complete everything you have to do during the day even when you do not feel like it.
5. Give yourself time to change your mindset.
Even though you want to see results immediately, it is going to take some time. Changing your thinking is difficult, and it may take a while for you to see results. It can be difficult to uproot your entire life with a bunch of new practices at the same time.
6. Take advantage of motivational tools.
Humans are not robots, there are going to be days when we do not feel like doing anything. That is why we all need to take advantage of motivational tools.
If you feel down, lazy, tired, or in the dumps, there are a few ways you can gather some extra motivation. These include:
- Remember to take breaks during the day. Reward yourself with a 5 or 10-minute break after every task you complete.
- Remember that you have long-term goals you are trying to hit. Think about how good you are going to feel when you achieve those long-term goals. Then, remember you were only going to hit them if you complete your to-do list every day.
- Increase your knowledge about yourself and see what drives you by reading recommended books about motivation.
7. Only make promises you can keep.
People like to be liked by other people. Therefore, we all tend to say yes when someone asks us for help. If you want to be more consistent in your life, you have to keep the promises you make. On the other hand, it is easy to get overwhelmed, causing certain commitments to fall through the cracks.
Finally, this includes making promises to yourself. If you promise yourself to do something, make sure you can do that.
8. Make an effort to reward yourself.
If you are trying to become more consistent, make an effort to reward yourself when you do something well. After all, it is not easy to develop a new habit. Try to set time bass goals for yourself. Then, as you hit those goals, reward yourself for doing so.
Rewarding yourself or being more consistent is important because this reinforces a positive habit.
9. Create accountability with a progress report.
Gail Matthews, a professor in Dominican’s Department of Psychology has done a study and discovered that people who shared their progress report of their goal with someone else have a 76 percent higher chance of reaching the goal.
Hence, what you need to do then to stay consistent in achieving your goal is obvious, share your progress and send a report to him or her each week.
When you have someone watching your back and overseeing your progress, you are more likely to follow your plan and take action.
10. Utilize your environment for better consistency.
Another thing you can do to stay consistent is to leverage your environment.
Identify how your environment is stopping or helping you. If your environment is not helping you, list down or brainstorm ideas on how you can make it work.
11. Start extremely small and maintain the progress.
One reason most people fail to be consistent in achieving their goals is that they try to do too many things all at once.
If you are trying to change all your daily habits and make a drastic routine change all at the same time, highly likely, that it is not going to work.
Trying to change everything all at the same time can be a bad idea. Unless you have very strong willpower and motivation, doing things slowly is still the best choice. Start with just 5 minutes a day. After a week, increase the duration to 10 minutes. And then 15 minutes, and so on.
The reason is that you want to lower the resistance so that you will want to take action and build up the habit to be consistent. If you have a problem with transforming your habits into tiny ones, you can use the Habitomic app to help you in this regard.
12. Keep your energy high.
If you want to be consistent in taking action, you must keep your energy high. For instance, try to avoid drinking alcohol because if you do so, the next day if your energy is depleted and you don’t have the mood to work, you will never stick to your plan.
You have to get plenty of sleep at night. The average adult needs between seven and eight hours of sleep every evening.
Eat healthy foods and consume more greens. Take supplements and eat more fruits. When you take care of your body, you have a better energy level to go through each day and to take action. Also, try to exercise and move your body.
To sum up, there are a lot of people who are looking for ways to be more consistent. If you can find a way to be more consistent in life, you will do better in all areas of your life including school, work, relationships, and personal goals. If you are having trouble finding ways to improve your consistency, you can use these tips mentioned above.