Do you struggle to stay consistent because:
- You start with enthusiasm but lose interest along the way?
- You feel energized and then burned out every other week?
- You don’t always feel in the mood to take action?
If any of the above resonates, then you will love this article.
After all, being consistent takes work.
But once I overcame those three obstacles to consistency, I felt in control over my destiny, happier, and got more stuff done.
Today, I will share the 7 strategies I learned to help you stay consistent at anything, whether you feel like doing it or not.
So, let’s dive in!
What does it mean to stay consistent?
Consistency is a form of self-discipline that implies that you do whatever you set out to do, whether you feel like it or not, every time you plan to do so.
Sometimes, that takes some effort.
Other times, it will happen almost effortlessly.
The trick to staying consistent is to have a strategy that empowers you to take action even when you don’t feel like it.
That’s what we will focus on.
But first, let’s find out why we lack consistency in the first place.
Why do we struggle to stay consistent?
Most people feel excited when starting something new.
Take New Year’s resolutions, for example. Gyms see a massive surge in sign-ups, for example. But unfortunately, the New Year’s resolution statistics speak for themselves…
23% Quit in the first week, and 64% within the first month.
A couple of reasons explain why this phenomenon occurs. But we can boil it down to one underlying human tendency: short-term thinking.
Embarking on a new adventure is exciting. So much so that we often go full out and give it 110%, not realizing this is a recipe for disaster. After all, it’s tough to stay consistent at that pace.
If not outright impossible.
We experience short-term thinking with big goals but also in our everyday actions.
For example, when I go for a 3-mile run, I’ve tons of energy at the start. And while I feel like I can push myself for a PR that day, I know it’s not a smart strategy. I know that because I’ve tried many times…
I would repeatedly start overexcited, burn up my energy within minutes… and struggle to finish the run.
The funniest part?
If I would pace myself at the beginning, not only would I enjoy my run a lot more, I would also set a faster time overall.
A lack of consistency comes down to:
- Short-term planning: You’re in a marathon but think it’s a sprint.
- False expectations: Your enthusiasm tricks you into thinking you can maintain the sprinting pace for the entire marathon.
- Incorrect prioritization: You put intensity over consistency.
The following 7 strategies counter short-term thinking and make it much easier to stay consistent.
How to be consistent at anything at any time
The core idea to be consistent in this section is two-fold:
- Adopting a long-term mindset and strategy.
- Practical ideas to implement that strategy.
Once you make these strategic mental changes and implement a few simple tactics, you can be consistent at anything, at any time, whether you feel like it or not.
Let’s check it out.
#1: Adopt a marathon mentality
Even when I only ran 5 kilometers (a little over 3 miles), I had to adopt the “marathon mentality”.
That starts with one of the fundamental principles from the book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People; begin with the end in mind.
What is the thing you want to achieve?
Think about your life goals, for example.
Then, chunk up that goal into tiny steps. Regardless of what happens, you should feel 100% certain that you can achieve it. So if that’s not the case, chunk it down even further.
It should be so small that you feel like you can do much more.
That’s great.
But don’t give your full 100%.
Instead, leave something in the tank for tomorrow.
The key is to prioritize consistency over intensity until you develop the habit.
Only allow yourself to play around with intensity, volume, frequency, and all the other buttons once you establish the habit. It forms a baseline to fall back on in case you become overwhelmed.
Most people lack such a baseline.
But it’s essentially your insurance to stay consistent during hard times.
Ultimately, it’s the execution of consistent habits that determines your result in the final event, like a marathon. Daily actions matter and are the foundational building bricks for success.
Pace yourself to stay consistent for long-term success, especially when starting something new.
#2: Focus on ONE thing
Do you enjoy juggling different projects and interests simultaneously? And can you stay consistent with that?
Then you can skip this tip.
However, most people experience overwhelm when juggling too many tasks simultaneously.
Sounds like you?
Then here’s a simple strategy: focus on ONE thing.
Gary Keller wrote a book about the effectiveness of this idea. But the core concept is that it focuses your attention.
And you can apply it in two ways:
- Macro: What’s your ONE most important goal? If you could tick one thing off your bucket list, what would that be?
- Micro: What’s the ONE most important task to get done that will make today a success? Ideally, it aligns with your macro-goal.
The key?
Become great at identifying the most important task.
We often confuse what’s important with what’s complex or urgent.
How to overcome that?
First, write all your tasks down. Then, score each one on importance, difficulty, and urgency. Finally, pick the task with the highest score in importance and prioritize it.
For example, even though my blog doesn’t make a living, writing posts is my most important task. That’s why I spend the first hour of my day writing – even if that means waking up early.
After all, consistent progress is key to long-term success.
What’s your ONE thing?
Clarify that daily. Then prioritize your ONE thing early in the day if you can. Not only will it improve focus and reduce overwhelm, but it also makes you feel happier and more accomplished.
#3: The most powerful force to make change
Your identity is the strongest force for personal change.
- If you see yourself as a writer, you will naturally write.
- If you see yourself as an athlete, you will work out consistently.
- And if you see yourself as a scientist, you will habitually approach anything from a scientific viewpoint.
For example, getting a six-pack has always been one of my goals. My biggest problem? Staying consistent with my eating habits…
I would eat clean throughout the week but relapse every weekend. That often included a bag of Doritos, a pizza, and a few too many beers. It made me feel like a loser…
Today, 12 years later, I finally got that six-pack.
What changed?
I adopted the identity of an athlete. No longer could I binge eat terrible stuff during the weekend. Why? Because I could no longer look at myself in the mirror and say I was serious about my athletic goals.
What identity change do you need to make to achieve your desired goals? Adopt the mindset and start acting like the person you want to become.
It only works if you’re serious about your goals and the transformation you seek to make. But it’s an incredible mindset shift to become ultra-consistent.
#4: Level up before you face the final boss
When you start a new video game, you must level up before you can kill the final boss. And as you progress through the levels, the enemies you face become stronger too.
If not, the game would be pretty boring.
But it’s also the perfect analogy for anything in life.
- When you learn a new skill, you must know the fundamentals first.
- When you’re new in the gym, you start with light weights. And as your strength increases, so can your workout intensity.
- And to build a global empire like Amazon, perhaps start with an online bookshop, as Jeff Bezos did.
I hope the point is clear.
Start small to develop the foundational levels first. Then, progressively increase complexity, scale, frequency, and intensity.
See it as a snowball rolling off a hill.
In the beginning, there’s no snowball yet. You have to create it first. And it takes deliberate effort to grow. But as it starts rolling, it slowly gains momentum. And at some point, it proceeds by itself.
Where in that process are you?
Are you just starting with a new pursuit? Or have you been developing a skill, habit, or interest for some time?
Identify what level you’re at to be consistent. And gradually increase the challenge as your skills and knowledge levels up.
It takes time, but it’s yet the fastest way to be successful in life.
#5: Gamify the process
Another element in staying consistent is to find joy in the process, not just the result. When the process is fun, you will stick with it even when you experience:
- Boredom;
- Setbacks;
- And challenges.
Gamification is a popular method to make anything more fun. It simply means applying the elements that make games addictive to your life.
For example, a game I played was Maplestory.
The goal was to defeat high-level monsters to gain better rewards. But you first had to level up by killing monsters at your level. And you rapidly got to a level where you had to kill the same monsters for HOURS to level up!
How’s that any fun?
They used a simple method to accomplish that:
- The first levels are easy to progress through.
- The monster’s difficulty slowly increased – and so did the rewards.
- An experience bar tracks your progress to level up. And seeing that bar fill up is indeed very satisfying and addictive.
- You lose experience if you die in the game. And that quickly became an issue at a later level, when it takes about an hour to get that experience back. In other words, while you can experiment with difficulty, you better avoid dying.
These simple things made the game fun.
And you can use the same concepts to make your habits, work, and life more enjoyable.
Gamification applied to real life
Let’s take healthier eating as our goal to understand how you can apply gamification to your life.
One way is by tracking your eating habits. And then, give yourself points depending on your choices.
- Eating a healthy breakfast +1 point.
- Eating a healthy, self-prepared lunch: +2 points.
- Eating a healthy takeaway lunch +1 point.
- Eating a healthy, self-cooked dinner +2 points.
- Eating a healthy prepared dinner +1 point.
- Eating an unhealthy, unplanned snack? -1 point.
- Eating an unhealthy breakfast, lunch, or dinner? 0 points.
Taking this approach makes eating healthier and more satisfying. It also raises your awareness of when you’re eating unhealthy foods.
The best part?
What if you ate an unhealthy snack, like a piece of birthday cake? While it sets you back a point, it’s not the end of the world.
What else can you do to gamify this process?
Create different ways to treat yourself, just like the rewards in the game Maplestory.
For example, calculate your points at the end of every week. And treat yourself depending on your score. For example, let’s assume you like pizza and ice cream:
- 25+ Points = Treat yourself to a takeaway pizza and ice cream.
- 20+ Points = Treat yourself to a takeaway meal but a slightly healthier alternative, like a Buddha bowl. Or make a pizza with healthy ingredients. Also, have some ice cream.
- 15+ Points = Make your dinner and have a little ice cream.
- <14 Points = You had plenty of snacks already this week. Try again next week for a better score!
Most of the time, the simple habit-tracking method inspires me to stay consistent. Ticking off habits throughout the day is very satisfying.
Experiment with gamification to find out what works for you.
#6: Get back up – quickly
Life is like a fight sometimes. But unlike a physical fight, it’s not a person’s fist but your mind that throws the punches. Think about your response to situations like:
- Boredom;
- Setbacks and failures;
- Or (too) complex challenges.
Everyone beats themselves up sometimes. But rather than dwelling on your mistakes and setbacks, it’s essential to bounce back – fast.
How?
Simply by overcoming challenges and setbacks.
Unfortunately, there’s no other secret sauce.
- Face your fears when they arise.
- Take any opportunity to grow despite discomfort.
- Seek opportunities to get outside your comfort zone.
Most people avoid uncomfortable opportunities at all costs. However, the secret to successful living is acting despite discomfort and fear.
If you are willing to do only what’s easy, life will be hard. But if you are willing to do what’s hard, life will be easy.
– T. Harv Eker
Seek and embrace challenges to build self-confidence. That’s how you will conquer any challenge that life throws at you.
Need inspiration?
Take a daily 60-second cold shower. It’s a great habit I developed to maintain a foundational layer of resilience and self-discipline.
Do what’s hard to make life easier and more rewarding.
#7: Reflect but always move forward
Reflecting on past mistakes, experiences, setbacks, and difficulties produces self-awareness and insights.
And that’s essential for rapid personal development.
However, the problem is that most people keep dwelling on past mistakes and events especially if they give up because of it and take on the victim mentality.
Sure, losses can be very painful.
And it’s okay to be sad about them.
But for the sake of yourself and everyone else, you must move forward, regardless of how difficult that is. Find a way to deal with your suffering – or better yet, turn it into empowerment.
It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.
– Epictetus
Your obstacles can become your strength. You can decide to bounce back stronger BECAUSE of what happened to you.
- You can turn a business failure into renewed fuel for success.
- You can turn rejection into fuel for continuous self-improvement.
- And you can turn your adversity into an experience to guide others through their process and avoid making the same mistakes.
For example, some of the most successful personal trainers were once overweight. But they turned their adversity into strength. And guess what? People that want to lose weight can relate better to them.
Pain provides growth opportunities.
Setbacks and suffering are unavoidable. However, what matters for a happier and more successful life is how you deal with life’s challenges.
Bonus tip for maintaining consistency
Being consistent in the face of adversity takes work. And that’s where this bonus tip comes into play.
And that’s to figure out WHY you do what you do. What drives you? What is something worth fighting for despite desperate times?
Look for reasons that are bigger than yourself.
Having a purpose propels you to stay consistent. Failure is no longer an option because you would let yourself down and many others that count on you.
Purpose provides meaning to your life.
So much meaning that the captured jew Victor Frankl survived the Holocaust because he found purpose, a will to live.
And in his book Man’s Search for Meaning, he states that most people in the Nazi death camps lacked a reason to survive. But those who had the best survival chances were those who found meaning in their suffering.
He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.
– Friedrich Nietzsche
There are only a few things you can control in life.
But the little things that you do control is how you perceive, think, and act in any situation, specifically during troubling times. Master self-control during those situations if you want to achieve true freedom.
What’s next?
Consistency is essential to achieve goals and create positive change in all areas of your life.
Key takeaways:
- Adopt the marathon mentality and plan for the long run.
- Focus on ONE thing; what’s most important right now?
- Take on the identity of the person you seek to become.
- Start at your level and gradually increase the difficulty.
- Gamify the process to make consistency fun.
- Get back up quickly when life knocks you down.
- Reflect, but always be consistent in moving forward.
Dive deeper into the topic with the following resources:
- Book: The One Thing by Gary Keller
- Course: Take Your Life From Good To Great To Amazing
- Tool: Goals on Track is the goal-setting and task-management system I use to take consistent action and achieve success every day.
Take action: Select one of the seven strategies and apply it to an area of your life where you struggle to stay consistent.
Do you want more tips to stay consistent and focused on your goals? Sign up below to receive my best strategies to achieve your dreams!