Consistency

Hey everyone, welcome to The Modern Wisdom Guide. In today’s episode, we’ll be talking about consistent action and why consistent action is a crucial element in high achievement.

Who This Video is Not For

But before we get started. Let’s go over a few groups of people that this video might not be for.

You Resist Planning:

If you’re someone who resists planning, this video might not be for you. You’ve been told to plan all your life and it’s gotten to the point where being told to plan sounds like a broken record. However, if you are actively, intentionally resisting planning, you’re making it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for you to be consistent.

Procrastinator:

If you’re a procrastinator that likes to enjoy your free time and wait until the last minute to take care of important tasks, this video might not be for you. It’s difficult for procrastinators to take action on a consistent basis as they’ve developed a tendency to save large, involved tasks until the very last minute to be done in very short bursts of time. This pattern of behavior doesn’t allow for the benefits that can be reaped when work is done on a consistent basis.

Being Reactive:

Are you a reactive person, someone that doesn’t take action until a person or situation forces you to act? Do you put yourself into a situation where your car breaks down before you fix it? Are you a person who knows that the refrigerator is empty before you go grocery shopping? If you require this sort of external stimulus before you take action, this video might not be for you.

Immediate Gratification:

Finally, if you’re someone that needs to see results instantly and lives in an environment of requiring instant gratification, then this video is not for you. We will be talking about big accomplishments and goals that are generally realized over a long period of time, not just within minutes, hours, or even days. As the adage goes, “Rome wasn’t built in a day” and your biggest visions for yourself won’t be realized in a day either.

Consistent effort creates the right foundation to achieve big results over time. The more consistent you are in your actions, the greater your chances of achieving the results that you’re after. It doesn’t have to be a massive, earth-shattering result, it could be as simple as getting up earlier in the morning. It could be writing a schedule. It could even be remembering to take all your medications.

Consistent action is what sets you up to make massive changes in your behavior so you can do the work it takes to reach your goals. So, if you’re a procrastinator, if you’re someone who needs to be constantly motivated by some external factor or someone that requires immediate gratification, this video is not for you.

Definition of Consistent Action?

What does it mean to be consistent in your action? The dictionary defines being consistent as “constantly adhering to the same principles, actions, form, etc”.

The keyword here is constant. Having continued and persistent action over time.

Wherever you’re at in your life right now, it’s the culmination of your actions and inactions in the face of circumstances that you’ve encountered. If there are any specific areas in your life where you’re not feeling content with how things are turning out, it’s due to being consistent in a way that you may not have intended.

In this video, we intend to share insights into why consistent action is so important, reasons why consistent action isn’t being carried out, and suggestions on how to incorporate and implement consistent action into your life to move towards desired outcomes.

What is Consistent Action?

Consistent action is performing a task or working on a skill on a regular, ideally scheduled, basis. When there is consistency, there is a degree of proactiveness involved. There is an intent to create a scenario where production, practice, and refinement can happen. An expectation is created for all involved which allows roles to be created and clearly defined. Specialization can happen and further development and innovation can occur.

Consistent action creates an opportunity where you notice details that you may not have noticed or paid attention to before. When you become aware of these details, all of a sudden you can start incorporating or refining subtle nuances in what you’re working on.

An example of this might be a master sushi chef or Itamae. In the process of becoming a sushi chef, you start off at the very bottom, being a cleaner at the establishment.

After 5 years of working under an Itamae, the apprentice is promoted to making rice. As each sushi establishment has its own recipe, the apprentice must learn to achieve the perfect balance of rice, salt, and rice vinegar in making the sushi rice.

Once the Itamae is satisfied with the sushi rice-making skill of the apprentice, a promotion to wakiita will occur where the apprentice works closer to the Itamae and is responsible for such tasks as preparing raw ingredients, grating ginger, preparing blocks of fish, and slicing scallions.

During part of this training, it may even involve giving hand towels out to patrons. The handtowels have been soaked in extremely hot water so it can get to be a painful task. They have to be able to handle this hot water before being able to handle fish.

After further years of training, the wakiita will be advanced to a full-fledged Itamae capable of running his own establishment. By the time a sushi chef has been doing this for ten years, can you imagine the amount of subtle or tiny details that they’ve learned to observe?

Honing a craft like this consistently over the course of years, sometimes even decades is what creates masters of their craft.

Another example of the power of consistent effort is investing money. Imagine a person starts to invest in stocks or a specific fund starting from their first job. They consistently set aside some pay from each paycheck to invest. If they end up working for 30 or 40 years, a consistent investment like this could mean that when they retire, there will be millions of dollars for them in their retirement fund.

The Crucial Element of Time

In the last two examples of the sushi chef and investing, the critical element of consistent action is time. By performing a specific task or action over a longer period of time, they were able to build upon earlier steps to achieve a final result that would be hard to imagine when they first got started.

In this current age of technology, we have all been trained to embrace instant gratification with the absurd paradigm that being good at something is about investing the minimum amount of time and effort.

Posts are made to be liked on social media. In fact, social media itself is a form of instant gratification. The instant gratification created in social media is scientifically designed. It happens with the immediate release of dopamine as soon as that “thumbs up”, or even “thumbs down” is clicked.

But the granddaddy of immediate gratification is, of course, Las Vegas, the dream and possibility of a lifetime’s worth of income with a pull of a handle. Everyone is hoping that they’re lucky enough to have just the right timing to be able to cash in on something that will yield dramatic rewards.

If you’re one of those people, you are always looking for the next new thing or next big trend to get in early and cash in on. What most people fail to realize is Apple didn’t have a meteoric rise to be the world’s most valuable tech company in a couple of years.

As a matter of fact, to think that Apple could compete against a behemoth like IBM at the time would be considered laughable! It took time, patience, forging ahead even on the brink of bankruptcy, and consistently innovating and refining until they claimed the spot as the world’s most valuable tech company.

Patience is truly a virtue. Can you develop the patience required to practice something consistently for years and years without seeing results? In the music world, Bruno Mars is a perfect example.

He started performing with his father's group when he was just 4 years old, going on stage in Waikiki in Honolulu, Hawaii to perform as little Elvis. He then appeared on other people’s songs, singing the hook or chorus. As time went on, he gained more and more experience in honing his craft, perfecting his signature R&B style.

One day, you might all of a sudden realize that they’re playing different Bruno Mars songs on the radio. You’ve become familiar with his songs and know many of them by heart. Seeing his performances and concerts all over the world, there is no doubt that he’s an international superstar. You might say that he took 25 years to become an overnight sensation.

So what is it that you want to achieve? Do you have the patience, and to a certain degree, faith, to practice something consistently for years or decades without showing results? Can you be so focused on your craft or diligently working towards your goal until one day, the preparation that you’ve been putting in for years allows you to recognize and take advantage of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity?

If the answer is no, then you’ll want to sit down and do some examination into what you would be willing to consistently put work into as this will be the vehicle for your success.

Opportunity Costs of Commitment and Consistency

Almost every single person out there is not willing to put in the work for years to achieve a great, or world-class result. I know this for a fact. If you look around at your circle of friends, or even just the people that you spend the most time around, is anyone performing or engaged in some sort of work at a world-class level? For most people, the answer is no.

If you ask anyone what they like to do in their spare time, some common answers are to go out with their friends, engage in their hobbies, watch Netflix, etc. You would never hear anyone say that they are working on their craft. Why is that? Because all around us, marketing, social media, and entertainment have trained us to work most of the time to pay the bills, and have a day or two of enjoyment for weeks and weeks on end. Our ability to get that desired dopamine rush is consolidated into short moments…

In the little spare time that you have, you want to avoid thinking about your work and just have a few hours out of the week to yourself to enjoy the things you like to enjoy. You might not want to give up this time to work on something that will provide you with much greater rewards if you just spent some consistent time to develop, learn and grow. The fear of missing out is real and great.

What are you really missing out on though? Drinking with your friends? Trying to hang out to be a part of the cool kids? Playing video games? It’s so much easier to like social media posts and live a relatively stress-free life than actually put yourself out there and go through the sacrifices, delaying gratification, to achieve something great.

I remember reading an article about how there’s a place that has decorated its interior to resemble a realistic replica of the inside of a private jet. People can actually pay to rent out this interior for their social media posts. I get it. It was to post so that they could get likes for showing how awesome their jet-setting life is. The only thing was that this was completely fake.

I get it. And I’m not knocking anyone for wanting to be an influencer. But even for the true influencers out there, the ones that are actually getting paid and can make a living off their online social media presence, even they are putting-in consistent work. They have to be! Think about it. If they weren’t posting consistently, how would the influencer be able to keep a place in the minds of their followers? Why would their audience care to follow them if there wasn’t constant new content to look forward to?

These successful influencers are traveling to different places, engaging their followers with questions, soliciting opinions, and consistently giving their followers a pulse on their lives. With their consistent effort, as their content gets more refined and engaging, their subscriber base grows and they will probably get approached to do paid collaborations. At this point, these sponsorships and collaborations could bring them thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars.

Any attempt at high achievement is never guaranteed. However, it is absolutely true that in order to accomplish great things and realize great aspirations, consistent effort is required. Sacrifices will always be made to deny yourself momentary immediate gratification to set yourself up for lasting success. When you make the choice to be dedicated, focused, and put in consistent effort, you position yourself for great achievements!

Consistent Action Requires Sacrifices

Consistent action, with a strong intent to achieve some great result, requires sacrifices. The sacrifices are in the context of the habits and behaviors that make you the person you are now. Tony Robbins once said, “In essence, if we want to take control of our lives, we have to take control of our consistent actions. It’s not what we do once in a while that shapes our lives but what we do consistently.”

Your life as it stands right now is the culmination of your habits and what you’ve been doing consistently. If you’re not satisfied with some particular aspect of your life, then you’ve got to take control and change what you’ve been doing consistently to change the result you’ve been getting.

This is not easy. Ask anyone who’s tried to lose weight, quit smoking, stop drinking, or get back into shape. Let’s take losing weight for example. You’ve gotten to be overweight because every day after work, you like to get drinks with your friends. When you’re drinking, you like to have some tasty, but unhealthy food. After you’ve got a good buzz going, it’s time to wrap up and go home since you’ve got work the next day.

When you’ve been doing this for years on end, it’s hard to change this behavior. Imagine telling your group of friends that you’re going to start going to the gym. At first, they might even start laughing at you or cast doubt upon you by saying, “let’s take bets on when you’ll be back drinking and eating with us after work.” (If you have friends like this, it might be worth it to sit down and seriously evaluate how much time you want to spend with them).

The sacrifices that you’re going to start making are in the context of the person you are now, the person that is just getting started on this journey to accomplish something. You are denying your current self, the person you are in your current state, and the comfort of an established routine. You are choosing change and change will always be uncomfortable. You might not have ever been in shape in your life. You might not have ever even stepped foot inside a gym before! As a matter of fact, you don’t even know how to work out!

You get to the gym and start warming up on the treadmill for a few minutes. You walk a quarter-mile. It’s not much, but it’s a quarter-mile more than you would have walked if you went out drinking and eating with your friends! You don’t even know what exercises to do so you just start picking up some weights, the heaviest ones that you can handle, and start lifting. Your form is completely wrong and if you continued to do it this way, it could lead to injury.

The next day, you just decide to go home after work. On the second day, you notice that your body is absolutely sore but you decide to go back to the gym. You set a plan to go 3 days a week and you start keeping track. One week passes, then two, then a month, then three months. Up to this point, you’ve been consistent and have gone to the gym a total of 36 times. You notice that you're starting to slim down a bit and in certain areas, you can even see a little definition in the muscles!

Because you sacrificed the comfort and pleasure of old behaviors and took consistent action towards accomplishing a goal, You’ve established a new habit and behavior. Your health improves dramatically. In fact, it goes so well that even your doctor said that if you continue, you’d be able to stop taking 3 of your four meds.

When you have something worthwhile to work towards, the rewards and accomplishments will make your consistent effort absolutely worth the sacrifices!

Consistent Action Maintains Relevance

There are many areas in your life that are competing for your attention. Your family, career, social obligations, health, and personal development are all demanding to be the top priority in your life.

Have you noticed that what you plan for and are consistent at maintains its relevance in your life? You go to work when you’re scheduled to go to work. If you’re lucky, it’s a job that you love. If not, you may have a side hustle that you’re working on that you’d eventually like to turn into a full-time gig to support yourself and your family.

You’re already trained to go to your job. Of course, because if you don’t, you won't get a paycheck! However, if you’re not taking consistent action with your side hustle, you won’t gain the traction you need to get it off the ground generating income. Sure in your mind it may be a priority, and you have the intention of making it a top priority, but without consistent action, it will always just remain that, a side hustle.

Another example of relevance maintained by consistent action is sports. If you’re a star basketball player with tremendous talent but you only show up to practice when it’s convenient for you, do you think you’ll maintain relevance on the team? Probably not. As a matter of fact, you might get kicked off the team for not taking the team seriously. The same would go for a coach. If you’re a coach and are supposed to show up to each practice but only show up to games, you probably don’t have relevance or influence with the team.

To keep yourself or anything you’re involved in relevant, consistency is the key.

5 Tips to help you Be Consistent with your Actions

By now, we have a good sense of why consistent action is important. We also understand that in the midst of naysayers, distractions, and sacrifices, taking consistent action over time is an essential component of high achievement. Now, how do you incorporate and implement consistent action into your life to create and sustain your desired outcomes?

1. Be Clear with Your Intent and Goals

Before you can take consistent action in something, you want to be very clear on what you want to accomplish. Whether it’s losing weight, learning a new skill, starting a side hustle, or getting into a new profession, you want to be very clear with what you are trying to achieve.

Something important to remember, especially if you’ve never accomplished this goal before, is that you don’t have the proper context or experience to truly grasp what you’re trying to accomplish. You’ve seen people become successful at what you’re trying to be successful at. Try to talk to them, get some insights on the process of what it took for them to get to where they are today. How long did they take? Were they intentional or did things just happen by chance? If they don’t mind, ask them to share a story from their journey.

When you can present yourself as someone serious about achieving something, most of the time, not always, but most of the time, people will be very willing to share how they got to where they’re at.

Figure out the reason why you’re doing this. During the obstacles and challenges that you’re bound to encounter on your journey, you’ll be referring back to your why very often.

Set a deadline for yourself. A lot of things are out of your control. The mistake that most people that fail at trying to accomplish a goal is that they spend too much time and effort on what they can’t control. Instead, focus on what you can control and set a deadline for yourself. As major and lasting change doesn’t happen overnight, think of what you want to accomplish and set deadlines for yourself.

2. Plan out Tasks that Support Your Goals and Follow Them

Depending on what you’re trying to accomplish, it could take a really long time or a relatively shorter time. Whatever you’re trying to accomplish, you’ll want to plan out tasks that support your goals.

Why does planning help you with being consistent? Well, how can you be consistent at something if you don’t know what you have to do? There are simply too many things to keep track of in the day to remember every single thing that you have to do. Often, sitting there trying to remember what tasks need to get don’t, only leads to more sitting and thinking until nothing actually gets done.

Not only that. Give yourself the best chance to be consistent by being honest with yourself. Acknowledge that you don’t have a superhuman memory and write things down in a schedule. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy. You could use the Getting Things Done system or even more simply, use the calendar and reminder apps in your smartphone to schedule tasks that you’ll visit at least once a day.

One of the biggest advantages to this is that you won’t have to dedicate your mental capacity to remember things if you have them written down. This frees up your mind to reflect and mentally process your actions to refine them even further.

3. Review Your Progress Daily and Weekly

Reviewing your progress daily and weekly based on the schedule that you set for yourself is so crucial. Doing this, it allows you to consistently have a pulse on your progress and you’re giving yourself feedback in the form of the scheduled reviews.

There will be times when you’re ahead of schedule and other times when you’re behind schedule. Reviewing your progress daily and weekly will help you make adjustments to how you’re working towards your goals. Have you ever been in a school where your teacher only lets you know how you are doing at the end of every quarter or semester? I’ve seen examples where a progress report of a student comes back at the end of the semester saying, “they need to work on their reading comprehension”.

Well, wouldn’t it have been nice to know way earlier on at the beginning of the semester instead of at the end when grades are already in and there’s nothing you can do to change this? This is why it’s so crucial to have a pulse on your progress.

4. Keep Yourself Accountable to the Process first Before the Result

When you’re starting off on your journey and looking to learn something new or accomplish a great achievement, sometimes you might be so focused on the goal that you forget this is a process.

You’re not working on accomplishing something. In actuality, you’re working on growing into the person you need to be to accomplish that thing. To be fair to yourself, keep yourself accountable to the process of consistent forward action. Don’t stress yourself out by saying, I’m not there yet, I haven’t achieved it yet. You’re discounting and not giving yourself credit for the time you’ve put in and that you’re continuing to put in.

When the world is conspiring against you to keep you the same, do yourself a favor by being kind to yourself along the process of consistent action. Keep doing this until you’ve gained so much knowledge and experience that the world starts to conspire for the new self that you are working to become.

5. Reward Yourself for Your Consistency

Finally, reward yourself for your consistent action. When you act consistently and are making forward progress, treat yourself to something. Having a positive association with completing tasks positively reinforces this behavior so that you’ll want to continue being consistent.

Of course, if you’re trying to reach a diet or health goal, don’t reward yourselves by eating all the things you used to eat before that got you into this situation in the first place! Find a reward that is in alignment with the successful achievement of your goals through your consistent actions.

For instance, if you’re trying to lose weight and you’ve been successful with going to the gym and staying disciplined with your diet, treat yourself to a delicious meal at a restaurant you’ve always wanted to try that follows the guidelines of your weight loss plan.

If you’ve been working on putting together a blog or a YouTube channel and you’ve been consistent and diligent with putting out great content, treat yourself to some outdoor activity and a change of scenery to refresh your mind.

The greatest reward is that you’ve been keeping at something long enough that a new habit forms and consistent action become a part of you!

CONCLUSION

Today we discussed why consistent action is a powerful practice in the pursuit of high achievement. If you are a person who is content being a procrastinator, needs constant motivation to take action, or must have immediate gratification in any task you do, then this video was of little value to you.

However, if you are willing to put in a committed and consistent effort, have faith in the process of deliberate action, and are willing to persist despite sacrifices, you have set yourself on the path to higher achievement.

By having clear intentions, planning and scheduling tasks that support your goals, reviewing your progress on a regular basis, being accountable to the process, and rewarding yourself for consistent action, you will be able to incorporate consistent action into your life.

Thanks for watching today and we look forward to seeing you next time on the Modern Wisdom Guide.