Being Consistent
Two of my sons competed at the Commonwealth Games (see one of them in action in Australia in 2018) in swimming (aged 19 and 20 respectively). They both started swimming competitively well over a decade before that, with those appearances at one of the world’s top events being a culmination of all of that practice. In fact, when my oldest son was 18, his club coach, when giving a speech to the team to recognise him as he headed off to university, noted that my son had done over 10,000 hours of practice up to that season.
Consistency.
As Shane Parrish recently put it:
The person who is consistent outperforms the person who is intermittent every time. While inconsistent effort works for some things, for the things that really matter you need to be consistent. If you want to be consistent, you need strategies to keep you going when things are hard.
My sons only very rarely missed a practice. Once in a while (and their alarm was set for 5 am several mornings a week), they might say they didn’t want to swim, but I would always tell them they had to swim that day. I would tell them that if they wanted to quit, they could quit at the end of that season, but for that day they had to make good on their commitment to swimming.
This was one of the strategies we used to help them be consistent, with that consistency leading to many amazing sporting experiences.
Being Flexible as a Strategy
I started writing daily on my site in October 2017. I did not miss a single day for several years, well over 1,000 posts and 500,000 words. Over the last couple of years though, I have, on occasion, given myself the flexibility to take a break. Of course, the longest of these was for about six weeks earlier this year when I had major surgery, but I have now also taken a few occasional breaks to refresh and recharge.
Today I am taking my first overseas vacation since the pandemic began, one week away with a context of “chill”. As such, I may feel inspired to write daily, or I may choose to be flexible and take a break. What remains consistent though, even with that flexibility, is that I am committed to this being a daily blog, even with the occasional pause.
In fact, that flexibility is one of my strategies that helps me remain consistent with the practice of daily writing.
A few questions for you
- What are you consistent with and that does bring ?
- What strategies do you employ to support that consistency?
- What flexibility do you give yourself, and does that in fact form one of your strategies?