Why Consistency Fails Us

We have now entered a new decade, and I am sure most of us are feeling that spirit of change. We feel like this is an ideal time to improve in several areas of our lives and of course, that starts with a plan. Since it’s the new year, many of us will call these “New Year’s Resolutions,” and for others, we’ll just call them goals as we dread the inevitable outcome of resolutions: they are almost always neglected. This cycle may continue throughout the year with other goals we try to achieve and if you are like me, you’re probably tired of this. 

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Therefore, in an attempt to understand how others achieve their goals, I read an unhealthy amount of articles and one point that stood out because of how often it was mentioned was consistency. To achieve a goal, we should be working consistently on it, which makes complete sense. There really is no shortcut here. However, knowing that we should be consistent doesn’t work for me as well as it should and it took me a long time to realize why. 

Photo by Goh Rhy Yan

I finally understood the reason after speaking to my personality professor about personality change and the problem here is as simple as it is profound. 

Our mindset about consistency may not work for some of us. If you think of consistency in the way that I do, you see it as working towards your goal every single day without fail. Here, “without fail” is the operative phrase. I once even read an article that solidified this further by saying that when you quit working on your goal for one day, you become complacent, as you start to believe that it is okay to skip a day and it happens even more often where you’ll eventually stop working on it completely. 

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This, however, is quite the opposite of how some of us should view consistency because this intensity may be counterintuitive if it is easy for you to be easily stressed to begin with. 

I’ll give an example. One of my goals this year was to improve my drawing skills. This would obviously require consistent practice, so I set a goal to draw every Saturday. I did everything: I added this to a calendar and made the goal specific by deciding on a location, time and the type of drawing that I would work on. This worked for three weeks but by the fourth week, it was almost too overwhelming for me. I felt like I was dreading the upcoming Saturday because I wasn’t consistent and if I can’t be consistent then I wouldn’t achieve my goal. I started to ignore the task completely. I haven’t revisited that goal in months. 

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A better way of looking at consistency is as an accumulation of work overtime where skipping a few days is a part of the process. Skipping a few days doesn’t mean that you are complacent with your goal. Skipping a few days does not mean you will not achieve it. Skipping a few days does not mean you are inconsistent. 

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Of course, our mindset about consistency isn’t the only thing that hinders productivity towards a goal. There are always many sides to a story but, in my case, this was an essential aspect that was rarely addressed. Therefore, while this idea is simple and almost intuitive, I believe it is worth mentioning at this time. 

As you plan your goals for 2020, I urge you to remember that when you miss a few days, let them go and continue the following days. Consistency isn’t all or nothing, so you are still progressing even when you miss a few days.

Photo by Stanislav Kondratiev

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