How To Be More Consistent

Have you ever noticed that your best results in life come from being consistent with your efforts? Consistency is not optional if you want to be successful in just about anything (as I learned the hard way).

The problem is that most people tend to struggle with it, especially when it comes to things like entrepreneurship, working out, etc. But, how can you develop consistency and keep from letting procrastination back in?

Plan Your Day

If you get distracted easily or feel a little scatterbrained sometimes, it probably has something to do with you not having a schedule or plan for how your day will play out.

You have to learn to prioritize the actions that will help you reach your most important goals. One thing I've done is use a whiteboard or an excel document to write out my tasks for the day and check them off as I go.

Just writing them down and seeing them visually helps your mind be a little more organized when thinking about what must get done.

When you check them off as you go, it helps you focus on just one thing (the next thing that must be crossed off the list).

Figure Out What Mindset Works Best For You

I've always heard different ways of attacking your day and how to be the most productive, but no one way is necessarily the best.

The way I see it, productive people have one of two different mindsets when faced with multiple important tasks to get done:

1. Get the hard, most important tasks out of the way first. 

This can create a state of mind where you are always thinking positively because you know that you will have more enjoyable or easier tasks coming up later in the day that you look forward to.

2. Get the easier, small stuff done first.

This is best for people that need the extra motivation to keep working hard each day by creating small wins in the beginning and building up to bigger tasks.

If you aren't a morning person, you may want to start with the easy stuff and as you get more energetic and build a little momentum, you can take on bigger things.

Figure out what works best for you and stick to it. It help your consistency by helping you enjoy the day more and be in the right state of mind constantly.

Have 3 Sets Of Goals

One thing I like to have is a morning routine that helps me wake up, feel good, motivate me and get me looking forward to doing what must be done. A vital part of my morning routine is my goals.

I have 3 sets of goals: yearly goals, monthly goals and daily goals. I learned this way of setting goals from some other successful people that I study who are production and consistency machines.

You need to know what you want to accomplish for the entire year, month and today.

Knowing your yearly goals helps you know what to focus on during each month, and knowing your monthly goals helps you know what to focus on each day.

It's a great way to help you stay organized and clear on what to do. What I do is write them on my whiteboard, so that when I walk into my office each day, that is one of the first things I see.

Visualization

Have you ever heard of the study that was done a while back about people who would improve their skills just using visualization without even physically practicing?

I heard about this study from a book I was reading called, “Psycho-Cybernetics” and from the famous Tony Robbins. I'll try to sum it up, so you get the idea pretty quickly.

One example the study used was for people trying to shoot free throws in basketball. They would have 3 groups of people:

• The first group would practice shooting the basketball 20 minutes a day for the test period.
• The second group would would not practice at all for the entire test period.
• The third group would only practice in their head through visualization for 20 minutes a day for the test period. They had zero physical shooting practice during the period.

The first group increased their scoring percentage by 24%. The second group did not improve at all, obviously. And the third group increased their scoring percentage by 23%.

It shows you that your mind can't tell the difference between a vivid visualization or physical practice. The results speak for themselves.

To improve your consistency or reach your goal, visualize yourself reaching that goal for 20-30 minutes a day, doing the things that people who have reached it would do, and you will get great results over time.

Take Periodic Breaks

From what I've seen in people, one of the biggest causes of a lack of consistency, is when they just don't have a positive attitude or are worn out from tasks.

When you allow yourself to get burnout, mentally tired, or grumpy because of too much nonstop work, bad things happen. The old “work 8 hour days” idea has been in place since the early industrial age and needs to be updated.

We work much better using the Ultradian Rhythm work cycle where we work for about 90 minutes at a time and then take a 15-20 minute break.

When you work in chunks like this, you become a lot more focused during the time you work and don't have to over do it.

You can recharge between intervals to help you consistently be sharper mentally as you get back to work. This is great for entrepreneurs that make their own work schedules.

Just don't try to multitask because that never helps production. For more on the evolution of work schedules, read here.

Conclusion

The ones who are the most successful in business, sports, fitness, etc. are the ones that take small actions consistently day in and day out. That's the secret to getting what you want.

I encourage you to do everything in your power to make yourself be more consistent because I promise you it will pay off. Let us know in the comments if you have any other strategies for consistency.