30 | Consistency Opens Doors
Hi, I’m Yath! Thank you for being here. You are receiving this because you signed up to my weekly newsletter on living a more considered life. We cover self-improvement, productivity, books, and lifestyle choices. Not yet subscribed? Join 610 other wonderful humans.
This week we cover:
Hey friends,
Something that I am slowly learning through experience is that consistency beats almost all other qualities when it comes to achieving goals. If you want to be great at anything, all you really need to do is be consistent.
For me, it took experience through my weekly newsletter to realise the power of consistency and the compounding effect of showing up each and every week without failure.
Unfortunately, consistency happens to be one of those things easier said than done. So, here are four ways in which I’ve been able to cultivate consistency.
1. Define the intention
I’ve very quickly realised that being vague doesn’t favour you in any way. Be very specific about why you want to do a certain thing.
For example, if you want to start a YouTube channel, why do you want to do this? What are you hoping to achieve eventually?
If your end goal is defined, the motivational drive in itself will help you overcome any difficulties along the way and therefore encourage you to be consistent.
2. Define the schedule
If your goal is to write regularly. Go public. Start a newsletter. Inform others of your schedule.
New article every [insert day/or frequency]
Organised ventures, whether incredible or terrible, have a much greater chance of actually happening. Sure, you’ll want to couple this with some of the other tips in this article but importantly, you’ll want to define your output.
3. Apply the 1% Rule
Any pursuit eventually feels cumbersome and useless if we aren’t seeing results. Fair enough, you’re putting in the hours, you’re turning up regularly, you’re following your passion — but no results. Must feel draining.
Here’s a principle that I came across in Atomic Habits by James Clear. It is called the 1% rule and it’s the basic idea that if we became 1% better at a thing each day over 365 days, we’d be 37.78 times better by the end of the year compared to the start.
Ok, not very helpful because how do you define 1 percent? The point here is if you were to get incrementally better (through active effort) you will begin to see the compounding effects in your growth, performance, and overall satisfaction with your venture.
4. Take a break, have a Ki… 2-day rule
I’m a big advocate for health first. Whatever we intend on achieving should come with no detrimental impact on our physical and mental health.
One big problem with being consistent is that it can actually result in burnout if we aren’t paying close attention to our well-being.
When we burnout, so does our consistency.
Two great principles spring to mind when considering this, Ali Abdaal’s Reitoff Principle (taking time-off when you really feel like it) and Matt D’Avella’s 2-Day Rule (skipping a day, but never two days). Sometimes the best way to ensure long-term consistency is to practice short-term flexible consistency.
Summary
Whatever it is you intend to achieve do it with consistency.
But don’t forget about intention, schedule, incremental improvements, and flexibility.
When combined, this makes long-term success more likely.
This Week’s Quote 🎯
To attain real happiness, humans need to slow down the pursuit of pleasant sensations, not accelerate it. — Homo Dues by Yuval Noah Harari
This Week’s Recommendation 🚀
Notion Template 🎁 - Thomas Frank’s Ultimate Task Manager
You may already be familiar with Thomas Frank and his productivity videos on YouTube but if not — do check them out. Here’s an incredible free task management template he has created which you can duplicate and use in Notion.
This Week on YouTube 🎥
Truth be told, until about 18-months ago, I thought reading was a colossal waste of time. How naïve of me?
Picking books strategically played to my strengths and needs, turn reading, for me, into a life-changing habit. Here’s how I pick the best books:
That’s all for this week — be safe, be happy!
Let’s be friends on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and Goodreads.