How to Be Consistent: The Skill You Need to Master Anything in Life

Train yourself to show up and you’ll be able to achieve value and meaning in your life.

If there’s one skill that sets you apart in today’s world is to be consistent.

Here’s a common story:

You become fixated on a particular goal. Like writing a novel. Or losing weight.

For the first couple of days, you ride that wave of motivation. You show up, do the work, move on. Another day won.

But then the novelty wears off. You start skipping practice. You stop being consistent. A day here and a day there and before long you haven’t written a word for days or been to the gym this month.

Sounds familiar?

Every year people make new resolutions. Do they follow up on them? Most don’t. Why? They lack consistency. The only thing they are consistent at is starting and stopping.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. You need to develop the skill of being consistent. Here’s how…

Step 1: Choose a Goal

This is the easy part: choose something you want to achieve. You have something already on your mind.

Maybe you want to start writing. Or lose weight. Or be on top of your finances.

To maximize your odds of success, tie it to personality change.

You’re not looking to achieve, you want to become.

You’re someone who writes. A healthy person that eats clean and exercises. You’re good at managing personal finances.

Connect your goal to a personality change to make it stick.

Homework: complete the following sentence “I want to become_______.”

Step 2: Tie It to an Action

How are you going to reach your goal? What does success look like? This is the rep — the action you’ll be doing consistently to achieve your goal.

Why do we fail to show up? Because we focus on the outcome rather than the process.