Consistency: The Good, the Bad & the Ugly
Consistency is the key to achieving just about anything. Consistency is what it takes.
When you examine exponential growth patterns, you see feedback loops pouring more resources and energy into each subsequent iteration. No individual iteration by itself is particularly remarkable. What makes them so powerful? Consistency.
Consistency is the gatekeeper. It’s the hurdle to clear. It’s the required standard to progress.
Consistency produces momentum, and momentum produces more consistency. Repeated self-reinforcing actions in life, engineering, business, and society produce large-scale transformative results. Consistently.
Inconsistency produces none of this.
So let’s be clear up front on what we need to achieve in any pursuit.
Consistency sounds simple — just do it, right? But our instincts, our minds are drawn to the new. And the new is by definition not consistent. Consistent is old, a rerun. And the old routine is not as exciting.
But you know what is exciting? Exponential growth. The transformation at the end of that expansion curve. Life change.
So the trick is to stay cognizant of the end point (the desired state) while progressing each step along the journey. Day by day, hour by hour. Long-term vision with short-term actions.
This does not occur naturally. The best approach I know is systems to keep the vision and the actions aligned. The two must remain obviously, intuitively, and even emotionally connected.