My Top 7 Principles That Help Me Remain Consistent
Consistency is a remarkable indicator of true maturity and enduring strength.
Consistency is a remarkable indicator of true maturity and enduring strength.
It’s important to recognise that showing up and continuing to put in effort over time requires a significant amount of energy.
Many people see the outward signs of consistency, but what they might not realise is the immense work happening behind the scenes to make it all possible.
Achieving consistency isn’t just about waiting for it to happen; it’s an intentional investment.
It involves discipline, creating supportive systems, engaging in research, and, yes, experiencing failures and making mistakes along the way. These challenges offer invaluable lessons that contribute to our growth.
No one becomes truly consistent overnight.
It’s a gradual process that unfolds over time, shaped by our accumulated efforts, learning, and the journey of mastering our craft while understanding what works and what doesn’t.
In this article, I will share some principles that have personally guided me in maintaining consistency.
Most of these insights are universal truths, while others are strategies I have personally learnt while pursuing consistency.
I hope that by sharing, I can inspire someone else to carve out their own path to consistency in whatever they pursue.
The Path Of The Consistent
Before we launch into tips and strategies, we need to understand the need to be consistent.
Why should we even be consistent?
I believe there should be first, purpose behind any pursuit of consistency.
Why do you want that thing to become a productive habit that changes your life?
Following through may be very difficult if you’ve not discovered the WHY.
I wanted to be a consistent writer — it may be different for you. Maybe you want to be consistent with exercising, a sport, business, studying, or building a new habit. Whatever.
You must understand the purpose of your desire to be consistent. If it’s not deep enough, you might not have VERY strong reasons to remain consistent.
I wanted to use my writing to change people’s lives by inspiring them to do and become more.
That’s the embodiment of my present writing vision — it may change tomorrow or in the future.
I believe that with writing, we can nudge people to become their best versions in all aspects of life. So, my writing is all about inspiring, informing, and building intelligence in people.
It wasn’t easy when I started.
I didn’t even understand what I was doing.
Everyone was starting a WordPress blog, and it looked cool, so I joined the trend and opened a few free WordPress blogs — super easy to do.
But I didn’t know why I was doing what I was doing. So, I wasn’t serious.
I would write once a month or once in two months. Sometimes, I would read an inspiring blog about how a writer changed their life through writing. It would infuse some temporary zeal in me, which would die out after about a week or two because there was no purpose.
Let me tell you this. Understanding purpose is the foundational principle of staying consistent forever.
All other principles, systems, and methods are built on your deep understanding of your purpose — the why.
If you understand and master your purpose, staying consistent will be much easier for you.
It took me many years of making many mistakes and following trends, failures and trials before I was able to place my thumb on the pulse of why I wanted to write.
When I started mastering and understanding my purpose, I realised that I didn’t need to read any blogs or articles from famous writers to show up and put in the work — finding inspiration and motivation from others is good. I love reading those inspiring stories, but it shouldn’t be the basis of what drives you.
What drives you must be purpose-driven. It’s deeper.
Once I started mastering purpose, I was always ready to face it head-on every day!
I woke up determined to do all it takes to write and improve.
Over the years, it slowly started becoming second nature for me. And now, I can boldly say that I am leaving that level of struggling with consistency.
Challenges came.
There were many periods when I gave up writing.
Oh yes.
There were times when I began to compare the results of my writing with others and said to myself, “Am I not even wasting my time?” But in those moments, what kept me going were not the systems and tips but my understanding of purpose.
I found myself coming back even better and stronger.
My failures, doubts, and mistakes became solid layers that solidified my purpose and ingrained the culture of being consistent in my heart.
If you don’t understand your purpose, being consistent will be impossible.
Now, let’s dive into the tips that have helped me remain consistent.
Some of these principles are very generic. Nothing really special.
The most important idea has already been discussed: the importance of purpose.
Forgive Your Failures And Mistakes Fast
I have learnt how to forgive myself when I fail or make mistakes, and have reached the level where I understand failure more.
Failure is not useless; in fact, we may even learn more from our failures than successes.
If you can’t forgive yourself, forget about becoming consistent in anything.
You’ll make many unintentional mistakes.
You must forgive yourself, learn from the mistakes and failures and move ahead!
Understanding failures and mistakes keeps you going.
Most people tend to stop their journeys when they fail or make mistakes.
Instead of giving up, learn from that failure and mistake and keep moving.
Nurture The Right Habits
Habits are the primary building blocks of consistency.
Certain habits must be part of your life if you want to be a successful athlete. Without those habits, you will never be able to achieve meaningful success.
If you want to become a writer, certain habits must become part of your life, and one of them is the habit of reading. If you don’t read, you will never become a good writer.
This principle applies to all other endeavours in life. We must build certain habits if we ever want to be successful.
The path to your goals is full of habits that you must master.
We don’t move towards our goals riding on imaginary clouds; we move towards our goals with daily actions, and those actions are habits, and those habits are the primary molecules of staying consistent.
Without the right habits, you will always find yourself falling and falling behind.
A consistent person has been able to master the right habits.
Master Focus
When you start doing something, ensure your attention is undivided until you have finished it.
Don’t look to the right or left until you’ve done it.
Be a master of your attention. Being focused is becoming a superpower in a world of a dozen distractions.
Focus On Your Goals
Your immediate or daily goals require undivided focus to become a reality; the same goes for your future goals.
Have you ever seen any serious athlete exercising or training and taking time off to peek at their phones and scroll through Instagram or YouTube? Serious athletes build god-like focus! And their results speak for themselves.
You must have daily and future goals when it comes to writing (or any other thing).
Your daily goal might be to write two articles or write 1,000 words.
To fulfil it, you must focus and fight to get it.
Your future goal might be to finish a book within 6 months or finish your course within 3 months.
Nurturing focus helps you stay consistent.
The more we exercise focus and blast through our goals, the more we discover that consistency naturally flows.
There are many methods to help you create goals and follow them to the end.
Look for the ones that fit you and use them.
Do The Most Important Things
Set priorities straight.
Everything may be important, but everything is not always important, and certain things are always important.
Do more of the important things all the time, and the things that are not, put them aside and don’t waste your time doing them.
If you don’t know how to set priorities straight, you will find out that you’re wasting time doing the wrong things and doing the wrong things will mean producing the wrong results, which can drain your energy and kill your consistency in bits.
There are things you know that you must do every day, right? Then do them.
Avoiding Perfectionism But Embracing Quality
I struggled for a long time with this problem. I felt my work must be perfect before I sent it out.
For a long time, I hesitated and held back.
Until I began to read the stories of other people who were able to break through the prison of perfectionism and start creating, those stories helped me greatly, especially the ones that were very sincere about how they started.
I also started putting work out there, and gradually, I learnt how to pursue quality and not perfectionism.
Perfectionism is a journey.
We often find that even when we feel satisfied with our work today, a fresh look tomorrow will reveal areas where we can add, remove, modify, or enhance.
This realisation can be both humbling and liberating.
It’s important to recognise that perfectionism isn’t a final destination but an ongoing process filled with growth and discovery.
As I reflect on this article, I know it’s far from perfect.
If I read it again, I would likely find aspects that could be improved.
What matters most to me is that I’ve put in my best effort to make it readable, minimise errors, and share my experiences authentically.
Tomorrow may bring new insights, and I might find inspiration to write an even better version.
Embracing this truth can be a comforting reminder that we are all continually learning and evolving.
We can’t capture all the wisdom in one attempt, and that’s why products and services constantly have upgraded versions.
So, to stay consistent in anything, you must understand that becoming perfect is not a destination but a journey.
Be A Student
Learning is my lifelong motto.
I will always be a student because there’s no end to learning.
There’s always something new to learn, and my openness to learning has helped me greatly.
In the creative world, most creators are self-taught adventurers, exploring new ideas independently. It takes a big-hearted, open-minded person to thrive in this vibrant field!
I love to learn new things and have discovered that those who embrace learning will remain relevant.
The heart to learn is never pushing against change or transformation.
When change comes, they easily and quickly accept the change and grow in it.
The AI revolution will separate those who have not built the nature of learning from those who embrace learning.
You may be inching towards extinction if you can’t learn to use AI as a creator. Instead of complaining, learn how to use AI to improve and enhance your work.
I will publish a series on AI & Creativity soon, sharing my journey with how I use AI and tips on how creators can utilise AI.
Life-long learners will always remain consistent because it’s the same energy you need to learn that you need to stay consistent.
When you’re always learning, you’ll always discover new things in your desired area of pursuit that will keep you going and add flavour to your journey.
Discard And Terminate Useless Projects Quickly And Early
This is another personal principle I learnt very late until I discovered I had spent time on relatively useless projects.
Spending time on useless projects will drain your energy fast and, over time, kill your consistency.
The time you should be spending doing productive things will be spent pursuing useless projects that add nothing to achieving your goal.
It took me years to realise that some projects in my life were not taking me anywhere and weren’t going anywhere, and these projects were affecting me badly, draining the energy that I should have used to pursue other meaningful ideas and projects.
So, if you want to preserve your consistency, I urge you to scout around for projects that don’t relate to your goal and terminate them quickly and early.
If you feel emotionally attached to them because of the resources spent on them, put them in the archive until you are ready.
I have ideas and projects cooling off in my archive.
There are good projects and ideas, but I don’t need them now.
When I have the energy to pursue them and when they align with my goals in a future season, I can now bring them out of the freezer and resume if they are still relevant because AI has come suddenly and made many of our ideas almost useless or obsolete.
Learn To Rest At The Right Time
Don’t joke with the rest. It’s vital. As someone who writes a lot about health and wellbeing, I understand deeply the importance of resting regularly.
We may have periods of pushing our bodies. However, we must know when to pause and rest.
The body cannot function endlessly. It was designed to rest, not to keep working forever.
I don’t see any wisdom in it if we push our bodies, burn out, get sick and die all in the name of pursuing goals and visions that would be left behind when we die. There’s no wisdom in it.
Many people can’t work again because they hurt their bodies with too much work. They allowed stress to eat deep into their bodies, and it broke them down.
Unattended stress and fatigue can greatly affect your level of focus and attention to your goals, pulling your consistency levels down.
Overwork is not discipline. Read it again.
Follow Your Tribe
Don’t try to copy the principles of stoicism because you feel it’s cool or attractive.
Stoicism isn’t meant for everybody.
In the school of productivity, everybody is unique, and we must discover our unique abilities.
There were books I read, and after reading, I immediately concluded that the principles here were not for me.
Don’t hop on every new method, formula, or playbook. You must learn to understand yourself and know what buttons to touch that will keep you moving.
Will there be times when you might need to change strategy?
Yes, surely. And the only way you can know when to change strategy is if you deeply understand yourself.
Look for the places and corners where they teach the principles that suit you and follow them.
When it comes to leadership, I have always discovered that biblical principles merge better with my heart, and I have decided for a long time to follow them.
Does that mean I will not learn something from other places? No.
I read a lot, I mean a lot, and there are things I read and immediately know this is not for me.
Like when I was reading The 48 Laws of Power — good book, smart author, I couldn’t even get myself to finish the book because most of its principles are etched deep in manipulating people.
To stay consistent, follow the right people who speak to your heart and don’t be carried away by any new wind of thought or philosophy.
Most young people are finding consistency difficult because they are hopping from one school of thought to another, making it almost impossible for them to settle and move in a straight line towards their goals.
You Can And Should Be Consistent
Yes, you can.
Have you been struggling with staying consistent? If yes, then your problem is just purpose and vision — believe me. It’s not that complex.
Once you can solve the problem of purpose and vision, everything will fall into place gradually.
You may still find things difficult if you’ve not discovered purpose — your why.
Find purpose and see how things begin to fall into place.
I share insights on technology, entrepreneurship, culture and healthcare [T.E.C.H]. My writing mainly falls within these domains.
Read on Medium.