The Five Laws Of Consistency

I define consistency as the state of performing acts in a predictable and stable manner for the sake of achieving something desirable. In a scary world where so many things are out of our control, consistency puts us in the best possible position to claim control. And for that, it is such a desirable trait.

If we want to be consistent with a goal, we have to create a mental and physical space that is compatible with achieving it. Though many people want to become consistent, they don’t know where to start. This is why I would like to share five ideas that can help us become and stay more consistent.

Don't Make It Too Uncomfortable

There is always going to be some level of discomfort when you work towards a goal. That is natural and healthy. But if what you are doing is too uncomfortable, you will be less likely to keep up with it.

When I was younger, my dad and brother ingrained into me the idea that you are not really working out unless you end up puking or dry heaving. This made working out horrific for me, and as a result, I tried to avoid working out as much as possible. It wasn’t until I learned that working out at 120% wasn’t necessary for attaining physical benefits. Training somewhat hard, at around 85%, was more than enough to build strength and endurance. Learning this made me enjoy working out, and has kept me consistently in the gym for the past nine years.

I believe that we should try to make any process as easy as possible. Working towards a goal is already going to be challenging on its own, so why make it more difficult? This brings me to my next example.

Let’s say there are two exercises that target the same muscle group. One exercise is a 10/10 in difficulty, and the other is an 8.5/10 in difficulty. The 10/10 exercise is a tiny bit more effective, but you enjoy doing the 8.5/10 more and it is still very effective. In this context, the 8.5/10 workout is better. You might be able to get a more effective workout with the 10/10, but you might also start dreading the gym. Unless you have supreme willpower, dread will discourage you from going to the gym.

The key here is to find the balance between enjoyment and effectiveness. This is the only way consistency will work!

Get Clarity With Your Purpose

In order to get into a grove of consistency, precision is key. If we only have a vague goal in mind, we will have an easier time moving the goalposts and giving up. This is why we need to have clearly defined goals. The best way to do this is with the “1-2 rule”.

The 1-2 rule is where we take one overall goal and break it down into one milestone goal and one action-oriented goal. Let's say that your overall goal is:

“I want to learn French.”

You would break this down into:

“I want to be able to read a French children’s book by the end of the month.”
“I will practice French on Duolingo for half an hour a day.”

Once you achieve both of these, do the process again, and tune up the difficulty. If you fail on either of them, reflect, readjust, and create another set of goals. The process of doing this will help engrain consistency habits into your psyche.

Get An Accountability Partner

Our minds often find creative ways to cut corners even with a strong goal in mind. It is okay to slip up occasionally, but if we allow ourselves to slip up too much, we can fall down a slippery slope all the way back to square one.

A great way to avoid this slippery slope is to have someone accompany us on our journey. Whether it is a coach, family member, or friend, when another person knows about our goals, they can be our safety net. These people can give us a sense of healthy shame, where the fear of letting them down can hold us back from cheating.

So if we want to be more consistent in the gym, we should have someone go with us. If we want to learn calculus, we should have someone study with us. Pursuing our goals with someone will make the process more effective and enjoyable.

Trial + Error -> Reflect -> Refine

When we pursue things that are new to us, we might not have a reference for what a good or reasonable goal is. This is especially true in the modern era with digital media. Digital media has made millions of dollars by shuffling content that has distorted our expectations of what is reasonable in virtually every domain. This has led to a lot of letdowns and has made the process of pursuing goals more discouraging. Understanding this can help us brace for the impact of failure and persevere with our goals.

If our goals are not the most reasonable at first, we should still try to pursue them. As difficult as the process might be, when pursuing unrealistic goals, we are engaging with the subject matter. This is where we get familiarized with the subject, which is crucial for meeting our overall goals.

Let’s say you see a post on Instagram that says, “I learned 20 pull-ups in 30 days, so you can too!” If you have no experience working out, you might think you can reasonably achieve that. So you start working towards this goal, but realize 15 days in that you can’t hit four pull-ups. Based on this trend, you understand you are probably going to fail at hitting the 20 pull-ups. And that is okay. Feel the discouragement and be angry about it.

But whether you know it or not, you have still made crucial progress. You now know significantly more about the ways your mind and body react to this type of training, and you can use this information to make your original goal more realistic.

Manage Sphere of Influence

If we are trying to cross a lake in a boat and there are holes in it, rowing faster or better will not help us get across the lake. If we don’t plug the holes, the way we row is meaningless. Similar to having a hole in our boat, if we have a goal and there is something fundamentally incompatible with that goal, we can’t rely on our willpower to work towards it. We must remove the incompatibility before we do anything else. This might be easy to understand, but this is incredibly difficult to put into practice.

Here is an example of how I “plugged the hole” in my life.

When I was a little younger, I drank and partied quite a bit. It got to the point where it became very problematic. I would make a fool out of myself every weekend and would wake up the following day feeling anxious and nauseous. This cycle was wearing me down, and I was getting sick of it. So one day, I decided I had enough. I told myself I would not drink alcohol anymore. And that next week, I stuck to my promise.

After a couple more weeks, though I was still sober, I continued to go out with the same people. My willpower was strong, but the peer influence was getting stronger. And sure enough, after just three weeks, I was back to drinking just like before. Why? I didn’t plug the hole. Even with strong willpower, there was no way I was going to stop if I continued to hang out with these people. There was only one thing I could do to make this easier. As hard as it was, I stopped hanging out with these people.

Conclusion

If we want to grow a plant in a garden, the garden needs to be made habitable for that plant. Plants need a garden that is properly tilled and watered. They also need their garden to be free of weeds and pests. The relationship between us and our goal is no different than a garden and a plant. How we “setup” our physical and mental space is the key to consistency. It is not going to be easy, but as long as we stick to these five laws and manage our discouragement, we will put ourselves in a very favorable position to reach our goals.

About the Author:

Chase Larwin is currently a content editor and writer for the marketing and blog/newsletter team at the Love Yourself Foundation. Starting as young as eight years old, he would write stories and create movie scripts. At the age of 16, he started writing political satire for an Instagram account and continued this until he was 18 years old. He is currently in his final semester at UNLV and will be graduating in journalism. He plans on attending Law School in the fall.