Building Consistency

Why listen to "The Psychology of your 20s" podcast?

At the time of writing this post, I am 20 years old. I believe that it is ingrained into my personality to always plan ahead. This is because I dislike making mistakes and needing to compromise. Therefore, I always try my best to learn what I can before tackling something head-on. In life, there is no blueprint to follow. What I mean is that there is no single plan that everyone can rely on to become successful. Every person is different, and so are the circumstances which limit their ability to get where they wish to be. We can only rely on skills such as time management, and being able to use that time productively, to get through our academics or that 9-5(for most individuals I would say). After browsing the episodes of "The Psychology of your 20s" and listening to 4+ episodes, I feel a tad more comfortable and equipped to tackle these upcoming years.

Why do I want to learn how to build consistency?

Today I gave episode 93, "How to build consistency", another listen and took notes✍️. Why'd I do this? Imagine a future where you possess unwavering focus, an unbreakable work ethic, and the ability to accomplish your goals with ease. Building consistency is the key to unlocking this future. By investing time and effort in becoming consistent, you set yourself on a trajectory toward long-term success, where adaptability and continuous learning are paramount. Many people say that consistency is key. But what is consistency? How do I be consistent?

Problems that keep us from being consistent

Everyone has dreams, goals, and milestones in their life that they plan to achieve someday. Whether you may notice or not, there are small changes we can make that incredibly boost our productivity, and in turn, our consistency.

1. Procrastination - The obvious problem that we all can relate to. We've all fallen into the notorious "I'll do it later" trap. Overcoming procrastination requires discipline—the ability to take action despite the temptation to delay tasks.

2. Motivation - Many of us start strong but struggle to maintain motivation throughout the journey.

3. Distraction - Consistency demands focused attention on the task at hand.

To be consistent is simply to have developed good LONG TERM HABITS.

Key advice to build consistency

Micro Habits

The podcast host, Jemma Sbeg, stressed that learning to become consistent is a gradual process. It requires the dedication of our time every day to build consistency over the long run. By starting with simple daily behaviors, we can avoid burnout. These daily behaviors eventually become habits and with consistency, they become larger sustained habits. As one becomes more comfortable with these habits, it ensures long terms success and prevents burnout.

She also mentioned that developing healthy habits can be a great way of developing consistency at the start. In my personal experience, I can attest to this. Since summer started, I have been making an aim to exercise and drink enough water every day. In just 2 weeks, I feel that I can now easily decide to pick myself up and go for a jog/jump rope/calisthenics/weightlifting exercise session.

The host also expressed a point that I find very interesting. We should have a mix of both long-term and short-term goals. We can't only be focused on just one thing all the time. Life is a marathon, not a sprint.

As mentioned before, our phones play a crucial part in the person we've become. Our devices are a tool to achieve success, but it can also be the opposite. One reason we use our phones is for entertainment. Having ceaseless access to this entertainment, and getting that constant "dopamine hit" from using social media, increases the time it takes for us to perform tasks. Moreover, the happy feeling we get from completing tasks is not as great anymore. This is because it would more than likely take longer to complete the task and our energy gets drained. Therefore, we must practice delayed gratification and incremental gratification.

Lastly, do not get caught up in your failures. It can lead to self-sabotage. You can compare this to shooting yourself in the foot and is a reason why some people quit. Take your mistakes and past failures and treat them as a lesson learned. Sbeg suggests that we celebrate our failures!

Rest

We need a diversity of experiences and stimulation to stay consistent. I believe that Sbeg was leaning toward staying motivated. She states that one should not only be devoted to one goal. This prevents us from being burnt out when we hit a wall. In addition, she spoke about the 80/20 rule. 80% of the time should be devoted to work and habits. The other 20% are for the things that make us happy, not necessarily the things that are related to you striving for your goals.

Create a reasonable routine

One strategy to become more consistent is to start simple. Start with a monthly routine, then a weekly routine, and finally we become comfortable fo have a daily routine. Going all in will lead to exhaustion and burnout. For example (Sbeg used this example and I believe it is the best): to get fit you can challenge yourself to run a long distance every day. This puts you out of your comfort zone but you are more prone to injury, exhaustion and quitting as a consequence. Remember life is a marathon, not a sprint.

Set reminders for yourself to recollect the purpose of your goals. Sbeg revealed that at one point, she used a picture to remind herself of where she wanted to be in life.

Surround yourself with like-minded individuals that support and inspire you. We are an amalgamation of the 5 individuals we surround ourselves with. I would consider it self-sabotage to surround yourself with individuals who do not believe in your goals.

Final Notes

Introspection

Look inward to understand your path and uncover aspects of yourself that you may not have recognized before.

Upon re-listening to this podcast and writing this post, I noticed a few things about myself. I am easily drawn by the notification sounds of my phone. I picked this up very easily and proceeded to mute the volume. Without this input, I believe that I became somewhat anxious to know what notifications I received. I say this because every time I glimpse the screen lighting up from a notification, I impulsively swipe down to see the notifications list. This happened a few times before I caught on to what was happening. At this time, I remembered the "Do not disturb" mode and enabled it to better focus on my task.

There you go!

I greatly appreciate that you took the time out of your day to read this post. If you learned anything of value, or perhaps your perspective towards consistency has changed/improved, share it with others and put your knowledge into practice if you haven't yet. It would go a long way to make us all more consistent in reaching our aspirations.

Also, you can listen to the podcast episode on Spotify here: