Productivity Arata! If you want to create new habits that are useful for your future, then write this down: it’s necessary to develop consistency. Consistency is the habit of doing what’s important every day.
1. We are that which we repeatedly do.
To create good habits, you need to develop your consistency. Consistency is an ability just like any other, and therefore it can be practised. If you’re thinking it’s difficult to practise, or that it is tiring to be consistent, here’s a useful tip:
Do you know what the most tiring activity is?
It’s to keep thinking about doing something but not starting it.
You certainly know what I’m talking about. You think about that activity that you need to do, you think about what you need to do all day… but you keep messing about. That’s tiring. That guilt we carry for messing about, for procrastinating, is something that tires us from inside.
Always compare how worn out you’ll feel if you procrastinate with how you’ll feel if you do something now. Procrastinating is tiring because of the guilt that we feel for doing it. Generally, it’s worth it to act now and then we suffer for less time. And the indirect advantage of that choice is that it increases our consistency.
When I have consistency, I don’t even think about doing something or not. I don’t think about when I’m going to do it. I don’t think about how I’ll do it. I just do it, because that practise is natural, and it’s a part of my routine.
2. Consistency doesn’t depend on our mood.
Moods oscillate. In order for you to learn how to create good habits, forget the false belief that you need to be feeling a specific mood to start.
Those who are consistent don’t come up with excuses and say they’re not inspired. Whether it’s sunny or rainy, consistent people go and make stuff happen.
A champion athlete doesn’t wait all day for the mood to strike before he goes training. Even if he’s sleepy, lazy or bored, he shows up to training. And as the training starts he gradually enters the desired emotional state.
Did you get it? Don’t sit and wait for the inspiration to come before trying to become consistent. First be consistent, and that’s how the inspiration comes to you.
Consistency is to work in a habitual way, not just on those days we’re feeling motivated and clear-minded but also on days when we’re not feeling it. It doesn’t depend on our mood, because our mood varies.
3. Days can go by slowly, but years run fast.
We have the tendency to exaggerate our expectations about what we can do in one day, and we are very modest about the expectations of what we can achieve in one year.
See, these activities that we practise daily and consistently, although small, they accumulate and bring about amazing results over the years. Days can go by slowly, but years run fast. Remember that when you’re too lazy to accomplish your consistent practise. You’ll see it is worth it.
What we do every day has a much greater importance and impact than that which we do only once in a while.
And now I ask you: what do you want to get done in the next few years? What will you do consistently so that it happens? In my case, I’m constantly writing, researching, working with people, perfecting my training. And that’s consistency: every day I see new angles of personal development, and that’s something I love. That’s why Arata Academy has the motto “Your continued improvement”.
4. To build habits, keep moving.
Consistency can seem hard, but it makes life easier. How can that be?
It’s difficult to be consistent because there are days on which we feel lazy and we don’t want to practise our habit. HOWEVER, if that reluctance is overcome, we gain momentum. We keep moving, and so we reduce how much we resist the next practise.
Remember inertia: the tendency of unmoving objects to stay put and moving objects to keep moving.
So, be wary of the need to stop, even if just for a little while. When I stop, I forget where I was. I have to warm up again, I have to get back that mindset, that inspiration, that vision, I have to remember again the people who were involved, their expectations, what I can deliver. I lose complementary habits, those we saw on the previous episode.
Do you get it? It isn’t just the activity itself that needs to be executed. There is all that contextual information that I lose over time. And the more days go by without resuming the activity, the more difficult it becomes.
So I want consistency to build habits. To keep projects fresh in my mind and to make it easier to go on every day.
People often have doubts about how to concentrate, how to keep focus so that they finally become consistent.
If you want to fully activate your focus power, then I leave you with an invitation: go to this link, because it’s focus that will help us to stay consistent during difficult moments. In a world full of distractions, we need to learn how to protect what’s important that we do today and reap the long term benefits.Remember the cost of leaving things for later. If you know it’s important to increase your focus and reap the benefits of your goals, the sooner you fix your lack of focus, the better. So visit this link to solve that immediately.