Inconsistent Consistency

One of the things I get complimented on the most is being consistent. I guess that’s the reputation you earn when you put out a new episode every week day for almost 8 years. And I’ve been able to back it up - with my workouts, in choices I make around friends, and in most areas of my life I’ve been very consistent for many years.

However, that doesn’t mean I’m consistent in every area of my life. Just like anyone else I’ve gone through my seasons of making commitments that didn’t last, seeking to raise a standard I couldn’t sustain, and have had my fair share of fast starts that wear off.

How can that possibly make sense? How can someone who is extremely self-disciplined struggle to do the thing they’ve set their mind to?

It all comes down to identity and resistance.

In some cases it’s easier to be consistent. When you identify as a self-disciplined person, it’s actually more painful to act contrary to your identity than it is to just follow through and take the action. In that way, people actually self-sabotage their way into positive action.

Just like any action, we unconsciously follow the path of least resistance. And in this case, with a belief system that finds comfort in taking action a certain way, it creates an environment that nudges you toward consistency.

But if the action is more disruptive - it’s effortful, unproven, or scary to do - then it awakens a different belief system: A need for safety. 

We hesitate to put ourselves out there because we don’t want to embarrass ourselves or offend someone. We play smaller even though we’re telling ourselves to go bigger, and it happens as an act of self-preservation.

The environment is pulling us away from doing the new, big, bold actions that we know will generate new desirable outcomes. Our unconscious need for safety and congruence outweighs our preference for consistency, even if we view ourselves as a self-disciplined person.

And in my experience, that’s the most frustrating part. On one hand you have all the evidence in the world to suggest that you can be consistent… But then when it comes to applying it toward something that really moves the needle in your life, it seems to vanish.

And that’s because discipline and consistency aren’t character traits - they’re the byproduct of environment, just like anything else. So to bridge that gap in the areas that matter most to you, you need to structure your environment so that it supports your being consistent.

How you do that tactically is a much bigger question that involves overcoming resistance, creating systems, generating clarity, improving your social context, improving your physiology, reshaping your beliefs, and so much more. These are all things I’ve implemented to help me get consistent with the big, bold, trajectory-accelerating things I used to struggle to do, and I’m about to begin writing a book that goes into way more detail on all of it! Stay tuned.

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