A LETTER FROM CHRIS SUAREZ
THE KEY IS CONSISTENCY
I've been waking up a bit earlier in the morning in order to spend some time in reflection. I wouldn’t call it formal meditation, but rather an attempt to block out some time each day to reflect on where I have been winning and where I have been losing. I haven’t been able to block out the needed time during my typical day, so I adjusted my rhythm to force myself to have that time. I’ve been looking for common threads to pull on that are woven through each of the successes or failures I have experienced. I can’t say I’ve quite figured that out just yet, and perhaps I never will entirely. One thing has emerged though that I’ve enjoyed studying, talking to mentors about, and challenging myself around.
Consistency.
I can tie almost every win or success back to something done consistently, to a consistent thought process and mindset, or even a consistent schedule.
I can also tie almost every loss or failure back to something done inconsistently, an inconsistent way of thinking and mindset, or an inconsistent schedule.
This goes beyond business and goals and income. It holds true in any pillar of my life - career, relationships, wealth, personal growth, health, or spirituality. Consistency is certainly a simple enough concept, but may be the single most important skill to develop this year.
The good news is that it is in fact a skill. Consistency isn’t a character trait. We don’t either have it or not have it. It’s a skill we can all develop. Some seem to have it naturally, but if we go far enough back in their history, we find it is a skill that they learned and developed and practiced over time. My consistency was taught to me by both my dad and my mom. Although I had a fairly inconsistent - even erratic - first four or five years of life, I can pinpoint incredible consistency being modelled for me, and expected of me, at a very young age.
Whether we had that modelled for us or not, we still have to practice consistency, develop the skill of consistency, and then hold ourselves accountable to it. As mentioned earlier, lack of consistency can always creep in, and will always lead to losses and failures when it does.
What are a few things that will contribute to our consistency, or make it just a little easier to develop this skill?
Patience
Consistency is always an exercise in patience. It takes extended patience to do anything consistently for any length of time. If we lack patience, we eliminate our chance to show up in almost any area of our life as consistent. The reason consistency is such an elusive skill for aspiring high performers is they usually lack the patience needed to see the results. They quickly jump from one intense activity to the next
Congruence
When there is congruency in who we say we are, what we say we care about, and what we do, then we wind up being a more consistent person. It is so much easier to instil confidence in yourself from others when you are congruent. They can rely on what you say, and will be comfortable being led by what you do. It’s also so much easier to be consistent in anything, if it lines up with who we really are as people.
Performance
When there is consistency in any performance based activity, we can coach to it, we can track and adjust it, and we can improve it. It allows us to know what is working and what isn’t working. Consistency in our activity or performance allows us to decipher where we need improvement, where we might be going wrong, or where we are primed to double down and continue to win. We can improve our performance by studying what we have or haven’t consistently done.
If consistency is so wildly important to success in every area of our life, then why do we avoid it? Put simply, no one likes to sign up for boring. Very few things done over and over again are exciting. Research shows that mood swings, emotional highs and lows, and even drama and problem seeking are so common because we will do almost anything to avoid boredom. In one “shocking” study 67% of men and 25% of women chose to self inflict electric shocks rather than be in what was deemed a boring situation. (We won’t address why there was such a drastic difference in percentage between men and women in this blog, but it probably needs no explanation.)
The good news here? Consistency can be learned, developed, built, modelled, mentored, and improved. This isn’t a “once inconsistent, always inconsistent” game.
So there you go. Take the key. Just decide to use that key to unlock a more consistent you.
Chris