Written by: Aaron Hayslip | Work

You’ve probably heard of the book, “Atomic Habits” - because it’s sold over 4 million copies. The author, James Clear, published this book (his first) in October 2018. What you probably don’t know is that James started writing about habits on his website 8 years earlier, in 2010. And before that, he had tried launching multiple businesses that ended in failure.

Ultimately what led to James’ success was a commitment he made to consistency in 2012. For 3 years between 2012 and 2015, James published an article on his website every Monday and Thursday - over 300 articles.

James didn’t start by writing his best-selling book. He likely wasn’t any good at writing and probably didn’t even have the idea for his book yet. It was through the consistent practice of writing small articles that he became a better writer, sorted through his ideas and even built up an audience that would be the initial customer base for his book.

It’s through consistency, not intensity, perfection or genius, that most people become successful.

Consistency Leads to Mastery

The most common underlying concept behind success is mastery. Mastery is what happens when someone steadily works toward a particular discipline for a long period of focused time.

But mastery isn’t just about mind-numbing practice and perfection, though many who master a particular discipline may seem to become nearly perfect at it. Mastery goes become competence and eventually leads to innovation, as a key ingredient in mastery is fascination - and there is no innovation without facsination. The one practicing the discipline is so enthralled with it that mere competence is no longer enough. They must push the boundaries and create something new - leave their mark.

You can look at any famous successful figure and see mastery like this at work underneath their story. Skateboarding legend Tony Hawk started skateboarding at 9 years old. Fascination.

6 years later, Tony begins winning the National Skateboard Association vert championship and wins 12 years in a row from 1983 to 1995. Competency.

Finally, 22 years after he started, Tony Hawk lands the “900” in 1999 - at the time, the worlds most difficult skateboarding trick, which was thought of to be impossible. Innovation.

In the midst of this mastery, consistency is the practical “how to” underneath it all. It answers the question, “what next?” with, “again”.

We Have Control Over Consistency

Too often we become discouraged by stories like Tony Hawk’s because they remind us of how unique and special someone like Tony Hawk is, and how ordinary we are. We are convinced that you either have it, or you don’t.

Thankfully, in his book, “Outliers”, Malcolm Gladwell asserts that innate talent plays a smaller role in success than what we’re willing to believe.
He suggests that there are many factors which lead to the best becoming the best - most of which we’re unable to control.

In the case of Tony Hawk, he was born in the epicenter of skateboarding (San Diego, CA) during the beginnings of the sport. You could argue that Tony was at the right place at the right time, which allowed him to start a relatively obscure sport at 9 years old. And since skateboarding was such a small sport at the time, one could also argue that he had little competition in his early years at least in comparison to kids who may learn to skateboard today.

We can’t control if we were born in the right place at the right time. Those are necessary ingredients to achieve the kind of ultra-success of Tony Hawk, Bill Gates or Serena Williams.

But if you’re not looking to become a multi-billionaire or world champion, and can settle for mere mortal success, then consistency (one variable that you can control) will be more than enough.

Preventing Burnout

Consistency is not the same thing as intensity, perfection or even thoroughness. Part of what makes consistency so powerful is its accumulative, compounding effect. The earlier you start and the less you quit, the more benefit you’ll see.

But too often we quit early, not because we realized we don’t enjoy the discipline we’re pursuing, but rather because we burn out too soon. This risk of burn out is inherent in any discipline.

For example, let’s imagine that you’ve recently picked up road biking and you have a goal of riding 100 miles (referred to as a “century” in cycling). If you start with a training plan that is too aggressive, too soon, you’ll surely fail. The failure itself isn’t what will ultimately set you back - you merely need to start on an easier training plan the next day. Rather its your own negative self-perception, which was destroyed by your failure, that will tempt you to quit early.

For our own psychology, we need a bit of historical success to be archived in our minds in order for us to not quit, as we need to believe that success is possible less we become overwhelmed by the task. So instead of riding 20 miles a day, you start with just 5 miles a day and build up the belief (and cardiovascular stamina).

Clearly the benefits of the slow start go beyond psychology to competence. If you can not quit, you will ultimately ride more miles, which will inevitable lead to you becoming a better cyclist. Then you’ll begin to feed the “feel/am” cycle:

 As you feel better about the discipline you’re pursuing, you’ll be better. And as you get better, it will make you feel better. It’s at this point that you can begin to pursue intensity, perfection and thoroughness.

You Can’t Steer a Ship That’s Not Moving

Perhaps this concept of consistency creates a lump in your throat because you know that in order to commit to being consistent you have to make a seemingly life-altering decision - to decide on what to be consistent with.

In other words, we know that a choice to pursue some thing is a choice to not pursue some other thing - we can’t do it all. Recall how mediocre Michael Jordan was at baseball. So how can we know that the thing in which we’re committing to be consistent in is the thing that we should be committing to be consistent in?

This very fear keeps most people from moving at all. We end up reorganizing our entire lives around comfort and preventing failure because we are so crippled by the thought that we may make the wrong choice and fail at something we shouldn’t have tried in the first place.

But the old adage that says, “you can’t steer a ship that’s not moving” reminds us that we have to do something. And that very consistency itself in the midst of the doing will either confirm or deny that we’ve made the right choice.

Find the Work That is Play

Likely if you’re in this situation where you’re deciding on what to be consistent in, you’re over-thinking it. As a 9 year old, Tony Hawk didn’t read an article to discover that skateboarding was his “calling”. He just enjoyed skateboarding, so he did.

In fact, likely you need to go back to when you were young to discover what it is that you should commit to consistently working at. In his book, “The Element”, Ken Robison writes, “Never underestimate the vital importance of finding early in life the work that for you is play. This turns possible underachievers into happy warriors.” Most of us are unaware of the work that is play for us, not because we never had it, but because we have forgotten it.

Instead of pursuing what is “play” for us and passing up a chance at consistent mastery in areas that fascinate us, we instead settle for that which is practical - what our parents told us would pay the bills. We can no longer remember what it was that we were created to do.

Again, Ken Robison: “The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.”

Thankfully, it’s never too late to start. Start small, but be consistent. It may be years before you reach “competence” (and years more to “innovation”), but if you’re working on the right stuff, you’ll happily do it for years.