In our culture, which places achievement and success on a pedestal, consistency is discussed ad nauseam. For good reason.
Everyone talks about how consistency is the secret to achieving. Consistency in your food will get you the fitness or physique you want. Consistency with reading will get you the knowledge you want. Consistency with meditation or hypnotherapy will give you the calmness, confidence, and mindset you want. But here’s what no one talks about on the subject of consistency:
Consistency is the best way to gather DATA on yourself.
Because we are wired to achieve goals and admire people who have what we want, we’re wired to listen to their strategies and secrets for achieving that same level of success…in whatever area they have been successful.
But there’s a challenge.
Everyone is different.
We all have unique dreams and goals. We all have unique family circumstances and are all in different life stages.
I always say that if you’re a mom, your entire life is determined by the age of your kids.
I couldn’t dream of writing a blog post as a single mom raising kids. I could barely handle the laundry and dishes.
Now I’m in a completely different chapter. My youngest is almost 19, and I’m almost 50. I’m entering the second half of my life, and in this second half of my life, I find myself wanting to achieve less and have more fun. I wonder how many years my husband and I still have together, and I don’t want to waste a single second. I find myself resisting doing things consistently.
I have daily habits, but I don’t do them every single day 365 days a year. I don’t want to. I find myself wanting more variety and less rigidity in my schedule. More freedom. I find myself resisting things like 30-day challenges or new programs, even if I know they would be beneficial. Without a doubt, consistency and being part of a tribe aiming to achieve the same goal are two of the secrets to success. I used to jump on 30-day challenges often, and with enthusiasm! I’ve completed the 75Hard challenge three times, and I loved how I felt and how much I accomplished during those 75 days. Now I find myself less interested in those things in this chapter of my life.
So while I may resist something like consistency, I’ve realized that consistency helps me learn the most about myself. It allows us to tune in to our inner world.
When I practice yoga and consistently practice the same few postures, I can see my progress (or lack thereof). Either way, it’s good data. I can tell if I’m getting stronger or if my balance is improving. I can pay attention to my flexibility shifts and notice my body is different every day. Some days I’m tight in a certain area. It shows me what part of my body needs some extra time and love. Even if you have a preference for a teacher or instructor at the gym, I’ve found that if you attend the same class with the same teacher multiple times, you’ll find that teachers are just human beings with good days and bad days like the rest of us. In a class setting, all instructors are merely there to guide and give suggestions. You can do whatever poses your body needs. You don’t need permission. Maybe when you formed that opinion or preference in a less-than-positive light, that human being had a rough day. Perhaps she got some really bad news right before class. I think it was Brene Brown who said imagination breeds compassion, and I couldn’t agree more. I tend to have strong preferences, and being curious helps me to come back to compassion. We have no idea what anyone is going through at any moment. I’ll never forget Tony Robbins saying
He’s right. Thanks, Tony!
Consistency with my food gives me data about how certain things make me feel. I’ve been experimenting with swapping out my morning smoothies for eggs and steak to see how that works for me. Sometimes it works great, and other times, I am unable to eat as much protein as I want to. I’m still gathering data on me.
Consistency in your awaken time helps you gather data about how your habits affect your overall wellbeing. You’ll notice that you don’t feel exactly the same way every single morning even though you may eat mostly the same foods and do mostly the same activities. When you wake up every single day at the same time, it allows you to gather data and cultivate a mindset of curiosity instead of frustration or judgment. If you have a certain emotion upon waking one morning, or pain in a certain area, then you could be curious about the cause. You could explore what was different in your day the previous day. You could hypothesize about whether something you ate or drank could have made a difference and then test it out. I see reels on Instagram with people making huge bold blanket statements like “Don’t put a banana in your smoothies!” and I won’t even watch the rest of it. I love bananas. I eat them every day. So if he wants to remove bananas from his diet, cool. You do you!
Even with a meditation or hypnosis practice, some of my clients prefer to listen to their hypnosis recordings first thing in the morning. Some prefer to listen at night. Some clients listen to them both morning and night! The more you practice and/or gather data on yourself, the more you will know what works for you. The other secret benefit is that you won’t be as quick to jump on others’ recommendations right off the bat.
The more data we have on ourselves, the better we can take care of ourselves.
Consistency helps us spend more time in curiosity instead of in fight-or-flight. Being curious allows us a break from being in high achiever mode. Being curious helps us stay in the state of grace. Being curious allows us to take a break from our focus on our to-do list keeping us in masculine energy. Being curious about ourselves and what works for us allows us to invite ourselves back to our feminine energy. It allows us to invite ourselves to calm the nervous system and look at things with wonderment instead of judgment.
It’s helpful to build that awareness muscle. More awareness about what is happening internally. We can practice building awareness around what is happening in our minds and bodies, and how it all connects. Consistency doesn’t have to be a mandate or the only recipe for success. Consistency allows us to get to know ourselves. And the better we know ourselves, the better we can take care of ourselves.
Thanks for being here!
