Success is often associated with motivation, but what happens when you’re struggling to stay consistent? When it comes to success and making steady strides toward your aspirations, embracing consistency is key. 

This post is all about motivation vs consistency, what consistency is, why consistency can be challenging, and 5 practical tips for developing consistency for success.

How to Develop Consistency for Success (with 5 Transformative Tips)

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Motivation vs Consistency: Lessons from The Tortoise and The Hare

“Persistence is essential to any achievement.”

– Octavia Butler

Let’s revisit a classic Aesop Fable – ‘The Tortoise and the Hare’ to understand the difference between motivation and consistency. From this story, we’ve learned that slow and steady wins the race. But I also think it perfectly illustrates the difference between consistency and motivation. 

To recap: The Tortoise and the Hare challenge each other to a race. As soon as the race begins, the Hare takes off – leaving the Tortoise behind. The Hare is confident that he will win and decides to nap until the Tortoise catches up to him. To his chagrin, the Hare wakes to find that the Tortoise is near the finish line. The Hare runs as fast as he can but the Tortoise has already won. 

When it comes to achieving a goal, it’s common to be driven by the initial sparks of motivation. And motivation is much like the Hare, fueled by intensity in intermittent bursts. Motivation is driven by inspiration and leaves us flying high. On the other hand, consistency is like the Tortoise, steady and understated. It is the reliable engine that gets you to the finish line even when your motivation wavers. 

When it comes to achieving goals, motivation will propel you to get started, but maintaining consistency is key.

Related: Mastering Motivation: 5 Powerful Productivity Hacks To Achieve Your Goals

What is Consistency?

Consistency is the not-so-secret, secret to success. Unfortunately for us, it’s also a part of the ‘easier said than done’ club. While consistency isn’t alluring or sexy, it remains the foundation of habit-building and developing perseverance. Often, consistency is misunderstood to be rigid or monotonous. But the aim isn’t to live life like Groundhog Day.

The goal is to achieve incremental progress at a sustainable pace. 

Why Consistency Can Be Challenging

By now you might be thinking, I know all of this. So why do I struggle to be consistent?

Here are 4 common reasons that make consistency a challenge: 

1. Lacking Immediate Results

The biggest barrier that makes consistency so challenging is the lack of instant gratification – though the human brain is wired for it. So when we don’t see quick rewards for the insurmountable effort we put in, it can become demotivating. It’s why only 8% of people achieve their goals and why 90% of people give up their New Year’s resolutions come February. The truth is that the changes we make won’t yield visible results for weeks or even months. And this alone makes it tempting to give up on our goals altogether.

2. Facing Overwhelming Goals

Setting up goals that are unclear or unrealistic can make consistency difficult. This is because goals without clear milestones become too vague, leading to feelings of overwhelm or loss of focus. Breaking down goals into smaller tasks can help with the perceived enormity of a goal and remove roadblocks that stand in the way of your progress.

3. Tackling Unforeseen Life Events

When your established routines are disrupted, your tasks might go on the back burner. Whether it’s facing unforeseen events like illness, family emergencies, or any sudden change, keeping up with newly developed habits can become too demanding. To quote James Clear, “In theory, consistency is about being disciplined, determined, and unwavering. In practice, consistency is about being adaptable.” Finding ways to be flexible and adaptable when life is throwing curve balls is key to maintaining consistency.

4. Striving for Perfectionism

There is an incredibly fine line between having high standards and striving for perfection. On one hand, you want to create something great. On the other, it can also lead to Perfection Paralysis. Perfection Paralysis happens when your quest for perfection hinders your ability to progress. Some of the signs of this include waiting for that perfect moment to get started, getting stuck in the planning phases, and avoiding work because you fear making mistakes. Embracing continuous improvement over perfection can help to overcome inaction or quitting at the first sign of failure. 

Remember, progress is more important than perfection!

5 Essential Tips to Develop Consistency for Success

Developing consistency is mostly about building the right habits – much like training new muscles in the gym. In doing so, you can also instill a sense of control, reduce decision fatigue, and enhance adaptability. 

Here are some tips you can implement today to develop consistency:

1. Set Clear, Achievable Goals

Aspirational goals are captivating, but without clear, manageable tasks that same goal can become the bane of your existence. For example, if you’ve challenged yourself to run a marathon, running a 5K, a 10K, or a half marathon will help to build momentum as you work towards running the full marathon. Instead, if you set out to run a marathon with no training or running experience, you’ll be setting yourself up for failure. The accumulation of achievable milestones and tasks significantly increases the likelihood of becoming consistent. 

Related: The Ultimate Guide to SMART Goals (Plus Why They’re STILL Effective)

2. Avoid The False First Step

“People don’t buy products; they buy better versions of themselves.”

– Samuel Hulick

The false first step as described by Anthony Ongaro is “believing we’ve made a meaningful step toward a goal when all we’ve done is spent money or not done the thing we need to do.” Whether it’s getting new workout gear (I’m going to start working out more!), camera equipment (I’m going to start a YouTube channel!), a tablet (I’m going to start reading again!), and it is easy to equate preparatory actions with actual progress. 

Here are some examples of how to avoid the false first step: 

• Build the habit, then buy the product: Work out for 21 days before buying new workout gear. 
• Reward yourself for consistency: Reward yourself with a new Kindle after reading 20 books. 
• Test your commitment with rented/borrowed items: Borrow or rent camera gear and make videos for 5 weeks before committing to buying new gear.

3. Fall in Love with Boredom and Routine

In Atomic Habits, James Clear writes about his meeting with a coach who had worked with nationally ranked athletes and Olympians. And he wanted to know what makes the best athletes different from everyone else. 

“[The coach] mentioned the factors you might expect: genetics, luck, talent. But then he said something I wasn’t expecting: ‘At some point it comes down to who can handle the boredom of training every day, doing the same lifts over and over and over.’”

Consistency is boring in the sense that it doesn’t provoke thrills and frills. Unlike motivation, which launches us into a thrilling urgency, the repetitive nature of consistency will naturally become boring. Because of this, “falling in love” with boredom may feel like a stretch. But as newly set routines become more ingrained into your daily life, you can re-frame consistency from boring monotony to being on the right track.

4. Design Your Environment for Success

Your surrounding environment can play a significant role in influencing your behaviors. Because of this, designing an ideal environment can help you increase desired behaviors while making it harder to indulge in undesirable ones. 

For example, if your goal is to work on your health, here are some ways to re-design your environment:

• Make desired behaviors more convenient: Set up a dedicated workout space where your exercise equipment is easily accessible. Meal prep for the week so that you have ready-to-eat healthy meals available. 
• Eliminate temptations: Keep indulgent snacks out of sight and stock your pantry with nutritious foods. Replace sodas with sparkling water or prebiotic sodas.
• Set up visual cues and reminders: Lay out your gym clothes before going to bed so you see them when you wake up. Keep a calendar in the room to track your progress. Use a vision board to remind yourself of your goal. 

When designing an environment that supports your goals, creating convenience, removing distractions, and keeping your goals top of mind can help develop long-term consistency.

5. Track Your Progress

“What gets measured gets managed.”

– Peter Drucker

Tracking your progress is the best way to visually monitor your consistency. Whether it’s crossing X’s on a calendar, using a tracking app, or a simple habit tracker, seeing a chain of completed tasks is a great way to drive you towards accomplishing your ultimate goal! Keep in mind that being consistent doesn’t mean you have to do something every day. Depending on your goals, consistency can be every other day or even once a week. 

Are you looking for an easy way to track your progress? Download your free Google Sheets habit tracker below!

Concluding Remarks

This post was all about motivation vs consistency, what consistency is, why consistency can be challenging, and 5 practical tips for developing consistency.

When it comes to success and achieving your goals, motivation will kick start your progress while consistency ensures you’re in it for the long haul. If you are struggling to stay consistent, I encourage you to implement any of the tips shared above.

Now over to you. What are your tips for maintaining consistency in your life? Share your thoughts or questions in the comments below! 

Recommended Readings

Atomic Habits by James Clear 

Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth 

The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy 

The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

Sources

“The Tortoise and The Hare.” Aesop’s Fables, Library of Congress, read.gov/aesop/025.html.

“New Year, Same You: UD Study Examines Why New Year’s Resolutions Fail.” UDaily, University of Delaware, 3 Jan. 2024, www.udel.edu/udaily/2024/january/psychology-goals-habits-new-years-resolutions/.

Ongaro, Anthony. “The False First Step.” Break the Twitch, breakthetwitch.com/false-first-step/.

“Personal Development Market Size Worth $56.66 Billion By 2027: Grand View Research, Inc.” PR Newswire, 27 July 2020, www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/personal-development-market-size-worth-56-66-billion-by-2027-grand-view-research-inc-301099976.html. 

“U.S. Weight Loss Industry Grows to $90 Billion, Fueled by Obesity Drugs Demand.” MarketResearch.com Blog, https://blog.marketresearch.com/u.s.-weight-loss-industry-grows-to-90-billion-fueled-by-obesity-drugs-demand#:~=How%20big%20is%20the%20weight,to%20$93.8%20billion%20in%202024.

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