My 5 Keys for Consistency

This is episode 310 of the Empowered Team Podcast. Welcome to the Empowered Team Podcast where we unlock the secrets of self mastery for leaders who want to elevate their impact in both leadership and life. Your journey to being your best so you can give your best starts here and now. Your host, executive coach and life strategist, Kari Schneider. Welcome. Welcome to the Empowered to Team Podcast. I have one of those topics today for you that is something you might need a refresher on. You might need to hear all about consistency. It's Consistency is key. I want to give you today five keys to consistency. But first, I imagine that there's some area in your life just like me where you lost the consistency. The beautiful thing about being consistent is that really it's within our control. It's the thing that we have control over our actions, we have control over our thoughts. Now when you look at this, this is an amazing thing because there's so little that we have control over. We act like we have control over so many things, maybe our businesses or our families or how we're raising our children or what we're doing in our day. And yet there's so many external factors. We can't control other people. So really there are so few things that we have actual control over. And one of them is our own actions that really stems from our own thoughts on our preferences, what we want to do, what we don't want to do. But we have control over those things. We have control over what we want to think and what we choose to believe, what we choose to think. We have control over what we take action on, what we want to take action on. However, then we get frustrated. I'm going to speak for myself here. If I've wanted to be consistent at something and I haven't followed through, so instead of beating myself up, I wanted to look back at where have I been consistent and what are some of the things that were true for that that help me be consistent. And I wanted to share those with you today. I can recall times where I wanted to eat less sugar or be more affectionate to my husband and I wanted to do these things on a consistent basis. Maybe there were some bookkeeping in my business or marketing in my business areas where I knew consistency would matter and yet I wasn't consistent at those things and it would bother me because then what would I do? I'd kind of beat myself up, maybe make myself wrong for where I failed and it just wasn't working for getting the result that I wanted to. So I thought I'd look at five areas that I'm really, really consistent at and then look at five keys that help those areas stay very consistent and share those with you so that you can make that inference in your life. See if there's some transfer there, see if there's something that reminds you of an area of your life that you'd like more consistency in. So I took a look at some areas and it was key for me to really see a big one. And that's this podcast. This podcast has recently celebrated our 300th episode aired. Now, when I look at that, it almost is mind blowing to me to understand that we've created. I've created content, come up with ideas, come up with interviews, come up with the guests, and then we've been able to produce, edit and air and then get out into the world episode after episode after episode. And this really looks like if you want to get the sense of consistency, we started the podcast at the end of 2018, and from the end of 2018 through 2020, there were 113 episodes. 113 episodes. I look at that and I go, wow, that was all the way through Covid. That was through. We had in that time, we had kids leaving the home, we had Covid happen. We moved twice. We moved once in that time frame. And then in 2021, 2022 and 2023, there were at least 51 episodes for each of those years. And we're on track for over 40 episodes or approaching 50 episodes in 2024. Now, if that's not consistency, I don't know what is. But when someone looks at that, oftentimes they'll say something like, well, that's easy for you to do, or that's easy for you. And the truth is it, there was so much of that that was not easy. It wasn't close to easy. Every single episode I have some, and some level of anxiety, some level of, of brain block. And it's rarely, rarely easy. And yet I've been consistent. So I took a look at this going, well, what, what are the key things there? I want to give some other examples before I go into those five is because not all of you are doing a podcast episode or running a podcast. So there's other areas. Like for instance, I've had a salad every single day for almost 20 years. That's over 7, 000 salads. That's a salad every day. It it Again, another thing that kind of blows my mind if when I started podcasting or started eating a Salad every day. Someone told me, you're going to do this for this many years or you're going to do this many podcast episodes or you're thousand salads. I would have told them, the parades, there's just no way. That's not going to be a thing. Because I wouldn't have believed that I could be that consistent. And yet here I am, having been that consistent. So what? What's contributed to that? What's that? Another one is daily meditation. Again, if someone had told me I would meditate daily, I would have told them that they rocker. And maybe I am off my rocker for meditating every day. I used to meditate for a few years, a few times a week. It wasn't daily, it was a few times a week. But what really shifted it is knowing that the need was there and I knew the benefit I had from just a few times a week. So if I did it daily or twice a day, what would that do? And that really came into play when I was diagnosed with graves, when I was very, very sick. And the meditation was something that I knew was going to be one of the many things that would help me heal. And so I upped my game and went from meditating a few times a week to meditating daily and meditating often twice a day. So that's something that's been very consistent for a number of years. Another one is water consumption. I couldn't ignore the research. And having worked with high performance individuals and high performance athletes for so many years, the research shows that we cannot perform as well. We lose 10% performance physically, cognitively, as soon as we're a little bit dehydrated, just like that. And for me, it's such an easy thing to contribute to my performance and I'm just not willing to compromise on that. And then when it came to public speaking, coaching in large rooms, speaking loudly in an outdoor environment, and retreats, I found that I couldn't keep talking unless I was hydrated, unless had that fluid constantly. And I learned how much fluid I was losing not from. Not from exertional sweating, but coming out of my mouth, speaking so much. And it blew my mind how dehydrated I would get from not working out or being in humid environment, but rather from speaking. And it re. And so I drank water and I drank more water. If you see this podcast on video, you're seeing a liter water bottle that's right next to me. Another example, this is a business example, is bookkeeping, monthly bookkeeping. There's a certain part of Keeping that I do. There's a certain part or most of it I have a bookkeeper do now. But there are various times in my career where I did the bookkeeping myself and times that I had other people do the bookkeeping as a profession. And now I have a bookkeeper. I love my bookkeeper. The beautiful thing about the bookkeeping is simply that the consistent part, my end has to be I review the numbers at the end of the month, whether my bookkeeper did them or I did them. The consistent part is review them at the end of the month. And I've been doing this since the beginning of my business. So we're looking now at close to. We're getting close to 20 years of looking at bookkeeping numbers at end of every single month. Now there's byproduct to this happening. The byproducts to something like 300 podcast episodes is that I get better and better and better at communicating with someone that I'm interviewing, better at getting an idea across, better at creating an episode that can get the gems and nuggets out to someone. I get better at the things because the consistency has been there. I also have uses a marketing tool. I have something that creates validity in my business. It's an actual recording of parts of business, parts of my life, parts of the things that I've created or the expertise someone has offered. And there's this byproduct of a record, a library that can exist forever for my family, for my business, for my clients, for as long as I want it to. And I can use it in. In so many different ways. So now I have this byproduct that's actual asset, a valuable piece of product in my business that is phenomenal, something I can refer people to, something I share episodes as value. It's been a really incredible thing. But what the hidden byproducts are is who I had to become to stay consistent with it. To be able to have my team do the systems, to be able to keep creating and producing new ideas. It takes something to do that. If I. I come up with a topic by the end of the week, I do. If I decide to curate that topic and put it out into an episode, I do that. But that came from the consistency, and there was plenty of resistance along the way. Another byproduct that comes from eating salads for 20 years is that I love them now. I absolutely love them. But the byproduct as well is a health byproduct, something that serves these micronutrients that are Going into my body, I absolutely adore it. I don't have a doubt in my mind that this type of habit is something that contributed to my healing. When I got sick, another one with a daily meditation, one of the byproducts that I did not anticipate was how beneficial it would be for other people, not just for me. I knew it great for brain healing. I knew it would be great for calming me and energizing me. But the meditation, for those that I'm around, I'm a better human. I'm just simply someone that they're going to want to interact with more because I'm calmer, I'm more clear, I'm more fun because I'm more rested, my brain is more rested, more healed. Those are some of the byproducts of the meditation, the water consumption. I could go on and on about water and the water consumption byproducts are that now I'm at a point and have been for a very long time that I don't even ever think about the water. It's just habitual. These are actions I take that I don't even realize that I'm taking them. I can look back and go, oh, my water bottle is filled. Do I remember filling it? No, because it's such an automated habit. And so it's just something that ends up serving me all of the time. This byproduct of always helping my health, health, helping my body, serving my cells, serving my regen regeneration on a daily process and bookkeeping, the byproduct there is learning so much more about my business than I could have learned if someone was just telling me, yep, the books are done, it'll be ready for your, your tax submission. It'll be ready for accountants. And then having my accountant tell me things about the business. No, I don't rely on a bookkeeper, I don't rely on an accountant to tell me things about my business. They do. And I do get the information. However, I need to know about my business. I need to those and see what I discover. Because guess what? I know my business. Even though that person is working on my business numbers, I know my business best. And I'm going to see something that they don't see and they're going to see something that I don't see. And I want their input. So I want that feedback from them. And I also want to see what I from it as well. One of the byproducts that's come from regular bookkeeping that's so consistent that I'm not ever behind tax payments. I'm not. Not ever behind putting in what my what my accountants need. But one of the real byproducts is cash flow. Business cash flow. Cash flow is king in businesses. If you do not have cash flow, you'll be amazed at how fast a business goes under. So I want cash flow in my business. It's something that's very important and that's been a byproduct of seeing the bookkeeping on the regular basis, not just on a monthly basis, but being in touch with it more frequently than that. Even a daily dashboard. Many businesses will rely on a daily dashboard. I rely on my business not necessarily daily looking at the numbers, but very, very frequently more than monthly. And the monthly bookkeeping has helped reinforce that habit. So consistency. Remember that the things that we're looking to be consistent with are things within our control. They're going to be actions that we can take for the benefit of our lives. Typically, you're not looking to be consistent with eating popcorn every day that's soaked in oil from the movie theater. That's likely something that's a once in a while thing because you know that the byproducts of that are not going to be something that you desire necessarily. It might feel great in the moment, but it's the byproducts that are such an amazing part of consistent actions that you take. So the things that you're looking to make habitual, the things you're looking to be consistent with are ones that often have some friction in that they might be a little harder to do, but the byproducts make it worth it. And that's where it's easy to be consistent with watching Netflix or eating ice cream or those types of things because the immediate pleasure is so amazing. But where we really want to be consistent are in the areas that might feel a little tougher. So this is why the keys that I'm going to give you are ones that can help you. Along with this consistency, we. We need as much help as we can get can get. It's not easy for most of us to stay consistent on the things that are a little more challenging for us. And usually the things that are the most fulfilling, the most worth it, but are often a little challenging for us. So let's dive into five keys that you can use to stay as consistent as possible with the things that you have amazing byproducts from. Let's take a look. Number one, I encourage you because I looked back on what helped me with those 300 episodes. What helped me with those salads? What about the bookkeeping? What helped me there? Pre deciding a time frame. Pre deciding a time frame made it so that it wasn't as daunting. And pre deciding the timeframe when Paul and I were together in the the podcast in the beginning, pre deciding that allowed us to revisit. Are we enjoying this? Do we want to still do it? Do both of us want to still do it? Are we both still committed to it? And by pre deciding that time frame, we could revisit every six months. Is this something we want to keep doing together? Is it going to keep going at all? Is this something that's indefinite? Or do we want to create another time frame? And what really happened for me over the years? Because now it's been several years since the end of 2018 that I've been running this podcast. What helped me is redeciding every year and not committing to forever. I'm not committed to podcast forever. I'm committed to this podcast. I love providing value, I love the interviews, getting to know people, coming up with new ideas, making sure I deliver things that are valuable, that can change people's lives. I love that. But I don't know that I'm going to be committed to that in five years. I do know I'm committed to it this year. I do know I'll redecide at every increment of six months or a year. But that pre decided time frame really gives it a chunk, a bite size piece that says, well, I'm going to be consistent for this amount of time. And then I'll see if I still really find that the byproducts are beneficial enough, fulfillment, fulfilling enough to keep going. Because when something is hard to do, you don't want to create a suffer fest for the for your life. If the byproducts aren't there, then don't keep going. We want to make sure that the hard thing that you're willing to be consistent with have amazing byproducts. This is why working out is not easy in the moment. But the byproducts, the health, the strength, the energy are all byproducts that make the misery of getting up early in the morning or the misery of going through a hard workout or worth it. So pre decide the time frame. So if it's tough workouts, for instance, I'm going to go through this tough phase for the next four weeks and be really consistent for the next four weeks. For most of our brains, that becomes so much more doable. Than just going in hard at something that's challenging and not knowing when the. The time ends. The time frame and research shows this. We can be more committed, more energetic, more. More committed to what we're about to do. When we know when the end is, when we don't know when the end is, that's when we tend to falter because we don't know how we can keep putting the attention or energy toward that particular commitment. So there's no right or wrong time frame. It's just one you get to decide. And really, you're not even going to know if that time frame works until you actually decide the time frame and start getting into it. So when you've pre decided, you go into it, there's no right or wrong, but allow yourself some room to figure it out. If you've never done the thing before, then if I said podcasting and one year of podcasting, that might be too long of a time frame. That is a long time frame to commit to episodes, let's say weekly for something like a podcast, so you can give yourself the room to figure out how to. To adjust that time frame. I, if I had said a year, it would have been too long. Six months is when we needed to revisit and say, hey, this is a lot of work. This takes a lot of energy. This takes a lot of attention. If we're not enjoying it, then let's make a change. And that's what we ended up doing. And ultimately what those revisits in the time frame did is say, yes. Still committed to the podcast? No. Don't want to do this many interviews. Want to do this many interviews? Yes. Want to do this type of. Of mindset Monday going forward. So it allowed for decisions and allowed for adjustments. So give yourself the room to figure out not only the time frames, but how to find your consistency. You're probably not going to be as consistent as you visualize yourself the first go. So give yourself the room to figure out what helps you be consistent, and we'll give you a few more tips here. And then once you reach that time frame, redecide, give yourself the grace to go, okay, I'm going to redecide what time frame I'm committing to. I'm going to redecide if this is how I want to keep being consistent. I'm going to redecide if the byproducts are worth it for me. All right, so that's number one. One key. Pre decide your time frame that you're going to be consistent. It Will help every part of the process. Number two, if you're looking to create consistency that you've had trouble with in the past, chances are that means it's tough. It's an area that's not easy for you. It's not easy for me to get my sweet tooth under control. It wasn't easy for me to market in my business. It wasn't easy for me to find a way to consistently show affection to my husband. Certain things weren't. Haven't been easy for me. So create ease anywhere it's hard. Get help. Get help from another person. Anywhere you find it difficult, ask for support. Get some help. And the second thing with creating ease is make it fun. Make it something that's funny, fun has music, anything that helps bring the energy to that consistent action, then that's a good thing. Make it fun. I love to listen to other podcasts, including this podcast. I have to review and listen to the podcast and make my own notes, but I love to listen to podcasts when I'm working out, when I'm driving. So if I want my workouts to be consistent, it's either podcasts or music. Those are the two things I'm listening. Listening to it supports my consistency. I look forward to that action with the music and with the podcast. So do things that make it fun. And if you are having a hard time with any of it, get help from an expert, a mentor, a buddy, anyone that can help you be accountable in that zone or do it with you. So really, really important. Create ease in any. And number three, don't hide. If there's an area that you want to be consistent in, not telling other people is going to make it 10 times harder for you. In fact, if you tell people, they're more likely to ask you about it. When they ask you about it, it's going to reinforce your consistency. So not only do you want to tell people, but you want to actually do it with people who are already consistent at whatever that thing is. So if you can do the thing with someone else, for instance, if business market marketing could be a thing that a group of us do our marketing together, then awesome. That's. That's part of a system. Or have someone else do it. If you're not going to do it yourself, find ways that you do it with someone or you're partnered or you're inviting someone to do the thing with you. Hey, I'm going to drink 2 liters of water every single day. Do that with me. You want to do it with me? That's something that doing it with kids, doing it with co workers, doing it with peers, an amazing way to keep going. And then lastly, share your intentions with other people, not just what you're doing, why you're doing it. And once you've done it for a little bit, share your success. Even if. If it's been, I drank 2 liters of water for one day. I didn't do that before. Okay, that's one day down. Let's try another day. And then share that success so that you realize that when that person receives your information, you can also say, oh, you know what? I noticed. I feel so much better. I don't feel that afternoon leg. I thought I needed coffee then, but what I actually needed was water. Share that success with someone else. It will reinforce your action. Reinforce? If we stay in our head, there's a saying, if you're in your head, you're dead. If we're only thinking about it and we're not actually communicating with others or getting that feedback loop happening, then guess what? We're less likely to keep taking the action, period. And that's been shown plenty of times in research. I'm not citing the research today. I'm going off of my experiences, but I know it from the research as well. Number four, this one's really interesting, and I've alluded to it already. When it comes to the water, it's make it part of you. If. If you identify with what you're doing consistently, then it becomes something that's no longer something you're trying to do. It's something that you are doing because it's who you are. And that's the point with the water. I'm a water drinker. I don't identify as a coffee drinker. Have I had coffee in my life? Yes. Do I drink coffee? No. And I'm a water drinker. I'm not a coffee drinker. I love tea. I'm also a tea drinker, but not like I'm a water drinker. I'm a podcaster. I didn't identify as a podcaster for many, many years. And even now, it still sounds a little off to me. I'm a podcaster. I think of myself more as a strategist, a consultant, the coach. Those are my identities. I think of myself as a wife, a mom, an adventurer. I'm a business entrepreneur. So I think of myself really as a podcaster. It's a little for me, even though I've done 300 episodes, isn't that interesting? So notice how Much easier things. It becomes your identif identity when you identify with that thing. So the more you can identify that, the more you can say it to other people, the better your consistency will be. And number five, make the promise and keep it. And when I say, make the promise and keep it, it sounds like, oh, yeah, of course. But when you say those words out loud to another person and to yourself, it feels different. So when I say make the promise, I promise myself that when we go on family vacation, I'm going to do everything I can to make sure I have everything I need for my salads. And I promise to my family that I'll make sure there's extra so they've got all the veggies that they need as well, besides just for my salads. And when you make promises like that and you hear it out loud and someone else hears you say it and you hear yourself say it to you again, more reinforcement. We are, as a society, people who like to keep promises, not break promises. So promise yourself, promise someone else. Make the promise and keep it. And if you've broken the promise, restore it. There's no shame in restoring anything that has been lost, anything that has been mistaken. So restore the promise, and away we go again. Start with those five keys again, and I'm going to give you a bonus one, because I think this is so important, because it's the byproducts that happen from the consistency that allow you to take consistent action. That might not be the easiest action. Water is easy for me now, but it wasn't easy before. Podcasting has never been an easy thing for me, even though it's a hundred times easier than it was in the beginning. But I wouldn't call it easy. It takes something. There's some friction every time, however, it's so much easier. But anytime you're looking to be consistent with something that has a little friction, a little resistance, it's a little tough. Then celebrate the byproducts, because I promise you, there's only one reason that you're going to do something that's got a little resistance to it, or it's a little tough for you, and it's because it's worth it. So when you have that worth it byproduct, celebrate it. Find joy in that byproduct. I'll give you examples for my salad. Now, I'm at a point where I love the health that that salad gives me, that I focus on the flavor. I focus. I get excited when I add something different to my salads, like beets or fresh basil or fresh dill. I, I put a different meat on it. I do different things. Find a mixed greens that's different than the regular spinach leaves I might use and I find joy in that. And then find joy in the byproduct of feeling so energetic after lunch. And then find joy in the byproduct of feeling hungry at dinner time because I felt sufficiently satisfied and nourished after lunch. Finding joy in those byproducts, that is how you keep the consistency going. It is one of the key things that people overlook because they have an expectation like, oh well, I'm just supposed to feel better or this is just supposed to do this for me or I did the podcast, why isn't everybody listening to it? But instead when we find the joy and the byproduct of getting better with the podcast, having it be easier, having the energy after lunch, having the energy from the water, having the cash flow in the business, celebrate those byproducts. Because if we don't celebrate those byproducts, we're literally putting ourselves through a challenge all of the time and not giving ourselves the other part of it, which is the joy. The joy of doing it. Celebrate what you do. Enjoy. Celebrate what comes from the thing that's the tougher action. That is my invitation to you. If you know someone who is looking to be more consistent, who is starting a habit that might be a little tough, or you just want to reinforce consistency that you know is going to have amazing byproducts for yourself or your friends, share this out to them. Do a solid. Give them a little value so that they've got that encouragement. They can feel like they're doing something that empowers their life. Have a wonderful rest of your day and an incredible Empowered Week. Keep going at what you do. Keep being empowered. We've got your back. If you enjoy listening to the Empowered Team Podcast, you'll love being on the Empowered Team. The Empowered Team is our group coaching and accountability program where we provide the tools, skills and community for you to grow your your self mastery as a leader and optimize your results alongside other leaders. The Empowered Team runs year round to learn more about our leadership consulting for business and our Empowered Team Group coaching. Head to www.thempowered.ca empowered learn. That's www.theempowered.ca. empowered learn more. We can't wait for you to join us. Let's.