MBA2129 How To Be More Consistent

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As many of you know, I was an educator for 13 years. I was a high school and university teacher, but in my tenure, I also was a teacher trainer. My specialty was classroom management. I used to help teachers with their classroom management. And one of the things you have to do as a teacher is that manages their classroom well is be consistent. And I used to ask a question at the start of my workshop, and that question was, are you consistent? And one of the most common answers I got back from the crowd in my workshops was, sometimes I'm consistent. Sometimes. And my answer is, there's no such thing as being consistent. Sometimes you're either consistent or inconsistent. Being consistent sometimes means you're inconsistent. That's what it means. So if you've asked yourself the question, are you consistent with the things you need to do for your business, whether it's content or marketing or sales or support or whatever it is, and you answered, sometimes I'm consistent. That means you're inconsistent. That means we need to work on that. And that's what today's lesson is all about. So let's get started with tip number one, and that's understanding where you are actually consistent and why there are things in your life that you're probably consistent with that have become a habit that you don't miss ever. Like brushing your teeth in the morning, making breakfast. Maybe it's taking your vitamins in the morning. Maybe every day you call your mother or feed your cat. You don't even remember the last time you didn't feed your cat because it just never happened. You're that consistent. So what we want to do is we want to break down, why am I consistent with those things and not the things I need to be consistent with? And usually the answer is, well, those things are easy. Okay, so why are they easy? Probably because they're short. Probably because they don't take much time because they're part of your routine. Then you might be thinking, omar, writing a weekly blog post takes me like three hours or maybe even more. So it's harder to be consistent with something like that rather than pouring some cat food in a bowl that takes me 30 seconds to do. And I would say you're right. So this is rule number one of consistency is in order for you to be consistent with anything you do, you need to break it down to the granular level. So each task is easy. It's so simple. So let's use the blog post example. Writing a blog post. Yes. Can indeed take three hours. That's a huge task. It's really hard to be consistent. Every time I think I have, I gotta sit down and do it for three hours and do it every single week and don't miss a beat, regardless if I'm working or not working or on holiday or whatever. So what we need to do is break this task down into smaller tasks, things that take a few minutes. Those tasks are really the tasks we need to be consistent with. So for example, deciding on a topic that could be task number one. Then task number two is deciding on a title for that topic. Then task number three could be a really short and rough outline of that topic. And then task number four is to write a paragraph for the first point of the outline. You get the point? We need to take smaller steps, micro goals. Why is this important? Because our brains, our minds are easily overwhelmed when we have a daunting task. This decreases the likelihood of you being consistent or you getting that thing done. Because it seems like such an uphill battle. It seems like so much to do. But instead, all you need to focus on is one singular task because one task leads to the next. This is the hack. This is what you have to do. Okay. Take anything you do consistently and break it down to small tasks that you can do in a few minutes. I say five, 10 minutes max. I like to keep it under five minutes. If it's going to take more than five minutes, then I need to break it down further. Now the reason why I do this is because that doesn't overwhelm me. A five minute task is something that I feel like it's so easy I could just do right now, and therefore I don't, don't do it, if that makes sense. So the point here is, is that break it down now. It's so much easier to be consistent doing small little tasks because they're not overwhelming and they're easy than trying to do a big task. We established that. Now what you're gonna find is you're gonna need to time lot. This meaning maybe instead of trying to do your blog post for three hours straight, do the first few tasks one day, another few tasks another day, and another few tests another day. This is just in the beginning, you're gonna do this at the start to give yourself momentum. So you're winning. If you just the next task and the next task and that's it, you're done, you move on to task for another day. Now, what I found that happens after doing this a few times is you get momentum. After doing one task, two tasks, three tasks, you start to realize, wow, I'm almost done. Let me just continue to do this. You have momentum, you have motivation, you want to see the finish line, and you get all the tasks done. So it's really inspiring and motivating to do this. But your number one task, the first thing you have to do when you're saying, hey, I want to be consistent with this thing is to break it down first, plan out the tasks. That's the actually first task. You're not going to do any work right now. You're just doing the planning of the work. And that should take about five minutes. All right, I want to publish a blog post. What are all the tasks I have to do that are in five minute kind of chunks? So this is just the first kind of primer to being consistent. Second, if you want to be consistent, you got to enjoy it. You got to make it enjoyable. Because we do things that we enjoy or get pleasure from or avoid pain from. I mentioned brushing your teeth every day. In fact, the people that invented toothpaste, it used to not be minty fresh, but they wanted to give the user a satisfying feeling after brushing their teeth. So they're kind of rewarded and they continue to do that. And that's why they added the mint. So it gives them this, like, refreshing feeling. Prior to that, it was some disgusting tasting thing, and it was a chore. But subconsciously, every morning we are brushing our teeth because we want to have that fresh feeling in our mouth. And when we don't have that fresh feeling, something feels off. That's the manufactured experience. They actually did that to make you feel that way. So nothing's stopping you from manufacturing experiences for yourself so you can have satisfaction, so you can feel good, so that you can avoid some sort of pain. So what I recommend is to couple these tasks that you need to be consistent with with things that you enjoy. That could be a cup of coffee, that could be some music, your favorite songs or band. If you're trying to be consistent with working out, listen to your favorite book or podcast. You get the point. Pair it up with something that's enjoyable. I know the author, Greg McKeown, once shared a story where he Hated taking on a bunch of sales calls. And he had to return people's calls. He had to do about two hours of calls, and he was like, oh, this is such a pain. But he coupled it with something he enjoyed. He jumped into the hot tub and did all his calls from the hot tub. And in fact, he told the people on the call, hey, I'm doing this call from the hot tub. Hope you don't mind. You hear all these bubbles? And it was a little bit of a chuckle, and it was a fun thing, and they continued. But when. When his calls were done, he wished he had more calls because he enjoyed doing them in the hot tub. So couple these tasks with things that you enjoy. Be creative. Next. Remind yourself what will happen if you don't do these tasks. What's the end goal of doing this thing? You need to be consistent. Whether it's you're growing your business or getting more sales or getting more awareness or more traffic. Remind yourself of what will happen if you don't. We don't want problems as human beings. We avert pain. We try to avoid things that make us feel bad. So remind yourself that, hey, if you don't do this, you'll feel bad. You won't like what happens. You will maybe even be disappointed in yourself. So the point here is that remind yourself of that. Use it as a tool. Next. When you break down your tasks that you're trying to be consistent with, you know, that big task, but you're breaking into smaller goals and you're putting it into times. And this is something you do week after week or maybe day after day. It's important for you to have consistency. And one of the ways to be consistent is with those tasks is to do at the same time, to have a scheduled time. There's something that happens subconsciously when it's that time of day. We're more likely to do it because we're used to doing it at that time. So give yourself that cadence. Give yourself that rhythm. For example, I always record the podcast after lunch. I don't even think about it. As soon as I finish my lunch, I get up and I go to record. I'm not even thinking what's on my calendar. I'm just so used to it now that this is the time I record. And it just gets me going, and it gets me to the task I need to do consistently.

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All right, I got one more big tip when it comes to being more consistent with whatever you do in your business. And that's how to handle when you're not consistent, when you're inconsistent, when you fall off the wagon. Right, or whatever the term is, because it can happen. Things happen in life, emergencies, problems, circumstances. And as dedicated as we are, sometimes we can't help it and we fall out of habit. We are inconsistent. Your job when this happens is there's got to be a trigger for you that says, the best thing I can do right now is to get back into the rhythm and be consistent again, to start being consistent again. One of the things I realized is that that interruption, that inconsistency, is actually something you have to accept. It's a part of being consistent. The people that are most consistent are the ones that are consistent even when they fall off. When they fall off or when they stop doing it for one day, they get back the next day right away and do it and they kind of just pretend it never happened. And that's really what you got to do, is actually pretend it never happened. And this is a psychological thing that's called Next Play action or Next Pay Speed. This is in sports. I just saw a lecture by Simon Reynolds that talked about this at Dale Beaumont's business Blueprint. But this is a very common understanding in sports, is that when you make a mistake, when you do something wrong, you don't think about that thing. You don't dwell on how bad of a player you are or a person you are. Your next thought is, how can I do something positive? How can I go ahead and I miss the shot, but let me go back and play defense and do something for my team. Same thing here. You want to be consistent as possible by saying, hey, I didn't do it yesterday, but the best thing I could do right now is just do it today, pick up where I left off and keep going. Because if you turn your back on consistency for more than a day, it could be really disastrous. You want to just pick up where you left off and keep going. Well, there you have it, guys. That's today's lesson. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, leave us a rating and review on Apple podcasts, we'd love to hear from you. Or leave us a review on whatever app you use to listen to podcasts and hit subscribe or follow on that app while you're at it, so you can get access to over 2100 business lessons in our archives. Before I go, I want to leave you with this the fruits of consistency really show themselves after a few months. Three months, four months, five months, six months. A year, Two years, A decade. When you look back, I look back at the last decade and the things I was consistent with, man, I made a huge progress. I'm a totally different person because of those things. That's the beauty of consistency, is that you can make huge changes and huge improvements with just something little every day. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you in tomorrow's episode Q and A Wednesday. I'll see you then. Take care.

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