Consistency beats intensity

There's a reason why this happens. And the reason this happens is that the focus isn't on the goal. The focus isn't on getting to a particular place in a reasonable period of time. The focus is on intensity. Because you want to do everything now. It has to be now. And you're hitting the gym hard every day because you have this all or nothing approach. You have to do everything or you have to do nothing. But the thing about an all or nothing approach is that essentially, over time, it ends up with you doing nothing. Because maintaining that same level of intensity day in, day out over a long period, it isn't possible. You're listening to the Circle C Project. Welcome to the Triple C Project, the podcast that helps you gain clarity, boost confidence, build courage so you can live lifeless. I'm your host, Ryan Spence, the big lord, rock hat, life coach, author, speaker, lover of hoodies, hip hop and big, hairy, audacious goals. If you're tired of living the life you think you should want and ready to start living the life you do want, this podcast will help you get from where you are to where you really want to be. So now with friends, I invite you to grab a drink, take a seat, and lounge me to guide you towards living a life that's lit. Hey. Hey. Welcome to episode 31 of the Triple C Project with me, Ryan Spence, your host, life coach, author, yoga teacher, and ex big law lawyer, AKA the big law dropout. And when I started this podcast, my commitment to myself was that I was going to record once a week for a year. That was my promise to me. I was just going to show up and deliver a show, share things with you that I thought would help you on your journey to live a life that's lit. And also in sharing my journey with you, I help myself because often you'll find that people like myself coaches people in personal development. People who help people are also helping themselves because by sharing what you've been through, it helps you to get clear in your own mind as to what works and what is valuable. And I realized that I never actually marked the fact that I got halfway through which 52 weeks in a year would have been. Episode 26. Something I'm really bad at. I'm really bad at celebrating my wins. I'm really bad at recognizing how far I've come. I'm always looking to the next goal ahead. And it's something which I know is something which I'm sort of working on, um, but it does elapse every now and again. So I'M past the halfway mark, which is fantastic. And I hope that being past the halfway mark, if you've been listening in since the beginning of the show, that you've learned a lot about yourself from the show. It's not really about me, although I hope that my stories and my experiences and the tools and strategies I've shared with you have been helpful. But I hope that in listening to some of the ways that I've talked about things in relation to myself, my clients, things I've gone through, things they've gone through, that it's helped you to start thinking about your own life and the way that you approach things and the way that you deal with things. Okay, so the reason I mentioned at the top of the show about consistency is that's kind of the topic of this week's show. Okay, not kind of. That's another bad habit I have. Same kind of, when I actually mean it is the topic of this week's show. More specifically the fact that consistency beats intensity. So what do I mean by that? So I know how it is. I was a big old lawyer, so I know how it is. When your job is so demanding and it's literally taking over your life and you feel you don't have time to do anything else, to think about what else you'd like to do, to think about developing a new skill or taking part in hobbies on a regular basis or anything like that. Because at the end of the day or the end of the week, literally all you want to do is just either go out and party hard and numb it all with alcohol, go home exhausted, crash on the sofa, watch Netflix, eat a load of junk food. Maybe that's just me, but that's all you have the energy for. It's hard to muster up the, the. The energy to kind of do anything else. And you feel that your job is just taking over your. Your life or has in fact, taken over your life. And this isn't just me. It's a common complaint I get from people that I work with. They say, I want to do X. I'd really like to do that. You sort of delve down into what lights them up, what excites them, and you see their face light up when they start to talk about something which they really enjoy. But the common refrain is always that, but I just don't have time to even look into that. My work is all consuming. Life is all consuming. I just don't think I have the time. And I'm reminded of this by a call, a consultation Call I had with a potential client recently. And this client was a lawyer in big law and wanted to be a writer. And slightly funny story, I find that when I work with lawyers, particularly lawyers in big law generally, when you start to sort of poke around and figure out what really excites them. Two things, there's two common themes. One is they either want to be a writer or they either want to do something in the well being space, the health and wellness space. I don't know why that is. My theory is that as lawyers, we write a lot, but we don't write for pleasure. We don't get to write creatively. And so that just builds up this frustration in ourselves that we want to be able to write and express ourselves through that medium. And the other is that the jobs, again, are all consuming. Well being is sharp, that when we do get out, or we dream of getting out, we dream of getting ourselves into sort of really good shape mentally, physically, spiritually, and helping others do the same. That's my theory anyway. If you've got a different theory, I'd love to hear it. Particularly if you're one of these people who wants to be a writer or something within the health and wellness space. Okay, I digress. So like the potential client that I spoke to, big lawyer and wants to be a writer. But the complaint was. Or the story was that job so demanding. I have family, I have all the pressures of life around me. I just don't have time to write. I don't even have time to read. I don't have time to do anything around being a writer. And as a coach, or as a coach at the time, I listened because I know from experience that while these feelings when you're in the moment are true, they feel very valid, they feel very real. Of course you have no time because everything else is taking up the time. But what I know, it's not true. And it's not that you're telling yourselves false stories on purpose. It's just that when you're in it, you feel it. And it feels so real that it's hard to kind of step back and objectively look at the situation. But the joys of being a coach is that I have that luxury of listening and watching and pulling the threads and then joining things together. And I knew that this story wasn't true. The story that she was telling herself wasn't true. We always make time to do the things that we want to do. Always. You know, you would always find that time to do something which you feel is really Important, actually, I'm going to roll that back. It isn't necessarily time to do the things that you want to do, but sometimes it's doing the things that you feel you need to do. And if you. But you. The thing is, you need to manage your expectations. You need to manage your expectations about the time that you have and the time that it will take to get certain things done. And I'm going to share this with the sort of the analogy of New Year's resolution. So we all know those people, we're probably those people who make the New Year's resolution to get fit, get in the best shape of their life, lose weight, put on weight, whatever it is. And the beginning of January, the first half of January is full of newbies at the gym. They're all there walking around, looking a little bit lost. Some of them just go straight to their newest machine and start to hit it hard. And as a frequent gym go, I used to hate that, but, like, what are these people doing in my space? But the thing I also knew and that you would see is that a couple of weeks in, I mean, if you're. If you're lucky, maybe towards the end of Jan, slowly the gym would start to get emptier. And the reason is that people would go with these intentions, this sort of focus of hitting it hard, going for an hour a day, either every day, a week or five days or whatever. That was the benchmark. They wanted to hit the gym with that intensity because they had this dream of the perfect body or the shape that they wanted to be in. And that's what was driving them. And that's great. But what happened is that sometimes you miss a day. Maybe you had to work late, maybe you had a bad night's sleep, or maybe you just hung over, whatever it is, and you just think, oh, I really can't face it today, I'll go tomorrow. But then you don't go tomorrow. You missed two days, and that momentum has stalled. And then you start to say to yourself, oh, I've missed two days. I'm really bad at this. I can't do this. Maybe I'll go next week, but then next week never comes, and before you know it, you're into February and you're left with an expensive gym membership that you're paying for because they've locked you in for a year and you're no fitter than you were when you started in January because you haven't put in the sufficient amount of work. Now, if you're feeling a little Bit attacked right now, if this sounds like all too familiar a story for you. Yeah, sorry. Not sorry. It is what it is. But look, there's a reason why this happens. And the reason this happens is this, that the focus isn't on the goal. The focus isn't on getting to a particular place in a reasonable period of time. The focus is on intensity. Because you want to do everything now. It has to be now. And you're hitting the gym hard every day because you have this all or nothing approach. You have to do everything or you have to do nothing. But the thing about an all or nothing approach is that essentially over time, it ends up with you doing nothing. Because maintaining that same level of intensity day in, day out over a long period, it isn't possible. It's just not. You can't hit it hard every single day. Your body will break down, you'll get injured mentally, you'll get fatigued. I mean, you will know it in the job that you do. When you, when you're doing all nighter after All Nighter, you know, it's. There's a time when you're. You're just not thinking straight. You're just not performing to the best of your ability because it's not possible. It's unsustainable. And that's the same thing here. So by focusing on intensity, you actually don't get to where it is that you want to get to. You don't achieve the thing that you want to achieve. So you're probably thinking, well, what's the answer here? How do. How do I change that? How do I carve out the time? How do I step back from intensity? What is the answer? Tell me, Ryan. Well, I'm going to tell you. Of course I'm going to tell you. I'm going to tell you right after this. Hey, I'm interrupting myself to give you this short message. Now, if you're listening to this pod, you're likely looking to change your life. Here's the thing. Transformation doesn't happen by doing what you've always done. It happens when you change your thoughts about what's possible for you. My book, the Triple C Method, helps you do that by giving you the tools and strategies to stop living a life of lethargy and start living life lit. Described as a transformational toolkit. And the book I wish I'd had when I decided to leave corporate, the triple C method will change how you see yourself and how you live your life. Available now as paperback, ebook and audiobook, read by yours truly. Head to iamrinespence.com book or over to your favorite bookseller to grab your copy today so you can stop living a life of lethargy and start living life next. Okay, I'm going to stop. Stop attacking you about the gym now and go back to the story of the, of the lawyer who wants to be a writer and how that played out. So what we did is we, when she told herself that story is we explored the story. We explored whether the lack of time, story, excuse, whether that was really true. And what happened was that as I asked the questions, as we worked through the process and as we continue to explore, what became apparent was that there was time in the morning that, that she had before she started work and when everyone else was out of the house. Time that she used to enjoy her morning coffee, which I love. I mean, that's just bliss for me. Having that time to just sit quietly alone, enjoy your coffee is. It's one of the most lit moments of my day. The days that it happens, it definitely doesn't happen every day. But also within that time, there was much time that was spent scrolling on social media. And look, there's nothing wrong with scrolling on social media. I'm not one of those coaches can say, you don't scroll on social media. It's bad because everything has its place and has its benefit. But the thing is, what we realize is that what was actually going to be more beneficial to her than scrolling on social media was doing something towards her dream of being a writer because she enjoyed that. So it wasn't like I was saying, don't have fun and do something that's a real slog. Be productive. You know, I mean, be your best self and all of that. It was a realization that she came to herself that actually she really wanted to explore being a writer. That was something that excited her. That was. Was going to light her up more than aimlessly scrolling on social media, waiting for the clock to get to the time when she needed to log on and go through the day's slog of being a big law lawyer. And so one that once that became apparent, we then started to explore what time that she would have. And it's interesting when I do this with people because again, it comes back to this concept of intensity. People like, yeah, they get really excited and they want to go hard. So they start to say, well, I can commit all of this time. I can commit an hour a day or two hours a day or whatever it is. And I have to slowly try to temper that expectation, because again, going back to the gym goers, all that will happen is you'll commit to an hour a day or two hours a day of in this instance, writing or reading or taking other steps towards being a writer. But then you'll miss a day or you miss two days, or you won't have an hour that day, you won't have two hours that day. And before you know it, you've fallen off the wagon and you haven't really made much progress. It's far better to commit a small amount of time to commit to a time that you know that you can give on a regular basis. And then if you're in the zone, or if there's more time available at that time, then just increase the time. So for example, with me, my non negotiable is to meditate every day. I'd love to sit and do a 20, 30 minute meditation every day, but it's just not feasible in a busy life with kids and a business and just life generally. So I commit to 10 minutes a day and I know that 10 minutes a day is something that is doable and something which I can continue to do each day. It doesn't feel like a big burden, it's not a huge chunk of time, but it means I'm going to get that meditation in. It's the very first thing I do when I get up in the morning is commit 10 minutes to just sit in stillness and meditate. And some days I might have longer, so I'll go for longer. I'll go 15 minutes or 20 minutes, but most days it's 10. But over the course of time, those 10 minutes are going to give me far more benefit than sitting for 30 minutes twice a week. They're not doing it for a few days and then coming back the next week and then not doing it for a few days. Because it's the cumulative effect over time that's going to work. And so in this instance, going back to the lawyer who wanted to be a writer, 15 minutes was where we ended up committing 15 minutes a day to being a writer. And that 15 minutes can be spent doing anything towards being a writer. It can be spent reading, it can be spent writing, it can be spent researching writing courses, it can be spent doing anything. But what it meant was that there was this protected time when within that time all that time was being spent doing was on being the thing that she wanted to be, becoming the thing that she wanted to become. And that became so much easier, so much more manageable. And within an hour we'd gone from there not being enough time and this feeling of overwhelm to, wow, I can really see a path through. I can really see how I can commit to 15 minutes a day. And this is something I've done with clients in whole host of different ways. Clients who feel that they want to get back into a consistent workout, clients who feel that they want to train to do something new or feeling that they don't have the time, it's removing the focus on the intensity and reframing it or redirecting it towards the consistency. Because my view, and I'm sure it's scientifically proven as well, it's not just my view, better to commit 15 minutes a day, five days a week to doing something, to becoming a writer or being a writer than it is to say, I want to be a writer. Think about it for six months, spend an hour a day for a week, then don't do anything for another month. You know, think how, think how much further you'd have gone if you'd spent those six months, spent 15 minutes a day for those six months than if you'd spent an hour for a few days over the course of six months. So much more further, how many more words would you have written? It's a similar way to how I wrote my book. I just committed to that. I could write Monday to Friday before the kids got up. I could sit down from 5:30 to 6:30 and that would be the time that I would write. And some days I would write a shit ton of words. Some days I would not have anything of sense come out of my mind. But that was it. I committed to writing in that time. That's how the book got done, in the time it got done. People say, oh, you wrote that book so quickly. But that was why, because I committed the time. I also knew what I wanted to write about, but then I committed the time. And if I just said, right, I'm going to sit down on this Saturday and write the whole book or get through a big chunk of it and just focus on that intensity, it would have been sporadic and I'd still be here today talking about writing this book. So that's what I want to leave you with today is the idea that you do have time. If you really want to do the thing, if you really want to live life lit, if you really want to explore the ideas, the things you want to do, the things that you want to be, the things that you want to become, you can find that time to do it, step back from the intensity and just focus on the consistency, focus on taking that small step each day. And some days that small step will turn into multiple steps and some days that small step would just be that one small step. But if you take the view that each day you're going to do something that's moving you closer towards your goal, closer towards the thing that you want to achieve, closer towards living life lit, you're going to get there a lot quicker than if you just focus on the intensity, on hitting it hard, on trying to get that quote unquote beachbody like eight weeks before you go on holiday, you know, rather than just consistently working out, eating right throughout the year, whatever it is. So think about that. And what I'd like you to do, if you're so minded, is to send me an email. Um, you can get me at hey@im ryan spence.com or just message me on Instagram or on LinkedIn and let me know. What small step will you take? What small step are you committing to to get you to where you want to get to? Or to put it a different way, what is it you're trying to achieve and what is the step, what is the small step that you're committing to in order to help you achieve that? What's the consistent process you're going to follow to help you achieve that? I'd love to hear if this episode works for you, if this exercise works for you, this stepping back, removing the overwhelm and just looking at what can I commit, what small thing can I commit to the process? Because I find that it's really powerful. It's very simple, but it's actually really powerful and completely changes the way that you think about how to get things done. Okay, I am about to go. I'm out of here for this week. Thanks for listening as always. Episode 31. I love that I'm over the halfway mark. Thank you all for being here and for listening. It's a pleasure to be recording these shows and putting them out for you every week. As always, I love to hear any key insights, takeaways that you have from the show or just the way that you're implementing some of the things discussed in your in your own life and how that's working for you. Email me at hey@iamrinespence.com or send me a DM on Instagram @I amrynespence or find me on LinkedIn. Just Ryan Spence, you can hit me there. All of those links will be in the show notes and don't Keep this to yourself. If you get anything from this episode or from the show, generally from the podcast, generally, share it. Share it with a friend. Why wouldn't you want to help out a friend or a colleague? Someone who you know is feeling a little bit stuck, needs a little bit direction, would really benefit from some of the tools and strategies and tips and stories that are shared here on the Triple C Project. So go ahead, share the show with them and, yeah, let's spread a little love around. You know, I talk about the ripple effect and that's what we're doing here. I drop the pebble into the ocean. It spreads out in the form of this podcast and the content, and you do the same and it spreads wider and wider and we help to help more people. That's it for this week. I will catch you next week for another episode of the Triple C Project. And until then, stop living a life of lethargy and start living life lit. Thanks for tuning in, but before you go, the weight of limiting beliefs is heavy. It literally weighs you down and keeps you stuck in that life of lethargy. I know. It's why I stayed in Big Law for so long, and it's why so many of my clients don't believe they can do the things that they want to do. But what causes those limiting beliefs? It's a lack of confidence. Lack of confidence in the belief that you can do the things that you want to do. And I've got something for that. It's my confidence journal. It's six journal prompts that I created that I've used to help me get from where I am to where I want to be, to help, to give me the belief to do the things that seem outside of. Of my control, outside of what I can do. If this sounds like you, you need to get your hands on the journal. Best thing about it, it's free. All you have to do is head to iamryspence.com hit the button for Confidence Journal and get your copy today. It's going to help you start to reframe your thoughts and get you thinking about what you can do instead of focusing on what you can't do and shed that load of limiting beliefs that you don't need to be carrying. See you again next week. And until that time, stop living a life of lethargy and start living life lit.