Speaker 1: Hi everybody. It's Eric and I am back with another
Speaker 1: mini episode, albeit it's been a while since I did
Speaker 1: the last one. I get so many notes from people
Speaker 1: saying that they really really like these, so I thought
Speaker 1: I would try and get back into doing them consistently,
Speaker 1: and actually, consistency will be the topic of this week's
Speaker 1: mini episode. Before I jump into it, I just want
Speaker 1: to remind folks we've got our one on one program.
Speaker 1: If you like some of the things you're hearing on
Speaker 1: the show, but you're having trouble putting that into your
Speaker 1: own life or putting into action, you can go to
Speaker 1: one you feed dot net slash coaching and take a
Speaker 1: look there at the program. There's another two weeks left
Speaker 1: on the introductory pricing, and after that the price will
Speaker 1: go up by two dollars, so if you're interested, this
Speaker 1: is a great time to sign up. So, as I said,
Speaker 1: the topic today is consistency. Which had you told me
Speaker 1: at one point in my life that I would be
Speaker 1: advocating the benefits of consistency, I probably would have told
Speaker 1: you you were crazy. I think there was certainly time
Speaker 1: in life where I thought the freedom to do whatever
Speaker 1: I wanted whenever I wanted and do exactly what I
Speaker 1: felt was the answer for me, and I certainly learned
Speaker 1: that to a certain degree, structure liberates. But there are
Speaker 1: some quotes on consistency out there. Uh Ralph Waldo Emerson,
Speaker 1: one of my favorites, said a foolish consistency is the
Speaker 1: hobgoblin of little minds, and Oscar Wilde said that consistency
Speaker 1: is the last refuge of the unimaginative. Now, I think
Speaker 1: certainly what Emerson was talking about, and I think Huxley
Speaker 1: probably to a great degree, is consistency of thought, as
Speaker 1: in I thought this before, so I will continue to
Speaker 1: think it versus open our mind and being willing to
Speaker 1: change our mind, change our opinion. And like in our
Speaker 1: episode with Maria Popova, we talked about how important that
Speaker 1: is being willing to revisit your opinions, be willing to
Speaker 1: think about something different than what you've previously thought of
Speaker 1: it before. That, how ever, is not the type of
Speaker 1: consistency that we're talking about the type of consistency we're
Speaker 1: talking about today is consistency of action, particularly in trying
Speaker 1: to make a change in your life, so trying to
Speaker 1: lose weight, trying to get in better shape, trying to
Speaker 1: write a book, trying to get a dissertation done, whatever
Speaker 1: those things are. Consistency is really really important. Gretchen Rubin
Speaker 1: has a quote that I really love, and it says
Speaker 1: that what you do every day matters more than what
Speaker 1: you do once in a while, And this is absolutely true.
Speaker 1: I'm always amazed, you know, I say on the show
Speaker 1: a lot. I'm amazed by what a series of small
Speaker 1: steps done consistently over a period of time can accomplish.
Speaker 1: And actually, it's easier to continue to do something consistently
Speaker 1: day after day than it is to do it once
Speaker 1: in a while. It seems like doing something every day
Speaker 1: must be really impossible, but the truth is that if
Speaker 1: you do something every day, it becomes easier to do.
Speaker 1: It becomes more of a habit, more of a routine,
Speaker 1: and you don't have to force yourself into it as much.
Speaker 1: It's so as we do semi regularly, they are often
Speaker 1: very difficult to do, and we have to talk ourselves
Speaker 1: into a lot of the time. The buddhas said that
Speaker 1: a jug fills drop by drop, So again, same idea here.
Speaker 1: We just keep slowly putting things in and an analogy
Speaker 1: we it's a. It's a cliche almost at this point
Speaker 1: where we talk about things being a marathon not a sprint.
Speaker 1: But for anything in your life that's worth doing, or
Speaker 1: any positive change, you want it to last. And the
Speaker 1: key to lasting. One of the keys to lasting is
Speaker 1: to be consistent and to do an amount that you
Speaker 1: can do regularly and every day. So it's much better
Speaker 1: to again find something to start very small with it.
Speaker 1: Let's just take meditation. Meditate for three minutes a day,
Speaker 1: but do that consistently, do it every day for seven days,
Speaker 1: then go to four minutes or five minutes. And we
Speaker 1: keep talking about these things on the show. Um, but
Speaker 1: they're so critical, you know, we keep talking about them
Speaker 1: because they're so critical, they're so they're so simple that
Speaker 1: we tend to overlook them. James Clear talks about the
Speaker 1: idea of an average speed and so you know, I
Speaker 1: talk about this at looking at your habits or your
Speaker 1: productivity over a longer time frame. But what he's saying
Speaker 1: is that if you pay attention to how fast you're
Speaker 1: going at any one moment, you're trying to maximize that.
Speaker 1: I'm going to try and go fifty five right now,
Speaker 1: but then I'm going ten so I'm frustrated and then
Speaker 1: I'm stopped at a red light. Whereas if you just
Speaker 1: look at your average speed over the whole trip, so
Speaker 1: or you look at you know, I talk about productivity
Speaker 1: about UM, we want to look at our productivity over
Speaker 1: weeks and months, not a day. If we focus on
Speaker 1: the day, it's easy to burn ourselves out. But if
Speaker 1: we look at it over a period of time, then
Speaker 1: we're able to make decisions that can keep us in
Speaker 1: a place that we're able to sustain, you know. Back
Speaker 1: to that idea of average speed that James clear has.
Speaker 1: One other thing with consistency is important that we don't
Speaker 1: mix up consistency with being perfect. So if we intend
Speaker 1: to be consistent to meditate every day, for example, or
Speaker 1: to exercise every day, things are going to happen. And
Speaker 1: so it's important to be able to do a couple
Speaker 1: of things. One is to improvise and say, okay, well
Speaker 1: I normally like to do a fifteen minute run outdoors.
Speaker 1: That didn't work, So I'll, you know, walk around the
Speaker 1: building a couple of times today. Being flexible UM in
Speaker 1: doing that can be really helpful. UM. And then not
Speaker 1: being too hard on yourself if you miss. Things come
Speaker 1: up in life, we miss. The important thing is to
Speaker 1: get right back on it and not sort of just
Speaker 1: you know, throw the baby out with the bath water.
Speaker 1: One other image to leave you with as you think
Speaker 1: about this is we can think about our habits as
Speaker 1: sort of a plant. Every time we exercise the habit,
Speaker 1: we're taking care of that plant. We're water and it,
Speaker 1: we're feeding it, we're giving it sunlight. And so obviously
Speaker 1: by doing that very consistently that plants in a lot
Speaker 1: better shape than if we do those things sporadically, or
Speaker 1: we go long periods and we give it a ton
Speaker 1: of water. Okay, well I'm going to dump you know,
Speaker 1: a gallon of water on it today and then I
Speaker 1: don't touch it for two weeks. You'd be far better off,
Speaker 1: you know, administering a little bit of water to that
Speaker 1: plant day after day. So those are just some thoughts
Speaker 1: on consistency. Um. It's as I said, I think it's
Speaker 1: one of the key things to making any sort of
Speaker 1: successful behavior change in your life. So hopefully that's helpful.
Speaker 1: New episode out on Tuesday. Let me know what you
Speaker 1: think is always and thank you for listening. Bye.