You’ve heard it all before — all the rhetoric that people put out there, stating that consistency is the key in blogging or, quite frankly, in anything you do. It unlocks the door to the successes you seek to obtain from the actions you take. And every time you hear a discussion about consistency, I’m sure you think inwardly that you already know what’s about to be communicated, because such rhetoric is repeatedly circulated in the online atmosphere and ingrained in our know-to-dos regarding work ethic.
Let’s face it.
In order to work toward perfecting the craft (the activity or skill) you’re trying to get good at or excel in, you have to be consistent with the thing. It’s just a matter of fact. And so, it’s quite possible that you hear “blah, blah, blah . . . blah blah . . . blah blah” when the topic of consistency is brought to the forefront yet another time.
So today, I decided that I wouldn’t bore you with information you already know or have heard a bajillion times. (Side note: it’s amazing that, even though we know what we know about consistency, we don’t take advantage of what we know in order to function in optimal levels of personal and professional development.) And by “we”, I mean “me”. I’m talking to myself first and anyone else who has a problem maintaining consistency in everyday life second.
Now, once upon a time (back on September 4, 2019 in a blog post entitled “The Real-Life 3 C’s of Blogging”), I came up with my own homemade definition of the word, consistency — homemade because you’re not going to find this definition in any official dictionary of choice. (I made it up). Nevertheless, here’s my personal take on the matter:
Consistency is “a willingness to work on a regular and continuous basis until the goal is achieved.” You know what? As I look at this definition (of mine) I’m thinking, “regular” and “continuous” pretty much mean the same thing, don’t they? Well, I guess I was going for the redundancy factor here. Anyway, you get the point I’m trying to drive home, which is to create an ongoing routine of doing a task until you complete it once and for all, complete it over and over again, or achieve your goal.
And in that same blog post from Sept. 4, 2019, I described what “consistency” looks like in real-life blogging application, which is as follows:
- striving to provide high quality blog posts (every single time), even when you have just a handful of people reading your posts versus the masses.
- working into the wee hours of the a.m. or getting up very early in the a.m. to make sure a post is delivered on time, according to the blogging schedule you communicated to your audience.
- creating a comfortable online environment that is familiar to your audience . . . one that your followers come to expect and appreciate.
Okay, I think I’ll stop there because I don’t want you to start doing that eye-rolling thing while you’re thinking, “here it goes again”. Now, Jana’s going through her spiel on what consistency means to HER –yet, another discourse on this never-ending topic.
Well . . . first of all . . . if you’re doing that eye-rolling thing, that’s rude and you should hear me out before turning me off. The topic of consistency can never be worn out, because it will be forever vital to your successes in anything you do. You can mark my words on that one. You have to see a matter to the end before you can reap the fruits of the labor involved in it. And, I find that too many of us peter out before we get a chance to get good at the thing we’re trying to pursue or arrive at the goal we’re trying to accomplish.
The topic of consistency has to continue on until we get a clue — to consistently do the thing or to keep missing the mark. So, I’m sure I’ll be one of those individuals who repeatedly comes back to discussions on consistency (especially since it seems to be one of those lessons that we can’t seem to capitalize off of). But, for this blog post, I’ve decided to take you on a different vantage point when viewing consistency. For just a few moments, let’s look at what consistency is not (since we’re already highly aware of what it is). Consistency . . .
is not going to tell you that someone else will do your work for you while you reap the benefits of said work
is not a “put off until tomorrow what you can do today” quality or state of being
is not going to allow you to get worse at doing the thing you’ve set out to do
is not going to appease you or be easy on you
is not going to continuously let you slide or take a break or be wishy-washy
is not going to let you fail
is not going to fail you
is not going to play an insignificant role in your successes
is not going to make room for the excuse-maker
is not going to pacify your laziness
is not going to perform well in an unstructured environment
is not going to decrease your work momentum
is not going to highlight your weaknesses
is not going to give up on you if you use it wisely
Did I just about cover what consistency is not?
If not, what would you add? ________________________________________
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