Consistency: Do You Embody It?

How consistent is your behavior? How many goals in your life are not achievable without consistency?

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These are questions I find myself asking lately. I find that goals which require me to complete a specific set of actions but then no longer require anything of me are incredibly easy for me, those goals which require consistency on my part are quite hard on the other hand.

For instance, completing graduate school or various training programs over the years although may have required hard work up front, once I received my diploma or certification, they no longer required anything more from me: goal completed, mission accomplished!

Other goals, such as writing my current book which I discussed in my last post, requires consistent daily (in my mind anyway) typing, I find extremely hard. I seem to find every conceivable excuse not to do it! It takes a Herculean effort for me to sit down and just do it! The only goal that requires consistency and which I don't seem to struggle with is fitness and exercise.

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Perhaps this is due to the fact that I love to workout and when I get bored of one type of activity or exercise, I can easily switch to another such as doing yoga or martial arts training one day, instead of running or resistance training. Switching things up, allows me to be consistent. Writing, on the other hand, is not that flexible, I have found.

I have tried changing up my writing environment, as well as writing during different times of the day but I still struggle with consistency. I recently read Stephen King's On Writing and I found this book both inspiring and jealousy-inducing at the same time.

King simply cannot go a day without writing, even on his birthday and holidays: he feels compelled to write! I feel this way about movement but sadly not writing. I also struggle with this issue when it comes to my blogging, I want to be a more consistent blogger.

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To this end, I am toying with asking a friend to be my "accountability buddy." I will email her at the end of every day and let her know whether or not I have accomplished my daily bit of writing. Different things motivate different people, some people need positive reinforcement (the carrot) and some negative reinforcement (the stick). In this instance, I am going to try both.

By letting a friend know I have accomplished some writing that day, it gives me an intrinsic sense of accomplishment and if I have not done any writing that day and report this, it gives me a small amount of shame. What do you think? Any suggestions via comments or email would be greatly appreciated! Good luck with your own personal goals!