5 ways to be more consistent

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Now, onto Issue 03.

In Today’s Issue

Everyone acknowledges consistency is fundamental to success — in business, sports or any other arena of life.

Yet so many people struggle with it.

Today, we’re going to explore five simple strategies elite performers use to be consistent.

Let’s dive in.

5 ways to be more consistent

I was a Division 1 college athlete.

I’ve studied under world-class writers.

I’ve worked with serial entrepreneurs.

I’ve trained with Special Forces operators.

Every elite performer I’ve come across — regardless of the domain — shared a common trait:

Remarkable consistency.

They were far from perfect.

But over an extended period of time, consistency was a hallmark of who they were.

You can’t “brute force” your way to being consistent. That may work in spurts, but it’s not sustainable.

To sustain consistent performance, you need strategies.

Here are five you can use starting today:

1. Leverage OBGs

James Clear has a concept called “anchor tasks.”

Anchor tasks are the one priority that defines your day.

Example anchor tasks:

• Make 20 sales calls

• Write a newsletter issue

• Complete V1 of a project

• Do a long endurance workout

These aren’t necessarily the only tasks you’ll do that day, but they are the single most important task.

I call these OBGs -One Big Goals.

You can set OBGs on a daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly basis (I wouldn’t advise going longer than quarterly).

OBGs drive consistency through ruthless prioritization.

It’s much easier to be consistent with one priority than five.

Start setting OBGs on a daily and weekly basis and build everything else around them.

This will build the muscle of consistency around your highest-priority work.

2. Reward yourself

I’m terrible at rewarding myself.

This is not a strategy I have used much in my life, but I recently began studying and practicing it more.

Rewards are a powerful way to drive behavior, and therefore can be a tool to drive consistency.

Organizations leverage rewards all the time.

• Paid trips for exceeding quota

• Bonuses for superior performance

• Additional perks for reaching certain levels

Rewards can be even more powerful when you set them for yourself.

Let’s say I want to write for one hour every day and one of my favorite things to do is spend 30 minutes at the driving range hitting golf balls.

I can attach those two things and tell myself that every day I write for at least one hour, I will then go hit golf balls for 30 minutes.

It’s important to note, however, that if rewards are the ONLY reason you’re driven to perform a behavior, it’s unlikely you’ll sustain consistency over time.

The science around self-determination theory suggests intrinsic motivation needs to play some role in motivation to perform.

Strategically used, though, rewards can be a good tool.

3. Detach from willpower

There’s a common term in sports: the “will to win.”

Meaning, elite competitors can leverage willpower to push their teams to victory.

While that may be true at times, it’s not an effective strategy for consistent performance.

Elite performers may be strong-willed, but they don’t depend on it.

They develop systems.

• Author Stephen King sits down at the same time every day to write

• Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw performs the exact same routine, at the exact same time, before every game he pitches

• Steve Jobs wore the same outfit every day to eliminate the time and mental energy of thinking about clothing

Consistency requires repeatability.

Systems are dependable.

Willpower is fickle.

Identify every area where you currently depend on willpower and work to build a system in that area instead.

4. Schedule what matters

Clemson football coach Dabo Swinney is a master scheduler.

He runs his program by a 13-month calendar that he reinstalls with his staff every July. If you ask him what he’ll be doing on a Tuesday afternoon nine months from now, he can tell you.

Why?

To build consistency throughout his program and ensure the most important things get prioritized.

You don’t need to go to THAT level of detail in scheduling, but it makes the point:

If you want to be a consistent, schedule what matters.

Here’s my simple system for scheduling:

• Every Sunday, I pull up my calendar for the week

• I schedule family and personal time

• Then I schedule time for my daily OBGs

• Then I schedule blocks for calls

• All other time is left open

This takes no more than five minutes and is the thing I credit most for my consistency.

Don’t wake up and wing it.

What gets scheduled gets done.

5. Reduce attention demands

I’m fascinated by the concept of “laser focus.”

It’s often used to describe elite athletes who perform well under pressure.

The same concept applies to an entrepreneur who operates with disciplined precision.

In short, laser focus is the ability to direct 100% of your attention to a specific task when necessary.

Psychologist Amishi Jha — an expert on the science of attention — wrote a wonderful book called “Peak Mind” in which she describes our attention as a flashlight.

We can shine it on any one thing and illuminate it, but we can’t shine it on several things at once and still sustain the same level of focus.

Managing our attention is a huge component of consistency.

Through mindfulness practice, we can train our brains to focus longer, which will help us perform more consistently.

But we also can improve consistency by reducing the number of demands on our attention.

One example is environmental design — optimizing your physical environment (to the extent you can) to protect your attention.

Another way is through simplification. Reduce the number of tasks you prioritize (back to OBGs), the number of commitments you say yes to and the number of decisions you need to make.

Reserve your attention for what matters most.

Summary

Five simple strategies that can help you be more consistent:

• Leverage OBGs

• Reward yourself

• Detach from willpower

• Schedule what matters

• Reduce attention demands

I hope these are helpful.

I’d love to hear from you

• Feedback on this newsletter?

• Topics for future issues?

• Tips on good stories?

Reply to this email and let me know. I read every email.

Thanks for reading.

See you next Sunday.