There is one thing that stands in your way to becoming anything you want to be and accomplishing anything you’ve dreamed of.
It’s not money and it’s not time. It’s not a lack of luck or not having the right opportunities handed to you on a plate.
The thing that is standing in your way is a lack of consistency.
I am sure everybody has heard that it takes approximately 28 days to create a new habit (or break an old one)
Changing behaviour is HARD, you are rewiring mindset patterns that have been deeply ingrained and are just so familiar. Even simple tiny tasks like making your bed every morning can prove to be a tough thing to master.
Making our bed EVERY morning has been a “thing” for me. I was in the kitchen a while back waiting for the kettle to boil for my morning cuppa, mindlessly thinking of not much really, when it occurred to me that THIS was the perfect time to make the bed! Who would have thought LOL
It took less time to make the bed than it did for the kettle to boil. Now I have a consistent morning habit of put the kettle on, make the bed, make the tea.
Making this tiny consistent change to my behaviour has helped me set up my day in the ideal way I want my home to look.
Why Consistency is the Key
If you want to be successful at anything then it takes work. As much as we might like to think we can be successful through luck or by gaming the system (and as much as we might be tempted to buy into ‘get rich quick’ schemes or diet fads), the reality is that “luck” requires work.
You need to make consistent progress toward your goals.
And the problem is that most of us just don’t commit to the consistent action
We make grand claims about the things we are going to do. We might proclaim we are going to lose weight, get fit, write a best-selling book or even just go to bed before midnight each night. The plan may be carried out for a few days but then it sort of gets forgotten about and we slip back into their old ways. ☹
And why is this? We say that it’s a matter of time but most of us – even the busiest of us – manage to find the time to watch large amounts of TV, flick through trashy tabloid magazines or play long computer games. Many of us will waste time on the train staring into space, or we’ll randomly scroll Facebook or Instagram on our phones in bed not really accomplishing anything or having a particularly good time!
Why? Because we don’t have a plan to enable consistent behaviour to become a habit.
What to do About it
We might claim that we “deserve” a night watching Netflix, or eating things that we shouldn’t really. It feels like a reward.
But the reality is that if you are working towards a goal you care about and that you’re passionate about, you’d probably enjoy that just as much.
This is purely a matter of creating consistent ACTION Often our goals seem too large or just too far out of reach, but by chunking those goals down into smaller easy to manage steps, we can create ways to find a consistent action to do that task.
And there are a few ways you can do this:
- Start Simple. Choose ONE area of your life you want to change right now
- Write down your goals. There have been numerous studies that show the pure action of writing a goal down can help it come to fruition ( you still have to do the work though ? )
- “Reverse Engineer” those goals. Eg a goal might be “To Save $1000 this year” reverse engineering might mean you need to save $83.34 per month, or $19.23 per week or just a TINY $2.74 per day (and who can’t do that? That is less than foregoing your coffee EVERYDAY )
- Formulate a CONSISTENT Action for that goal. Set up a daily/weekly/monthly transfer from your bank account into your savings account.
- Reduce the “consistency disruptors” of the rest of your day – Switch your café coffee with one from home, get off the bus one stop earlier to get some extra exercise
Commit to your plan for 28 days. After that time, if you have succeeded in your goal, add another goal. If not, don’t beat yourself up, review how you can do things differently and commit again for the next 28 days
Find the consistency and you’ll find you can do anything. Now you know the problem, there is nothing to stop you from fixing it!
My RISE to Rich programme helps you determine your goals and breaks each part of your life down into smaller, manageable steps. By taking baby steps you CAN be living your 10/10 life.
