How to Be More Consistent: 15 Proven Steps to Master Consistency

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There is no one size fit all answer to “How to be more consistent”. Consistency can be achieved in different ways by different people. As a full-time freelance writer and blogger, consistency is a key component of my job. It is everything my entire business runs on.

Consistency is the act of constantly following through with a particular behavior, action, or habit. It is the ability to maintain a certain level of performance or behavior over time. Consistency builds trust, reliability, and credibility. Consistent people are seen as dependable and trustworthy.

As a remote worker, I believe that being consistent is not limited to the workplace. It is an important trait of your personality that you work on every day to enhance both your professional and personal lives. In this article, I will share with you 15 proven steps to master consistency that will teach you how to be more consistent. 

15 Proven Steps to Master Consistency: A Guide on How to Be More Consistent

To achieve success, consistency is key. Consistency is not just about doing something once or twice, but rather, it is about doing meaningful things regularly again and again. Consistency is what separates successful people from unsuccessful ones.

Living in the digital age, unfortunately, consistency has also become a buzzword. So many use it as a word of advice without even implementing it in their life. Thus, it’s imperative to understand what the hype is all about. Why is everyone so obsessed with “consistency”? Why is everyone asking the same question: “How to be more consistent” 

 

Why is Consistency Important?

Consistency is important because it builds habits that make you successful in the long run. When we consistently do something over and over again, it becomes a habit. And good habits are the most essential secret for achieving success in any area of life.

Consistency builds momentum. When you consistently do something, you build momentum with those activities. This means that what once was difficult now feels easy because you have been doing it repeatedly, which makes it easier to continue doing it repeatedly.

Some examples of what was difficult in the past but is easy for me today are: 

  • Building a successful freelance writing business
  • Creation reels on Instagram for new writers 
  • Using and building an audience on LinkedIn 
  • Running this blog & learning WordPress 
  • Posting a new blog here every week 
  • Learning content & copywriting 
  • Showing up on Pinterest 
  • Reading books 
  • Practicing Yoga 
  • Learning SEO 
  • Losing weight 

All of these are some of the many fears have overcome in the past few years of my journey. 

Consistency also builds trust. When we consistently do what we say we are going to do, people trust us. Trust is essential in building successful relationships, whether it is in the workplace or our personal lives.

 

How to be More Consistent: The Power of Daily Habits

Daily habits are the foundation of consistency. When we consistently do something every day, it becomes a habit. Habits are powerful because they are automatic. A great example of this is my daily writing habit. Because I started writing every day, it has become my personality now. I don’t even have to force myself anymore to do it. Instead, I have started enjoying the process. 

When you have established daily habits, you don’t have to think about them, you just do them. Habits are also powerful because they can be good or bad. If you have good habits, they will help you to achieve success. But, if your habits are bad, they can easily hold you back, make you feel overwhelmed, and limit you from reaching your true potential. 

Now, let’s learn how to be more consistent with these 15 proven steps: 

 

How to be More Consistent? 15 Proven Steps to Master Consistency

1) Set Clear Goals

Setting clear goals is essential to build consistency. When you have clear goals, you know what you are working towards. Knowing your purpose makes it less difficult to stay consistent. You are more likely to be consistent when you are aware of what you want to achieve. 

When setting goals, it is important to make them specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. This is also known as the SMART goal-setting approach. When you set SMART goals, you are more likely to accomplish them. 

 

2) Create a Schedule

Creating a schedule fuels consistency. It is an essential aspect of time management. When you have a schedule, you know what you need to do and when you need to do it. You are aware of where you need to spend your energy. This helps us to stay on track and be consistent.

When creating a schedule, it is important to prioritize your tasks. You should focus on the most important tasks first and then move on to the less important ones. This will help you to be more productive and consistent. You can also follow Stephen Covey’s time management matrix to understand prioritizing tasks better. How to be more consistent: Time Management Matrix by Stephen Covey

3) Eliminate Distractions

Distractions are the biggest hindrance to consistency. Thus, it is essential to eliminate them. The human attention span has been reduced to 8.25 seconds. With social media overtaking our life, we are surrounded by distractions. They have made it difficult to stay consistent. Hence it is important to identify your distractions and eliminate them as much as possible.

Some common distractions include social media, emails, and phone calls. The solution is to set aside specific times during the day to check your emails and social media accounts. You should also turn off your phone notifications during work hours. I have all my phone notifications off forever. This way I only check my socials when I want to. 




4) Find an Accountability Partner

Finding an accountability partner makes those hard days bearable. Because let’s admit it, it does get difficult to continue working on your goal, especially on days when you have no sign of growth. When you have someone to hold you accountable for your daily habits, tasks, and goals, it becomes easy to stay on track with your consistent record. 

Your accountability partner can be a friend, family member, or coworker. For me, this person is my boyfriend, the one I go to rant it all out on those bad days and share it all with on those great days. When choosing an accountability partner, it is important to choose someone supportive and encouraging of your goals.

 

5) Reward Yourself

While you are so focused and driven to create the life of your dreams, you must not forget to reward yourself for your achievements. Rewarding yourself serves as self-motivation for consistency. Rewards can be anything from a small treat to a day out with your friends to a full vacation.

Usually, I prefer to reward myself by going for a day out with my best friends. This was us at a food fest 2 weeks ago. 

How to be more consistent: Reward Yourself

When choosing a reward, make sure that the rewards are meaningful to you. They should complement your personal wellness goals in some way. 

 

6) Track Your Process

Tracking your process helps you understand how far you have come and what you still need to do. This helps you to stay motivated and consistent. An amazing way is to journal your progress. This works great on those not-so-progressive days when you are finding it hard to continue moving forward in your self-improvement journey. 

When tracking your process, it is important to use specific metrics. For me, these metrics are organic traffic, page views, Pinterest metrics, etc for my blog. These metrics can be different for you based on your goals and vision. 

 

7) Practice Self-Discipline

Practicing self-discipline builds a growth mindset that pushes you to become 1% better every day. Being disciplined make you do what needs to be done, even when you do not feel like it. Because you know that it’s both relevant and important for your goals. 

Based on how you want your life to be, your self-discipline includes activities that bring you a step closer to your goals. You realize the power of small efforts and little progress. You know that all these will come together someday to produce big results for you. My self-discipline activities revolve around building my blog and running my freelance writing business. What is it for you? 

 

8) Focus on One Thing at a Time

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but multitasking is not something to be proud of. In fact, it takes you a step back in your progress. It is vital to focus on one thing at a time if you want to build consistency. Doing too many things at once messes with the pace of your task and you end up doing different things for a longer time. 

Being fully focused on one task also saves you a lot of time that is otherwise wasted on multitasking. If you get distracted easily by your phone, you can leave your phone in a different room while working on important things. It is a tried and tested method for me and it works wonders. 

 

9) Visualize Success

Visualizing success is an essential part of the whole consistency plan. Visualization is what makes you continue working on your goals because you see yourself achieving them. You see yourself living “that” life. When you visualize yourself being successful, it makes you put in the work. 

When visualizing success, it is important to use all of your senses. Visualization doesn’t care about how things will happen. It is not having the plan to reach your goals. It is more about accepting the feeling of living it. 

 

10) Embrace Failure

Failures are an incredibly essential part of your self improvement journey. When I started as a freelance writer, I sent +200 emails to people to hire me. This went on for 5-6 months. I was so disheartened. But, I finally closed a client in January 2021 and kickstarted my professional writing journey. 

Since then, there have been a lot of bumpy roads. But I have continued to sail through because failures are a natural part of the process. They teach you so much about yourself. They give you the time to reflect on what went wrong and how should you approach the situation from a different perspective. 

  


11) Learn from Your Mistakes

Making mistakes is an indirect sign of progress. They tell you that you’re putting in the effort but it’s just in the wrong direction. Learning from your mistakes not only makes you more consistent but also makes you more competent in your field of work. Because they contribute to your experiences.  

When you choose to learn from your mistakes and continue working towards your goals without giving up, that shows your progress. It shows that you are building a healthy relationship with yourself

 

12) Invest in your Growth  

When I began my professional writing journey, my very first investment was to have this website. Next, I knew that I won’t be able to do it all alone. I will need guidance in some or the other way. Hence my very first step was to invest in courses that got me acquainted with the world of how the business side of social media works. Thus, I began my journey on LinkedIn and I have never looked back. 

Investing in your growth is vital for your success because it saves you from never-ending hours of hits and trials. Off course, you will learn the best from your experience. But, investing in books, webinars, or courses that can amplify your growth is essential too. I recently shared something about my investment journey on LinkedIn that you might be interested in. 

13) Take Breaks

As much growth demands hard work, it also required you to pause and relax. Taking breaks is of equal value because you give yourself the time to rest and recharge. This helps you to stay focused and be more consistent.

When taking breaks, you can either spend time with your family or just indulge in some self-care. Make sure to spend at least a day a week away from your work to relax and rejuvenate by doing your favorite non-work activity or maybe not doing anything at all and just staying in bed all day. 

 

14) Reflect on Your Progress

I mentioned tracking your process above. Well, along with tracking your process of work, it is also important to reflect on your progress so far. Being a pen-and-paper girl, I maintain a physical daily planner where I maintain my everyday to-do list, record my daily activities and reflect on my progress.    

Reflecting on your progress helps you to understand how far you have come and what still need to do. The habit of journaling I talked about before, it’s a great way to reminisce about your progress. It feels amazing to read your entries from the bad days and celebrate your efforts. 

 

15) Celebrate Your Successes

There is no point in hustling hard if you don’t take out time to celebrate your wins. Results and outcomes are not in your power, you can only take care of the action. You must celebrate your success no matter how big or small they are. 

It makes you feel good about yourself and it amplifies your consistency because it validates your efforts. You get a sense of accomplishment that ensures that you’re heading in the right direction. When celebrating your successes, don’t forget the people who supported you. Include them in all your happy time because they were with you in your bad days too.

 

How to Apply These Steps to Your Life

Applying these steps to our lives involves just one step: taking action. No guides on “how to be more consistent” can do anything for you, if you’re not serious about doing things for yourself. You need to identify areas of your life where you want to be more consistent and then apply these steps accordingly. A practical approach is to start with small steps and gradually build up.

Also, you have to be patient with yourself. Expecting massive change or results overnight will only feed you with disappointment that will discourage you. Hence, it is important to be realistic in your approach toward your goals. 

There is no magic potion that can take you from where you are to where you want to be. There’s only one secret: consistent efforts and actions. 

 

How to be More Consistent: 10 Benefits of Consistency

If you have a long-term vision for yourself, you are well aware that consistency is the foundation of building a thriving life. Your life and people’s perception are highly dependent on your ethics and principles in life. When you are consistent with your goals, you build a strong reputation that inspires people. 

Thus, here are 11 benefits of consistency that successful people enjoy in the long run: 

  1. Consistency builds your reputation to get you noticed.
  2. Consistency clears your vision, mission & purpose. 
  3. Consistency communicates your value to people. 
  4. Consistency lets you take control of your life. 
  5. Consistency leaves your impact on people. 
  6. Consistency brings you new opportunities. 
  7. Consistency boosts your self-confidence.
  8. Consistency amplifies your productivity.  
  9. Consistency broadens your horizon. 
  10. Consistency builds loyalty for you. 
  11. Consistency ensures momentum. 

3 Common Obstacles to Consistency and How to Overcome Them

3 common obstacles to consistency include: 

  • Lack of self-belief: Your lack of self-belief is the root of all your problems in life. It’s simple if you cannot trust yourself don’t expect others to do it for you. You can read more about overcoming self-belief here

 

 




Conclusion

Consistency is a choice. Even when it is the only solution to a lot of your problems, it’s still a choice. Some people are comfortable living in the victim mindset and blaming the mishappenings on others or life. But the truth is no one is coming to save you, you have to do that to yourself. 

I might sound a little harsh here, but that’s the truth. Everyone is going through something you have no idea of, thus the only way to get your life in place is to chase your goals consistently. The only real answer to how to be more consistent is to choose your dreams every day, even if it’s for an hour. 

Consistency is essential for achieving success in any area of life. These 15 proven steps will help you to master consistency and achieve your goals. 

Remember to start small, be patient with yourself, and let life unfold for you. Because sometimes, life will throw surprises at you that will strengthen your faith in yourself. Just know that with consistency, anything is possible.

I hope you had a great time learning bits and pieces of my perception of consistency. If you want, you can always connect with me on my Instagram and LinkedIn.

I’ll see you next week!

Until then, keep slaying your goals!