The C word is a big one for me right now because it seems to be impacting my life in a not so positive way.  If it’s impacting you as well then keep reading my friend.

Thursday was a day off for me but the day started at the same time it always does. What was different was that the usual Thursday evening exercise was done in the morning. After greeting one of the personal trainers and having a subsequent conversation he asked me what my goals were. I said “I’m glad you asked that”. I needed to break one final barrier in this year and half quest for weight loss.  Then he started asking me the magic questions, how’s your diet? Do you drink enough water, how’s your cardio and your weight training. I told him what my program was looking like and he said the magic words “looks like you need some consistency”. He certainly didn’t tell me anything that I didn’t already know and subsequently signed me up for a session next week to do an assessment.  Yet the conversation really put a stamp on what had been troubling me.

In putting a critical eye on the rest of my life I can see areas in which consistency is lacking and these are areas that are of real importance to me. My passion is writing, however for the last two months, maybe three there’s been no consistency. I like to set a schedule for the tasks that I need to complete on my day job because when I follow it, I’m very productive and less stressed. I’ll set and follow a schedule for a couple of days and then fall off the wagon due to some sort of interruption. In other words, I’m not consistently productive on my job. Another area that’s a biggie is the general task list and appointments. I consistently over schedule myself to do things and consistently underestimate the time required to get them done and the resources available to do them.  Finally there’s the consistency of the people I deal with on a daily basis.  There are those who start off adding value and fall off, those who consistently make things difficult and thankfully those who are consistently on target, available and engaged. I’d like to deal more with the latter but in relations with folk, you can’t change their behavior, you can only change the response that you have to the behavior. Change isn’t always necessary, but it certainly is when your response has a negative impact on them, you or both.

What does it really boil down to? It boils down to a level of commitment and accountability for you and for me.  In a job situation there’s a built in level of accountability that comes with the job: bosses, performance reviews, peer reviews and client/customer feedback. Basically you know that if you don’t perform to the level required, you’ll hear about it from any or all of the above groups.  Commitment and accountability become a little more slack (at least in my case) when it is of a self-imposed nature. How does one remain consistent at whatever it is, when you are the only one that is holding yourself accountable? By introducing the P word into your life, practice.  Failure to get something done, do something correctly or stick to something etc is a big deterrent to giving it a try again. There’s another saying “practice makes perfect” and I don’t know if there’s such a thing as that on this earth, but what I do know is that practice is 1)repetitive, 2)builds good habits, 3)improves skill and what this whole thing is about 4)introduces and then maintains consistency.

If you’re not handling yourself, your life, your stuff with consistency, it can quickly spiral out of control. Introduce some control back into your life. Practice consistency until it becomes a habit. That’s certainly what I’m going to do.