Inconsistency to Consistency
Once upon a time not too long ago (before 2018), the only consistent thing in my life was my inconsistency. It took me 1000+ days to put on the muscle to be consistent with anything and everything. That was a lot of work as I did not know how to work with first principles at that time. Now I have a hang of it. If I can make this change to my life I guess everyone can do it.
As we are slowly winding down 2021, I want to share with you the secrets behind this shift from inconsistency to consistency because at the end of the day all your resolutions (whatsoever) will boil down to only 2Cs (consistency and compounding).
The beauty of 2Cs is, if you master one (consistency) the other comes as a consequence (compounding is natural). Let's dig in 👇
As a personality, I am an extremist. In other words I love binaries. I love this end or that. I love one or zero and nothing in between. A typical black and white personality. I still have these traits. I have never settled myself in the center of a normal distribution naturally. It takes me a lot of effort to consiously stay in the messy middle.
A simple example of everyday struggle: I would want to go for a run for 45 mins. If I woke up 30 mins later than planned, I will miss the run for the day. It is usual of me to drop the entire plan even if I missed 5% of it. This trait was costing me a lot. I still don't understand the sadistic pleasure I get in breaking my compounding every day. No wonder inconsistency was consistent in my life.
The honest truth is I liked ONE more than ZERO. Inconsistency wouldn't be a problem if I loved one and zero equally.
A formula that drove my life is 1>0. Most times I ended up beating myself up when I don't acheive the 1 in the formula as i planned. So you can imagine the torture I gave myself by myself 🤷♀️
In one of my mentor calls I shared this difficulty. After listening to me deeply, my mentor just added a dot in my formula and that made all the difference.
Instead of 1>0, the dot was added before one and it made it 0.1>0. Such a simple idea but my head was rejecting it. I just couldn't fathom the power of 0.1. I decided to give it a try.
From that day onwards, I started cherishing all the little progress I made in my day. There are some days I could not get to all my plans as planned.
I missed my morning pages some days. I missed my RIZE (reaching inbox zero everyday) somedays. I missed even meals somedays. I missed project deadlines somedays.
Post 0.1>0, none of this bothered me as I was more bothered about the start line and not the finish line. If I started and made a little progress, I called it a win. I called it a loss when I didn't start. Interestingly everytime I started I tend to finish it as well.
So here are some actionable tips for you to start your 2022 in a sane way 👇
- Don't over plan. If possible don't plan your year. Planning fallacy is real and as human being we expect way too much from ourselves. So don't plan your year. Instead have intentions for the year. I want to learn XYZ, build ABC, earn $$$ etc.
- Break down your intent into tiny projects (not more than 4 weeks).
For example: I want to learn web 3.0 basics. Make it into a 4 week project and everyday look into one aspect or other of Web 3.0. - All projects boil down to tasks. Take one task for the day and start it. Focus on starting. Don't focus on ending it.
- Keep a simple rule: Don't start the next task till task 1 on hand is done.
- Celebrate your 0.1 progress everyday.
You'll see that you get a lot more done than usual.
You will be able to choose your projects wisely.
You'll be able to move from task 1 to task 2 intently.
You will beat yourself much lesser than before.
You will work towards winning intentionally and tweaking on the go.
Here is one formula that changed me from inconsistency to consistency 👇
🥂 to 0.1