Intensity Is Good, But Consistency Is Better
What makes a difference in your life and what ultimately leads to your success is not what you do just once and leave it, rather it is what you do over and again. Consistency is what makes you who you are. I remember some months back, I followed a friend who is a bodybuilder to the gym, so I decided to join him for the day's routine. At the end, I told him that I did not notice any increase in the size of my muscle. He smile and told me "consistency." He explained that it is not just lifting weight one day that grows muscles but doing it consistently, like he had been doing for years. It was then that I realised that a lot of achievements in life are not really results of a one-time intensity, but consistency over time.
A lot of people think that success comes from a single massive breakthrough moment, or a sudden luck, or a big effort acting on the spot. It is true that these things can actually make a major headline. However, a success that will last rarely comes from one extraordinary act, rather it comes by building on a foundation of consistency. Have you seen anyone who got a flying license and became a pilot simply because he had the privilege to sit in the cockpit just one day? But it comes by taking series of trainings and instructions from a pilot. In the same way in other aspects of life, it is what you do often - again and again, that will make you who you are.
The small and repeated steps you take consistently may seem very insignificant at the moment, but when it is compounded over time, it will achieve something significant. Some people focus on intensity. The truth is that intensity is often short-lived, while consistency pulls more power over time. Imagine someone who wants to lose weight and to keep fit, and he decides to run 10 miles after a very long time. After the run, he will feel burnout, exhausted, and thinking that he has achieved something worthwhile. But someone who runs only half a mile daily will achieve a better result because of consistency, and he would have even achieved more miles cumulatively over a period of time than the person who just ran 10 miles once-and-for-all.
The principle of consistency applies in almost every area of life - your workplace, in academics, at home, personal growth, and even in your health. As a student for example, it may seem difficult to read 10 chapters of your book at a single sitting, but you can be reading 1 chapter morning and evening daily. By the time the year runs out, you must have read over 700 chapters, which might be more than 40 books. This will cumulatively be far greater than the student who will only wait until they are in the mood to read so they can read 10 chapters at a go. At the end, consistency will always and definitely win.
One of the things that I have discovered about consistency, which makes it better than intensity, is that it builds habit. When you have repeated something over and again, it will build discipline within you, and it will become part of you. Success is not a function of what you do occasionally or anytime you like, but what you do consistently. Continuity is what produces the result you seek. Another thing to know about consistency is that it builds momentum. Building daily habits will produce unstoppable force in the long run. Remember the proverbial statement that "Rome was not built in a single day." In the same way, greatness is built over time, not automatically.
If you want to succeed in life, do not rely so much on an immediate burst of energy but on building habits, building systems, and staying consistent. The pathway to a lasting success is not about doing an extraordinary thing just once, but by being consistent over the little things that matter. Like waking up very early in the morning to stay the day early, saving a certain percentage of your income, reading a chapter daily, practising your skill, showing daily kindness, etc. All these may look small, but over time, they will affect your life in ways that you cannot imagine.
Thanks for reading
