It’s a well-known concept that you will only obtain results if you are willing to commit to doing the work it requires to achieve what you’re striving for.

But what’s often glossed over is the fact that commitment also requires consistency.

The athletic training I’ve committed to daily also requires a great deal of mental stamina. The sport can often be strenuous without a lot of immediate results.

I recently sent my coach a plan I had formulated to improve my mental strength and adversity in my daily training to which she responded “it’s all about doing it and not just talking about it because you know what you’re supposed to do. You say all the right words, but the action isn’t as consistent as it needs to be”

There’s nothing difficult about being consistent when life is working in your favor, when all the external circumstances are aligned and well. It’s when resistance arises and life’s circumstances are less than ideal that; that commitment to consistency tends to dissipate.

Speaking from personal experience it’s something I’ve struggled with and what I can also tell you is it’s something that I never necessarily believed I struggled with. I’ve trained around and through a handful of injuries, unideal training factors, and numerous life changes amongst those months of training. I was under the belief that I was committed and therefore that must mean I’m creating consistency.

I suppose you could say that my physical training was consistent on some level, but the mental and emotional stamina behind that training was most definitely not.  My consistencies in that area waivered more often than I’d like to admit. Amidst the challenges that would arises I have had plenty of moments of being overly self-critical, demeaning, wallowing in self-pity for not being awarded the circumstances I would’ve hoped for.

That leaves me to be in inquiry with the question of this “If I’m showing up to the physical aspect of training without the mental presence and focus needed am I receiving and fully doing the work to obtain the results I’d like to achieve?”

Check in with yourself. If you have not reached the place you are looking to get to or achieved the goals you’ve set out to fulfill are you lacking consistency in an area you’ve left unexamined?

If you are what can you do to shift into consistency and be in creation of what you REALLY want to have happen?

The commitment to obtaining whatever you perceive to be success sometimes requires the ability to examine where you can give a little more, do a little more, grow little more, to build a solid foundation of being truly consistent. Because that consistency won’t matter when the journey is effortless, it will matter most when you encounter adversity in the face of everything you’ve set out to attain.

What are you in creation of? What do you want to be in creation of? Once you’ve decided create consistency in every single one of your actions to align with that because here’s the thing:

You are capable of being consistent. You just have to be willing to make it a habit, instead of just an idea.  

Written by: Sarah Fredette