03 - What does it take to be consistent?

Consistency is king but man it's hard.

Author

Rajesh Raghavan
October 09, 2022

Hey friends 👋

It's hard for me to be consistent with anything. I have tried multiple apps, listened to a lot of podcasts, & read books on building habits and staying consistent. Nothing seemed to work for me personally. But something changed this week.

I started running a couple of weeks ago. I wanted to run for 5 days a week & set a goal of 21 km/week. Surprisingly, I have been consistent this time around for the past 2 weeks. I reflected back & noticed I did 2 things that truly helped me stay consistent:

  • Told me that I'll quit the next day (and not today).

  • Started with the goal of just wearing my shoes.

That's it. Only these 2 simple mindset shifts helped me stay consistent.

It was easier to push myself harder when I convinced myself that this is the last day & I'll quit the next day. Somehow the energy flowed through me to complete the day's work instead of worrying about staying consistent for 21, 100, or 200 days. I get tired of visualising myself doing the work for the long term & I give up immediately. When it's just TODAY, it becomes much easier to fight against my brain.

Next is starting with a small & simple goal. My goal before starting the run was just to wear my shoes & nothing else. No km goals, No timing goals, NOTHING. I push myself to wear my shoe & the rest eventually happens.

I was talking with my girlfriend this week about this & she mentioned the exact same thing. She knows an illustrator friend who makes 1 illustration every single day. When asked how he does it so consistently, he mentioned that his goal is not to make the best possible illustration but just to draw a simple stick figure every day. Once he starts doing it, there's no going back. He cannot stop without finishing the illustration until he's satisfied with it. That's how he makes beautiful illustrations, every single day.

These 2 things worked for me. If you have any insights about this, do share them with me! I would love to hear your thoughts.

This week, I discovered a new podcast, read an amazing article and achieved my weekly running goal! Let's goo!

📚 Read - being deeply curious

This a small & most impactful article on doing great work. Doing things that feel like play to you but work to others is the key to success. That's where the magic happens. All great things happen when you enjoy doing it & you do it for... FUN.

It was effortless. It was easy to play with these things. It was like uncorking a bottle: Everything flowed out effortlessly. I almost tried to resist it! There was no importance to what I was doing, but ultimately there was. The diagrams and the whole business that I got the Nobel Prize for came from that piddling around with the wobbling plate.

Richard Feynman

This is a wonderful podcast where the CEO of The Bombay Shaving Company talks to operators from other businesses. The guests are a great mix of famous & niche people. I have never listened to management consultants before & it was a surprise to see how they articulate things so eloquently. They have frameworks to view almost every aspect of the business & they have so much clarity about things.

Definitely listen if you are interested in startups, businesses, or personal development. Start with this episode: With Toshan Tamhane

✍️ Write - having a bias for action

This week, I moved to Bangalore again & shifted to a new house. This was a LOT of work for me. I have settled in this new place for now & hope to start working on new things in the coming week.

I have also joined a cohort-based course on Web 3 fundamentals. The cohort is by Skip the Line named Build On Chain. This was supposed to start on April 23rd but it's starting just now. I'm seeing this as a fun experiment to explore building things in the Web 3 space, and to learn new things. I'll keep you folks updated, let's see how it goes!

🏃 Run - keep going

I completed a goal of 21.7 km this week!

It was a great week again. I ran for 21.7 km in total and my longest run was 8km! I felt super tired before the 8km run & did not aim to run for this long. When I started running, it just happened, again a very satisfying week :)

So that's about it for this week's issue. Thank you so much for reading till the end. If you have anything interesting to share, do reply to this email & let's chat! See you next week, bye-bye 👋

To infinity & beyond,

Rajesh RaghavanTwitter | Blog