Have you noticed how easy it for people to update their status on Facebook? Check their inbox? Expect their salary? And have you noticed how difficult it is for them to deliver good customer service? Stick to their exercise routine? Reply to their email?

Why is it that the same human being finds the former so much easier to do and the latter not so? The former activities are comparatively short- term, selfish and much less productive; the latter have long-term positive effects, are generous and progressive. Yet both have been perfected by one thing: consistency- the ability to be sufficiently motivated to religiously and infinitely repeat an ordinary task. That’s how I like to look at consistency.

I believe anyone can become consistent in anything for as long they are motivated to do so.  A friend admits that he never used to give thought to any information about diabetes until his child got it; now he subscribes to newsletters; scours the Internet and consistently attends seminars on the same.

That singularity of purpose is what makes a rock break in the hands of a mason. Have you noticed how he hits a specific spot on the rock over and over and over again until, at one point, it simply gives way and cracks. Would you say it was the third hit, the thirtieth, or the three thousandth that cracked it? Actually it’s all of them.

What about you? What is it you are inconsistent in? Could it be empathizing with and assuring customers? Being responsive to them and reliable? Or maybe diarizing appointments as they arise is your challenge? Whatever it is, it is not enough to say, you are not good at it. If you are not good at it, you will automatically become consistent in making it worse! As a businessman if you cannot find sufficient motivation to change your inability to do your books, then staff that weakness; if you don’t, it will most certainly negatively affect your business. As an employee if you are poor in sales, and find your strength is in operations, apply for a change of departments or employer. If on the other hand you feel you really want to do sales, be consistent in your learning-repeatedly make the calls; the visits; the presentations.

Consistency requires discipline and truth be told truly disciplined persons are rare to find. Employees who kick off work at the clock of 8a.m  (let alone earlier) are rarer still. Consistency is something you can be thrust into doing or you can choose to take on; few take it on and in my thinking it’s because few have a predetermined purpose in life. The army of them, lacking a purpose for their life, live for the day, and at best the weekend. It is this lack of vision that leads to indiscipline and inconsistency. If one had a purpose for their work-life that went beyond their end-month salary, I highly doubt they would be indifferent to their work

Consistency is really all that matters. Practice makes perfect implies consistency and in that proverb lies a warning: be careful what you practice.  Accomplished athletes, musicians and businessmen will admit to a singular truth-they were purposeful; they locked in and consistently focused on the one thing that made them stars. They went out of their way and avoided anything that did not add value to their vision. Do you?… Have a vision that is? Calvin Coolidge once said: “Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence  … Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan ‘Press On’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.” On the other hand Einstein said: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”. In between persistence and insanity lies consistency-it is everything! [email protected]