Why Motivation Sucks and Consistency Is Your Superpower

I know this title is a little bit off putting to some, but it’s the truth:

Consistency is so much more powerful than motivation.

This is a hard truth because most of us want to believe that if we are motivated, movement of our body will happen without any effort. Surely, motivation alone will be a drive. Well, that’s just not the case.

If you depend on being motivated every single day to get the job done, then you may let any event throughout that day trigger you or throw you off your plan, or “de-motivate” you by affecting your emotions.

Consistency on the other hand doesn’t depend on any emotions. Consistency is neutral.

Read that again. 

Consistency does not depend on how you feel, the act of being consistent is just that: An action.

You just do it. 

You do it sad, you do it happy, you do it cold, you do it when it's not convenient and you especially do it when you don’t feel like it.

That is the difference between consistency and motivation, and that is how I have kept doing 5kms every day. It’s not because I followed a plan, or bought special shoes, or listened to a podcast, or hung an inspirational quote on my wall. It’s because I woke up every single day and chose to be consistent no matter what.

No matter the day, no matter if I’ve been sick, no matter the weather and no matter my mood.

Sure, I’ve been motivated… But motivation is fleeting. Consistency is a constant.

So, what advice do I have for you? Unfortunately, it all comes down to this:

It’s going to be hard. Deal with it.

Everything that you're not used to doing is hard in the beginning. That's a part of the process. Heck, that’s a part of life!

But once you get past the hard and form a habit, it will feel just like brushing your teeth. It will become a daily non-negotiable. And when you look at it like that, your mindset will chance from "this is too hard" to “this just is”. 

This will take time. So while that transition is happening, it’s up to you to push past the hard and just do it.

You can make the process work for you.

Since you already know this is going to be hard, you may as well do wha you can to make it easier on yourself to show up.

Embrace imperfection. Embrace comfort. Embrace being slow. Embrace anything that is going to make it easier for you to show up and get sh*t done without quitting.

Take all of your expectations of yourself and throw them right out the window. They will only make this experience harder for you, and you don’t have time for that. You have work to do!

What are the chances that you'll succeed if you keep striving towards perfection by looking at other people's accomplishments as your goal?

I’ll wait…

That’s right - ZERO!

In this journey, perfection will be your enemy, and consistency will be your super power.

Just start.

Quit planning. Quit debating. Quit looking at what other people are doing.

Quit quitting, and just start!