When thinking about living your great life, whatever that might look like for you, consistency is the most crucial factor.
If you want to be an incredible physician, you show up daily to listen and learn from your patients and colleagues.
If you want to be healthy and fit, you eat well each day and spend time doing some measure of physical activity.
If you want to be a great parent, you keep showing up for your kids daily, not knowing what the day might bring.
These actions do not need to be heroic or superhuman. I’m not asking you to be the perfect parent or to work out for five hours a day. In fact, I’d argue that the superhuman effort it took to survive residency is detrimental to most areas of your life.
In the last few years, I have learned and seen the power of consistency firsthand. Of showing up, especially when you don’t feel at your best. When the last thing you want is to go to the gym or read that newest journal article.
What we focus on and pay attention to becomes our life. Every choice is a vote for the person or identity we want to become.
Does this mean you always have to make the best choice? I don’t think that is the case. I shoot for about 80% success. I feel I accomplished something if I am training 80% of the time each week.
If I read for 30 minutes a day, 80% of the time, I consider that a win.
The power is in consistency. This is where we allow the magic of compounding to work in all areas of our lives: our relationships, our health, our careers, and our finances. Your main aim is to avoid interrupting the power of compounding.
It’s simple to make the parallels to our finances. The individual who saves and invests every year will do better than someone constantly trading in and out of the market or waiting until the end of the month to determine if she has “anything left over” to save.
Waiting until your late 50s to start saving and investing means you need to save an enormous amount and hope for many home runs to save your retirement.
There is always a balance between enjoying today and planning for tomorrow. However, I’ve noticed that those I admire succeed because they enjoy the process.
What the heck am I talking about? Rather than focusing on outcomes – which are out of our control – they focus on enjoying the process.
To maintain good health, you must enjoy and stick with your diet. You must enjoy the things that you eat. You must also enjoy training, lifting weights, and spending time walking or running.
If all you focus on are the outcomes, it is hard to maintain consistency and let compounding work because our journey is never a straight line.
Keep up the great work and stay the course!
