Are you having trouble keeping focus? Or maybe you just want to improve consistency. When it comes to achieving goals, working on those goals often helps you succeed faster.
As a person who has quit pursuing many goals in my life, I’ve had to figure out ways to stay consistent to accomplish the goals that were most important to me. My techniques have led me to win many contests, have a great career, and become great at some of my hobbies. If you’re interested in success, these techniques can help you too!
9 thoughtful tips to stay consistent daily
1. Make whatever you want to stay consistent with your job
You can stay consistent by treating your goal like a job. To keep your job, you make sure you work a certain amount of hours and rarely skip days of work. Why not set out a lot of time for working on your goals? Make it your duty to work on your goal daily for a specific amount of time a day. I suggest employing yourself for 2 hours!
I know what you’re thinking. Yes, 2 hours is enough time to work on something. In fact, I’ve discovered the perfect method to get a lot done within 2 hours. The Pomodoro method is great for time management. Along with using this method, I advise you to have a cut-off time for working on your goals if you’re a big procrastinator or just have a lot of responsibilities like being a parent or student.
For example, 2 hours before your bedtime, absolutely work on your goal for at least an hour if you haven’t worked on it all day. If you can only set aside an hour or less, try creating your own version of the below time managing technique.
The Pomodoro Method
There’s a technique I love to use called the Pomodoro method where you focus on whatever you’re doing for four 25 minutes at a time. After each 25 minute focus session, you take a 5 minute break. On the last focus session, you take a much longer break.
Each break you reward yourself with something during that 5 minutes. After using this technique repeatedly, it eventually trains your mind to love and crave doing whatever you’re doing.
Give yourself a certain amount of days in the month to rest from working on your goals but for the other days, give it your all using this method!
Watch the below video for a quick overview!
2. Learn to say NO to others often
You may have to take a deep look at what you need to do to prosper and then gather the strength to say “no” to things you’d normally say “yes” to. Outings, lending your help, and doing your favorite things, are a few tough things to say “no” to.
I’ve noticed whenever I want to be consistent, I have to limit the number of times I say “yes” to things or all of my time will go to things that do not align with my goals. If you’re saying “yes” to every outing that comes your way, less time ends up going to improving your consistency. The progress you want for yourself takes discipline. Say “no” today!
3. Tell people you’re going to be successful by doing the thing you’ve set out to do
If you tell people you’re going to do something, you may feel that you have an obligation to do it in order to keep a good social reputation. This is one way of holding yourself accountable.
Having a few people expecting you to be consistent can be helpful if you are someone who does well with having a support system. If you also dislike not being successful in front of others this also a way to force yourself to be consistent. I use the word force because for most, being consistent can be hard without the proper mindset.
4. Before saying no to yourself, start an argument
Your mind might be your biggest obstacle. You have to fight! That strong feeling of not wanting to do something is the wall you have to destroy to get to the other side, which is consistency, that holds greatness!
I dare you to argue with that voice in your head for at least 10 minutes next time you don’t want to do something that will benefit you.
Become the best arguer. Start winning against the whiny part of yourself every time and wow, you’ll change yourself in ways you didn’t think you’d be able to!
5. Give your goals a sense of urgency and a higher importance than your regular chores
If you’ve ever decided to do chores instead of the goal you were working on because the chores suddenly seemed more important, you know what I’m talking about. Those chores can wait if their urgency only increased because you needed a distraction from your goal you were going to work on.
Make your goal the higher priority. No, I’m not saying to ignore your chores forever. I suggest working on your chores a little bit at a time every other day if you are unable to get them done within one day. Just don’t let random chores like suddenly having the urge to sweep the porch keep you distracted.
It would be better to schedule days to work on your goal. If your goal is scheduled for a specific day, tell yourself “NO” when the urge to do chores pops into your mind. If you have to meditate before working on your goal, so be it. But you have to get it done or building consistency will become harder for you.
6. Rate the tasks within your goal
It may help if you split your goal into multiple goals and then rate them by importance.
For example, if you have a goal to win a race, you would split that goal into a few parts.
You may create a goal to get stronger, another goal to learn the rules of the race, and a goal to gain supporters.
Once you have turned your goal into a few smaller goals, you can rate them by importance.
Why rate them? You should rate your goals so that on days when you lack the energy to work on your goals, you can choose to work on the easier goal. This technique has worked well for my fitness goals.
You can stay consistent with working out by compromising if you miss a hard workout by doing an easier workout. Have home workouts and outside workouts to choose from that are less hard to perform. Having easier options can make your body gain that little bit of energy you didn’t have to at least accomplish something.
Fitness motivation: Saying affirmations have also helped me stick with my exercise routine. Check out these work-out affirmations
Workout hack: Remember to treat working out as a reward instead of a punishment!
7. Release your tempting environment
Your environment may be stopping you from being great. To be consistent, it takes discipline and sacrifice. It may not be easy to stop getting involved with or to limit your time with things that do not align with your goals but it may be necessary.
Whether it is refusing to place yourself in specific environments or going to an environment where you can focus more, staying consistent by releasing your temptations has its benefits.
Think about all of the times when you scheduled a time for yourself but then someone else asked you if you’d like to hang out or do something. You say yes and then your whole day goes to random activities or to that person. If you’re like me, this has happened to you throughout your life.
Once you make saying “no” your favorite saying, you will reach a higher level of obedience.
8. Promise yourself you’ll do a little on days you can not be consistent
If you are unable to do a lot on the day you planned to be to consistent, take a moment to brainstorm. Make a checklist or plan for the next time you want to work on your goals and then rest.
You don’t want to be too harsh on yourself but at the same time, you shouldn’t slack off on every day you aren’t in the mood or lack the energy. Most days you will have to push through. Your future self depends on you and I know because you’re reading this article, that your consistency is worth the results you seek!
9. Practice gratitude
You can practice gratitude to improve consistency. Thank your past self for all of the things that have gotten you up to this point. Now think about how you can return the favor to your past self.
One way you can do this is by keeping the love going and working to make your future self happy. It’s a great cycle if you ask me.
I think about all of the things I’ve put myself through to become the person I am today. It took a lot of consistency. If I didn’t have the drive, I wouldn’t have improved myself. I am grateful that I made the decision to be consistent on some of my worst days. You have a lot of success to look forward to if you stick with your goals!
Why is it hard to stay consistent
Staying consistent is hard because of distractions, random situations, and a lack of support. Your goal should be to build a mindset and set of skills that will help you push through! Consistency along with learning can help you trust the process to reach your goals!
How to stay consistent with your goals
Did any of my techniques seem easy enough to try?
