Consistency in anything – running, work, parenting – is one of the biggest drivers of results.  The more consistent you are the more likely you are to meet your goals.  As we all know, consistency is not easy and that is why it can be so hard to hit our goals and get the results we want.  Sometimes we lack consistency because of self-discipline and other times we are not consistent because of things out of our control.  Let’s take a look at both reasons why we are not consistent.

Being self-disciplined means doing things we committed to even though we may not always want to.  We create a process and then adhere to that process (note: the process could be wrong, but that is not the objective of this article so we will assume it is correct).  For example, if I have a marathon I am training for in 12 weeks I will create a training plan that details exactly what my workouts will be every day for the next 12 weeks.  Each workout has an objective, it could be developing speed, endurance or recovery all with the objective to getting me to peak performance for that marathon.

Missing workouts or not doing the workout as outlined would be considered a lack of self-discipline and could undermine my training.  This does not have to simply mean you miss a workout or skip the hard workout, it could also mean doing a certain workout harder than you were supposed to which can lead to over-training or requiring more time to recover.  I believe adherence and self-discipline comes with understanding the objective and not losing sight of the objective, both in the micro (the workout) and the macro (our larger goal, the marathon).

We need to understand why we are doing what we are doing.  If you don’t have a “why,” then what is holding you to remain self-disciplined?  This, in my estimation, is why so many resolutions fail.  People say I want to lose weight or eat healthier, but why?  I think you really need to drill down to the underlying reason of why you are making a resolution and believe in it or else you are doomed to fail.  You won’t have the discipline to remain consistent to your resolution.

Some things are out of our control and prevent us from being consistent.  For instance, if I get injured or sick and can’t run it is impossible to be consistent and stick to my training plan.  Things that are out of our control are usually only short term issues but can lead to long term inconsistency.  I know there have been times when I got sick or into a rut and didn’t workout for a week or two and had trouble getting motivated to start again.  This can be even harder when we were accustomed to performing at a certain level but are now nowhere near that level, it can be discouraging.  For instance, I was a rower in high school and college and once I stopped rowing I did not get on an erg (rowing machine) for a long time, but when I did I remembered what I used to be able to do on the ergometer and because I could not come even remotely close to those metrics I decided to take something else up.  I gave up.

Consistency starts and ends with belief.  The more belief we have in what we are doing the easier it will be to remain consistent, even when we have those days that we just can’t get motivated.  For me, when I finish a workout that I did not want to do and had little motivation for, I feel so much more accomplished then even the workouts that I nail.  These days are hard, but so rewarding and where I truly believe progress and inspiration come from later down the road.