Why Frequency and Consistency are Important Habits in Defining Success

Can you imagine driving down a street and never touching your steering wheel? You would go off course - perhaps it's because the tires need to be aligned or because no road is perfectly straight or because you need to avoid a pothole or something else in the road.

To get to your destination, you make consistent, frequent, small adjustments.

In the book, Atomic Habits, author James Clear uses an example of how a plane frequently and consistently course corrects. If a plane leaves LA and heads east, a change in its path of just a few degrees means the difference between landing in New York vs. Washington DC. These small adjustments are hardly noticeable at any given moment in time. The end result of all of these small changes is substantial!

When we build in small, frequent, consistent habits, we can alter our paths and make the life changes we want or reach the goals that we set. And perhaps that's the new way to define success.

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We are what we repeatedly do; excellence then is not an act, but a habit.

Aristotle

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Jerry Seinfeld, the comedian, actor, writer, producer, is said to write at least a joke every day. He marks a big red X on his calendar every day that he writes. By tracking and seeing his progress every day, he is encouraged to keep the chain of red Xs going. As he is writing his jokes, he doesn't focus on whether the joke works or not. Instead, he is focused on his process and his progress over months and years. It's his consistency that produces results. And it is working for him!