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Our habits dictate the kind of life we live. That’s why we must learn to be more consistent and stick to good habits.
Here are 11 tips that will help you.
Read also: 33 Signs You Are Doing Better In Life Than You Think You Are
1. Use visual streaks
Streaks give us a feeling of pride. Seeing our streak grow longer provides us with an endorphin rush that pushes us to add to that streak day after day.
That’s why companies like Snapchat included a streak function into their product. It makes you more willing to use it every day.
To be more consistent with your habits, you should take a page out of their book and integrate a streak system into your own life.
There are many ways to do this:
- Get yourself a habit tracker pdf and use it digitally or as a printout
- Draw out your own habit tracker in your bullet journal
- Fill a glass with marbles or coins or post-it’s for every day of consistency
- Mark your streak with colorful dots on your wall calendar for every day you’ve upheld it
Especially, the latter two ideas can help you to be more consistent. Such visual streak trackers motivate you to get the job done and remind you of it throughout the day.
2. Plan rewards for different milestones
There are two things that motivate all living beings: pain and pleasure – or the carrot and the stick.
I don’t think you should outright punish yourself if you don’t manage to be consistent with the habit you’ve set out to do.
Often enough, we are already way too harsh to ourselves, and we should rather practice some more self-love through kindness.
That’s why we want to choose pleasure to motivate us into being more consistent!
You should come up with a couple of ways to reward yourself if you’ve managed to do your habit consistently for 7 days, 14 days, a month, and so on.
You can even reward yourself daily if that works for you.
These treats could be watching a new episode of a series or buying yourself some flowers for your room.
Just don’t treat yourself with cheat days. This will only make it harder to pick up the habit again.
3. Keep your WHY in mind (vision board, journaling, reminder)
People like to have a reason why they need to do something, especially if they dislike it.
So make sure to keep a reminder of your ‘WHY’ close by.
Put it on a vision board, journal about it, or set reminders on your phone that will make you remember the underlying reason for all your effort.
If you’ve struggled to be consistent, chances are you don’t have a strong enough ‘WHY.’
Take the time to dig deeper and find a compelling reason to be more consistent with the habit.
4. Make them doable
“Complexity is the enemy of execution.”
– Tony Robbins
It’s no wonder you struggle to be consistent with your habits if you set your goals too high.
The book Atomic Habits talks about breaking habits down into their smallest component.
Each small component should naturally lead into the next one.
And if the first one is easy enough to accomplish, you will soon find yourself doing one after the other and finishing the whole habit without even realizing it.
Read also: Atomic Habits Book Review | 15 Lessons + Actionable Ideas + Quotes
5. Set reminders
We live in perhaps the most amazing time of humanity so far, a time that provides us with technological tools for most problems we encounter daily.
So take advantage of that and use one of the countless notification tools and set up a visual and/or acoustic reminder for the habit you want to do consistently.
The key is to set the reminder not just for a random time during the day but for a time that will provide enough space for you to actually do the habit right away.
6. Use the 5-Second-Rule
Setting a reminder for the habit you want to accomplish is helpful and smart.
However, it will be useless if you don’t act immediately upon it.
The longer you wait between hearing or seeing the reminder and accomplishing the habit, the bigger your chance of talking yourself out of doing it.
That’s where Mel Robbins’ 5-Second-Rule comes in.
The rule basically says that as soon as you start thinking about something you should do right now, you should count backward 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and then act.
This will help you circumvent all the self-sabotaging thoughts that could keep you from being consistent.
Try it out for yourself!
7. Make it fun
It’s, of course, easier to be consistent at something if you enjoy doing it.
Luckily, there are many options we can choose from when it comes to making something more fun.
For example, you can listen to an audiobook or watch a series during your workout.
Journaling can be paired with listening to music (as long as it isn’t distracting).
Your daily reading session could be done while you sunbathe or while you take an actual bath.
And for meditation, you can get a device like the Muse Headband that gives you immediate feedback on your performance.
The point is, you shouldn’t just accept something as dreadful or boring. At least try to find a way that will make it more interesting!
8. Make an accountability declaration
You can do this with an accountability buddy who will breathe down your neck and watch whether or not you stick to the habit.
You can also do this by posting online about your new goal. Even if no one checks your progress, the feeling that you would embarrass yourself if you’re not consistent will give you a useful motivational boost.
9. Do it poorly rather than not at all
While it’s often true that quality trumps quantity, for the purpose of consistency, it is actually more beneficial to do something badly rather than skipping it entirely.
Because even if you’ve stumbled your way through it, at least you’ve reinforced the habit of showing up and getting started.
After all, showing up is most often the hardest part.
So make it as easy as possible for you and allow yourself to do it lazily if that’s all you can get out of yourself that day.
10. Don’t have cheat days
I know cheat days are very enticing. They can also be one of the prime motivators for someone to power through doing something they don’t like.
However, cheat days prevent you from making this task a consistent habit without many struggles.
Don’t get me wrong, in the long term, you can definitely skip a day here and there if life gets in the way.
But especially in the beginning, daily practice is the best thing you can do to be more consistent with the habit.
If you keep it up, it will be so ingrained in you that it will feel weird to skip a day.
11. Make sure to have a lot of energy
It’s not talked about enough, but physical energy is one of the most crucial components for a happy and successful life.
After all, you can be together with the love of your life, be passionate about your job, and have cultivated amazing habits, but none of these things will work out if you are always sluggish and tired.
You won’t be consistent with your habits if you are tired and frustrated.
It will feel like the hardest battle to accomplish anything in such a state. Most likely, you just want to sleep or mindlessly watch Netflix.
That’s why to be more consistent, you also need to raise your energy levels.
You can do this partly by getting quality sleep and eating high-quality foods.
Another huge energy changer is your physiology. Studies have shown that standing in a superman pose just for two minutes can significantly alter your emotional state.
So take care of how you stand, walk and sit at your desk. These things matter because they affect your energy, and your energy affects everything else.
What habits do you want to do more consistently? I’m currently working on getting into the habit of meditating daily.
If you are committed to leveling up your consistency, write ‘Consistency is KEY‘ in the comments.
As always, we are rooting for you, Felicity Seeker!
