The big, ambitious goals don’t necessarily require consistent action to achieve, but they will probably take an unreasonably long time without it. Persistence will get you there, but who knows how long it could take if you don’t consistently take action.

I’ll give you two personal examples. In the first example I didn’t take consistent action and the other I did.

Piano lessons

Many of my memories with piano lessons are memories frustration with an occasional feeling of accomplishment here and there. Though I believe I’m in a great place skill wise now, it took about 15 years to get here. Looking back, I probably could have shaved a decade off that if I had had any clue on how to set goals and achieve them. When you take piano lessons or lessons with any instrument, you’re creating a goal that you want to develop your skill to a certain level with that instrument. This is a big, ambitious goal. If you get to a certain skill level, it could have a big impact on your life.

When I first started piano lessons, the instructor told me that 30 minutes a day would be enough practice. That doesn’t sound like much, especially in the beginning when you’re excited and motivation is high. But after a while that motivation will decrease and 30 minutes a day could easily get cut to 30 min a week. Next thing ya know practicing piano gets pushed all the way to the back of the list of things to do behind homework, chores, playing with friends etc.

What hurt is that I didn’t realize that “practice 30 minutes a day” is a signal for a habit. I knew nothing about consciously building empowering habits and I would imagine most parents don’t either when they sign their children up for piano lessons. Since I knew nothing about building habits I wanted, I surely didn’t build a habit of practicing for 30 minutes every day. Instead I would practice every now and then. That caused me to have to repeat the same lessons over and over again which frustrated me and the piano teacher and no amount of nagging, motivational speeches, or threats increased my practicing either. I suppose a 30 day trial of just practicing 5 or 10 minutes might of helped tremendously.

I eventually got to a high level, so that was an enforcer of persistence. It’s a big reason why I won’t be quitting this blog. I know persistence will get you where you want to go but it’s crazy to think how much faster that goal could have been realized if I had the power to take consistent action every day instead of once in a while.

Off-Season Football

Here’s where I got to experience what can happen when you take consistent action. When I first started football I sucked. I came in the beginning of the fall semester when most of the players had had the summer to train. I was in the 10nth grade and it was my first time ever training and conditioning. That was probably the most challenging thing I had done in my life up until that point and I was a wreck. There were many embarrassing days where I couldn’t even finish certain workouts so the coach would come over and scream at me or other players would laugh. That public humiliation was a big motivator to take action. Within 5 months of training 5 days a week, I had drastically improved. It was like night and day. I became stronger than many of the people that were in there when I started. I knew I had really improved when a very good player who had seen me from day one came and patted me on the back and said that he was proud of me.

Consistent action in off-season football was a must. Everyday everyone’s stretching as a group. The whole team is working out together. You have a partner, a team, and a coach you’re accountable to. If you don’t finish, whole team knows it. Due to that level of accountability, things definitely got done. That was a great growth experience for me.

After that 5 months I decided I really didn’t like playing football, (especially my position at right tackle) but I did like the training we did in the off-season. Also after that 5 months I would have still considered myself a beginner, but it’s fun to think where I would have been if I had kept going with it at that rate for maybe a year or two.

Both of those experiences serve as examples to me now that consistent action is crucial if you want the big goals to be realized within a reasonable amount of time.

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2. Why Creating Empowering Habits is Important
3. One-Year Review
4. Visualization – Day 7
5. Doing Your Best vs. Focusing On Less
6. Overwhelmed?
7. 30-Day Trial #2 Results