The Power of Consistency

The power of consistency. I love that phrase. In the first part of the phrase, power emanates strength. It gives you this vision of invincibility. Take no prisoners translates to victory, success, and achievement.

What do I mean by consistency? Well, when you look it up, there's various definitions, but they all have one central theme, something that you see over and over again. The quality of always behaving or performing in a similar way. When you see a sports team and they're on it, they're all connected, they're all in sync. It's the power of that consistency in their training. They're practicing their sport. It could be basketball, football, soccer or golf, tennis where they practice every day, two, three hours a day, five hours a day. A would-be musician learning an instrument or practicing a song. and an actor rehearsing his or her lines over and over, so they get it right.

Consistency is about creating an environment, systems, procedures that will enable you to deliver high quality and repetitive excellence each time.

Well, an argument against consistency I believe is a false narrative. For example, you cannot grow as a person. If you staid the same, you will not reach your goals. How can you be consistent if you change your mind or adopt a different perspective? Do we love the same things from toddler to middle-aged adult? Where's the consistency in that? Of course, when you're five years old, you have a certain personality and a skill set and emotional capability different than when you're 15, or when you're 30 and so forth.

Are you the same throughout your life span? Hopefully, you're not the same person. That's not what I am talking about. Our core system, our core beliefs, could be consistent, even though our voice changes when we hit puberty. Perhaps our weight, height, and knowledge changes but we can have the same ideals and sense of purpose and level of ambition. Yes, human beings change for the better or worse in a number of ways too long to list here. I can go on and on about that. I can’t say these views are valid 100% of the time but I think more so than not. At a certain age we are essentially the same. I don’t believe that age is the same for everyone.

Depending on what point in time you look back, your history as you age illustrates very different people. I'm still the core. I am essentially the Michael Kane I was decades ago, last year. My core is to be and do my best to be a good person to help people. That is consistent with how I was raised and how I conducted my life throughout the periods of my growing older, developing highlighting the power of consistency.

You know this topic could be applied in different categories. I’m going to touch on a few. Let's talk about relationships. On my podcast, you will always hear me talk about relationships because that's so core to our being, to our lives; emotionally and financially. Okay, we have relationships with family such as mothers, fathers, siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles to our friends, our besties, acquaintances, and significant others. You know different types of relationships breeds different expectations. Nevertheless, a core expectation we tend to carry in our hearts and mind interwoven across all of those relationships is in one phrase, we're looking for consistency in those relationships.

What if you had a flaky friend? We all had them. Raise your hands I can't see your hand raised, but we all had them where you say, hey, let's do something Friday. Friday comes, you don't hear from them. Then you hear from the friend on the following Sunday. “Sorry, I'm so sorry, family emergency”. They just forgot about you. Next, you wait outside a movie theater for your “friend”, they don't show up. You lend your friend $20 bucks with the promise of repayment in five days. Two weeks later, “I'll pay you back tomorrow. And tomorrow was two years ago.

We rely on consistency, we really do. Let's focus on a significant other. This is a hypothetical. Imagine you post a profile on Tinder or Match or any number of dating sites. Let's say, you're recruiting, searching for a committed relationship. You're looking, you're looking, you are hunting for an exceptional companion, you want to find someone to have a serious relationship. Bingo, you get a response. The post reads, ‘I am good looking but totally unreliable, lazy, may or may not be working while dating, may or may not be able to pay for lunch, dinner or pay for any fun activity. Most likely you're not going to be responding to that person. These examples are not to diminish anyone or say anyone is better than the other. Nevertheless, our actions speak and represent us.

When you're looking for a significant other, you don't want to be the only one financially responsible. Most likely you don’t want your mate to play video games all day while you’re out working. Maybe they're consistent, just consistently playing video games. Every night you come home the dishes are stacked high, the garbage is overrun not being emptied. No dinner, no nothing, didn't clean up the house or anything. So that's not a desirable quality in a significant other.

You're looking for someone you could rely on, day in, day out. They are supportive, emotionally, physically and financially. We all look for that consistency. The goal is to avoid hell on earth. This isn't a hard argument to make. I'm sure most normal people would agree with me that they look for a positive consistency in other people, whoever other people are.

How does consistency play in regard to raising children. As a parent, it was challenging and ultimately rewarding. The how depends on the age of your child. You want to develop a habit or pattern for the health and well-being of your child. For example, a five-year-old will have an earlier bedtime than a twelve-year-old. You don’t want your children to go to school exhausted. Of course there are exceptions such as special activities on the weekend. But the power of going to bed at a consistent time cannot be underestimated. Consistency in terms of completing homework by a certain time and completing chores like cleaning their room will teach them responsibility and discipline as well. We want our children to become productive adults, supporting their future family and giving back to society.