Hello everyone! I hope that you’ve all had the best start to 2023. I cannot believe that January 2023 is already coming to a close next week. I wanted to check in with you in this first article on whether you have been consistent when it comes to doing what you need to do to achieve your goals?
If you feel like you're not as consistent as you want or need to be, that is so okay as consistency is something everyone, even the highest and biggest achievers can struggle to maintain.
In today’s article I wanted to share on how you can set yourself up for success and improve your consistency in achieving your goals. All these things can be done now to bring about meaningful change to everything that you do. Remember that there is always a way so we need to find it, otherwise it becomes an excuse not to achieve that goal. Remember too that consistency can be built like a muscle.
The tips below to maintain consistency I have learnt from applying the incredible work by Hal Elrod (The Miracle Morning) and James Clear (Atomic Habits) in looking at the power of the morning practice and examining our habits.
Let’s take a look at the steps to help you stay more consistent:
1. What is your intention/goal? Or revisit your intention/goal if you already have one. You can have one goal or a number of goals for each area of your life (financial, health, professional etc.) but you need to determine what you're working towards and your why. Reach out to me if you would like to examine the Wheel of Life together with me to determine your most important goals. We then need to look at your daily activities to determine whether they are moving you in the right direction
2. What are your daily activities and habits? Are there any bad habits which do not help your goals and need to be eliminated? Are there any helpful habits you can start and integrate into your life? See my earlier post on breaking bad habits and starting new beneficial habits. Remember you are looking for behavioural change so anything which drives that will help. You can use habits to shift your behaviour and identity to change your life.
3. Set up a system for accountability to ensure you follow through. You know yourself best so choose the option which resonates with you most, but accountability will be the biggest game changer for you.
Your integrity – you’re the only one who knows what you are committed to doing and you can and do follow through every day
Do things where you have to answer to someone i.e. where you are accountable to someone else, an example would be me needing to submit details and paperwork to my accountant and banker for a project I’m working on
Make a public declaration about your goal e.g. “I am running in the 2023 marathon in October”, this will definitely help to get the training going to prepare for the run
Get an accountability buddy or accountability group where each person is holding the other to the highest level of accountability
Hire a professional e.g. a coach, personal trainer etc. who will hold you accountable for turning up to that training or coaching session and for doing the work to achieve your goal.
I am sharing below my 3 habits I have achieved consistency in, although not perfect and can definitely be enhanced further, they have made a big impact for me in achieving my goals.
1. Morning practice: Where I used to rush around like crazy after getting out of bed each day, I am now intentional about how I start my day …with breathwork, journalling, and meditation. These are activities I did but never with much consistency. However, adding in incremental steps and actions each day eg meditating from 2 minutes to 5 to 10 and so on and habit stacking (I would journal over a beautiful cup of coffee). Remember that consistency is a muscle you need to build.
2. Money Management and Wealth Building: I devoted time and effort to learning about how to manage my finances, my relationship with money as well as mindset, through money mentors, courses as well as on the job as I worked in asset/funds management. I also learnt how to build wealth and to build it across different streams – the first habit started as setting up simple structures such as different bank accounts to help me with good habits to manage and grow my savings and investments.
3. Movement: I also devoted time to learn about what worked for my body and how I could build movement into my day. I also made a commitment: “I am committed to moving my body for at least 25 minutes a day to have better health and a stronger body” then I planned my exercises in detail for each day for 60 minutes. If things got super busy I would still do 25 minutes of the planned workout as per my commitment. Remember it is also about who you become as you reach your goal - so write down the identity you are embodying and how it impacts your life as you reach the goal. This identity would look after herself, sees movement and exercise as an important part of her day and loves movement as she knows how good it feels to be strong and well.
From whatever point you are at this year in working towards your goal, you have the opportunity to start a new habit, no matter how small today. You've got this and I'm proud of you! Let me know how you go and if you need any support with your 2023 goals, drop me a note here.
Love & Light,
Nat x
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