The Power of Consistency

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit.”

We’ve all heard that quote before at some point or another. We all know what it means and how to apply it, but in actuality, nothing could be more challenging. Human beings, at our core, are emotional creatures that react on impulse and then act on logic influenced by emotion.

We LOVE the short term bursts of joy. A glass of wine with dinner. A serving of froyo or couple handfuls of chocolate at dinner. It makes us feel good…in the moment. We do it with almost anything. Winning a bet. Making a lift with some questionable form. The problem is after one or two bursts of that joy, we begin to associate those acts with happiness and they are anything but. They are a facade. They are as fleeting as they are enjoyable. The moment it’s over we begin to think about when we can have another so we can feel good again. So, you have to ask yourself, what am I really building consistency with?

Long term success or achievement of a goal requires patience. There’s a process. It is a slow course of disciplined choices day in and day out until we get to our desired destination. I love the Spurs. They’re unquestionably my favorite sports team and the only team I experience real emotional fandom with. Coach Pop has one anecdote hanging in the locker room and throughout the practice facility. Just one. It’s the story of the stonecutter.

“When nothing seems to help, I go back and look at the stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without so much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it – but all that had gone before.”

The path to any goal requires consistency of disciplined choices. We have to (nay, GET to) avoid the short terms highs we get that are really knocking us off course. Be the stonecutter.

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To learn more about embracing the power of consistency, email jobie@crossfitvirilis.com, or stop on by our CFV home at 508 Gulf Street, #108 in Cibolo, TX!