The Power of Consistency

Consistency is one of the most undervalued skills for any individual. It is nothing but something done ritualistically. It is very important for establishing yourself in this information-loaded world. 

Many people have put their feet into creative fields but failed, even though they are good enough. More often than not, the reason for this is not being consistent. I came to this realization after a long struggle, and I will say that I am not still at the level of consistency that I aspire to reach.

Let me tell you the power of consistency with a short story of my own. During the year 2017, I was going through some tough times in my life. I had gone through a difficult breakup. It fractured my entire thought process. I did not know what to do about it. I had written some poems until then, but not consistently. 

To distract me from this overpowering emotional state, I took up the mammoth task of writing a book. I wrote steadily for about three months, but then the flow of consistency broke somehow and things went haywire psychologically.

It's worth mentioning that I was working a full-time job while I was writing the book. Looking back, I realize this was an important factor in my inconsistent approach to my creativity. Frustration in my job had made me so stressed that I could not gather the energy to write anymore. 

I receive joy and happiness out of writing, but I had nothing tangible to see because of my inconsistency making me feel miserable. A year went by like this where I was writing in patches. I then had to switch jobs and in my new job, I had to put in a lot more effort because I was new there and I had to prove my mettle. 

This led to me working almost negligibly on my book. I felt stuck in a rut in my job in India, so I followed up with my dream of living abroad and doing a master's degree at the same time. During my second job in India, things got so frustrated that I had to work 10 hours a day and then come home and prepare for the exams so I can make myself eligible to study in a foreign university.

Realizing the Power of Consistency

I saw the power of consistency for the first time when I was preparing for the TOEFL Exam. Even though I was working during the day, I used to study every day for 3–4 hours for the TOEFL Exam. I've heard that many people take a significant amount of time to study for such exams but I studied for five weeks, 3 to 4 hours a day with a job. 

To my surprise, I got a score of 108 out of 120. This made me realize that if I put consistent efforts into anything, I can achieve all of my goals. Since I was high in this confidence, I took up the GRE exam only after studying for 3 weeks. I applied the same approach to the GRE exam that I did to the TOEFL Exam. I know many people who have taken the exam will say that 3 weeks is not at all enough for GRE but my reasoning for only giving at three weeks is the confidence high that I was on and had a limited amount of time to take the GRE exam because I had to send my applications to the universities. 

To my surprise, I scored 310 out of 340 on my first attempt. This is not a very good score in the GRE Exam. But it's a decent score for somebody who only prepared 3 weeks for the exam. This strengthened my confidence in being consistent.

My belief in the consistency approach was still strong, but I could not apply it to the writing process of my book, at least not until a year later. I applied this consistent approach to another aspect of my life, which was language learning. I had planned to come to Germany to study, and I needed to learn a bit of the local language before I arrive. 

So, I quit my job four months before traveling to Germany and focused on my language learning skills. I started with Duolingo to learn German. I maintained a consistent practice of German for 107 days on the app. This consistency benefited me when I arrived in Germany. 

When I landed in Germany, I could speak some basic phrases of German to ask for directions from people. I had to use this as soon as I exited my flight. The reasons being, one I could not find my luggage, and two, I did not know how to reach the train station from the airport. I gathered my courage and asked a police officer in the airport with broken German and could comprehend his response as well. This consistent habit of learning German allowed me to reach the train station in time.

During my initial time in Germany and in my university here, the studies took most of the time, exploring new avenues in a foreign land. This acted as a brake on my creative journey as a writer. But after two semesters I became frustrated because in my heart I wanted to write and somehow I could not gather myself to write. 

I was writing poetry here and there, but not consistently, and no work on my book. Not working on my book was the biggest itch in my brain. So just before the beginning of the third semester, I had a semester break of about five weeks and I decided I will invest more time in my book and sure enough, I invested a lot of those five weeks into my book and I wrote almost the same amount of story I wrote in 1 and 1/2 years in India. 

In March 2020, the pandemic shook everyone. Everybody had to be in lockdown and figure out what to do when they are on their own. So when the semester started, my initial plan was to invest some time regularly, which is every day into my book, and finish it by the end of the semester. 

But since the university operated in an online manner for the first time, things were chaotic and messy. Professors were trying to figure out the best way to teach classes, online project supervisors were trying to find out the best ways to provide the information required to the students. This led to a rather hectic semester, which nobody expected. My workload increased so much that I did not write a single word for four months.

The Best Lesson Learned from Existential Crisis

I did not realize how much I enjoy writing and how much it meant to me until those four months passed and I had an existential crisis. One day suddenly it felt like someone has flipped a switch in my head. It made me wonder why am I studying this much, what is the purpose of my life, what is the need for all this, why do I exist in this world. 

This led me to not write two of my exams of that semester because I did not have the energy to study anymore or to do anything. It was not until three weeks later that I realized the crux of my problems. I had talked to some of my friends about it, and I also reached out to some strangers to get a non-biased point of view about my problem. 

One day when I was talking to one of my friends; she pointed out that my reason for feeling all these emotions and existential crisis is because I have not written a single word in the last four months. Even though I came to Germany to study, I wanted a change of pace from my regular life in India. 

Since I was not getting enough time and energy to write in India, I thought it might help me be more creative in my endeavors if I change my environment, but me not writing for four months is against that promise I made to myself.

It was August 2020, and I had written about 21,000 words for my book in three years. When I started the book in 2017, my original goal was to write 50,000 words and finish the book within a year. But in three years, I was not near the halfway mark. 

So when the semester break started in August, I left everything behind regarding the university and focused solely on my writing. I began writing in the middle of August and tried to write at least two pages every day. It was difficult in the beginning because I had a kind of lost the touch with writing and I was finding it difficult to get into the groove. 

But when I forced myself to write daily for a couple of weeks, I got back into the groove and I started enjoying it more than I had before because I could actually see the words on paper. Alongside, I started an Instagram page. I was writing continuously for my book, but I was not posting content continuously on Instagram and was not seeing my audience grow. 

I focused little on my social media presence because I was adamant to finish my book as soon as possible, at least the first draft. This consistency of mine to write two pages a day increased to multiple pages a day with time, and I could finally finish the first draft of my book in November. 

That day was the happiest day of my life till today because I set myself on a journey to write a book 3 years ago and I finally hit the biggest milestone in that journey which was finishing my first draft.

Tangible Rewards Reaped Through Consistency

When I finished the first draft, I knew that I have to edit it multiple times, but meanwhile, I need to have some kind of audience that I can share my work with. So I focused on my social media presence, mainly Instagram.

 Around the 10th of November, I had around 200 followers on Instagram and my Instagram profile was virtually dead. It came alive again when I posted content consistently. I did not know how much it will lead to, but I had witnessed the power of consistency a few times in my life at that point. 

I also finished my book in 3 and 1/2 months as compared to the three years I took earlier. So I searched for the niche hashtags that associate with my style of writing, and I posted philosophical motivational quotes daily with no breaks. 

Also, I scoured the depths of Instagram to find niche writers within the same domain. I daily went to the hashtags that align with my style of writing looked at a lot of posts like them commented on them if I felt like and I follow this process till day and my follower count has increased to over almost 2000 in less than 3 months. 

With this progress on Instagram, I put up a page on Twitter as well and followed the same procedure. It has been a little more than a month since I set up my Twitter profile. The profile has over 600 followers, which is actually a higher number than my personal profile, which exists on Twitter for over nine years now, and it's not like I don't tweet on my personal profile; I do, but not consistently.

I posted content consistently on Twitter as well, and the results are promising. This may not be a tremendous success for many people, but it's a dent in the success wagon that I want to break open. The most important thing learned during these last 4 to 5 months is that you can succeed in anything if you are consistent enough. It was clear with my book when I finished 70% of it in 3 and 1/2 months as compared to the 30% that I finished in three years. 

This consistency let me write my book with a word count of 73,000 which is 23,000 more than my original target. This brought tremendous joy to me and the courage to write more. Even though my Instagram profile is not huge but getting over 2000 followers in less than 3 months organically is an impressive feat at least in my head. 

I see a lot of encouragement from people who read what I write. Also getting approached by quite a few people to collaborate, which is a huge plus. I also had set up my blog, but I did not have consistent content on it.

Future with Consistency for Me

My next goal is to provide consistent content on my blog to put myself in the world as a brand. This story is one such way to achieve the goal. The job is far from done. These experiences from consistency I have felt have led me to believe that I can achieve anything if I put my mind to it and do it consistently. Sharing this story, I hope it allows you to value consistency, and maybe if one person can be consistent enough after reading this, I would have fulfilled my goal.

You would have heard from a lot of podcasts, motivational videos, and motivational posts that consistency is the key to success. You would have also heard that 99% of the people are not consistent enough. This is the reason only 1% of the population succeeds in their personal endeavors because the rest lack consistency. Thank you for taking the time to read it.

Thank you for reading!