Before I even start, I want to put this out there: James Clear is the Zig Ziglar of habits. His book, Atomic Habits is full of pithy quotes that stick with me. This whole blog post is inspired by one of his quotes: “Master the habit of showing up.” In fact, I made this quote my theme for the year. Why? Because you’ve gotta show up every day to move a mountain (yes, I am on a mountain moving theme as well).
The greats all preach consistency…
In my favorite Jim Collins book, Great by Choice, he introduces the concept of the 20 mile march. He describes the real-life story of two competing expeditions to the South Pole. One expedition leader kept his team at a consistent 20-mile per day pace. On some days, the weather was beautiful and they could have done 40-50 miles. On others, the weather so bad it was physically challenging to get out of their tent. It didn’t matter. They went 20 miles. The competing expedition took advantage of the good days to push hard and recovered on the bad days. The expeditions had radically different outcomes that are worth reading about. Needless to say, there isn’t one of us who wouldn’t choose the 20-mile march outcome. And that 20-mile march outcome is all about showing up every day. Small efforts done consistently over a long period of time will move mountains.
In another favorite, Carol Dweck’s Mindset, she talks about change and how we don’t stick with it: “Once you feel better, you stop taking your medicine.” This is another angle on the same problem we seem to have as humans. We think our mission is done way too soon. I heard one business coach posit most people get 90% of the way there before quitting. That’s a shocking, disappointing, and somewhat inspiring observation. If you knew that you got 90% of the way there, would you put in the extra 10% to lock it in? Probably the bigger challenge is thinking we’re done when we’re not. I’ve been there way too frequently.
…which is easy to talk yourself out of
One caveat: I’ve had almost every project manager I’ve ever worked with tell me that the last 10% of the project represents 50% of the effort, so I suppose you can take all those stats for what you paid for them.
Even so, there is truth here. Put those two concepts together and you get a fantastic vision of what’s going on in my head (sorry, no Adam Sandler skit this time):
- “You pushed hard yesterday, you deserve a break today” or “take that break today and push hard tomorrow.”
- “You’re basically there already, why not start focusing on something else?”
This year’s focus is the 20-mile march. Just keep showing up every day. By the end of the year, I hope to have some habits fully integrated into my daily routines, to the point where they happen automatically. Seth Godin has published a blog post for roughly 8,500 consecutive days as of this post. Who am I to be impressed that I’ve posted an essay a week for 4 weeks now?
What I want my future self to remember:
Consistency is where it’s at. The magic happens in the day-to-day slog.
Photo from Kyle Johnson