While many believe that knowledge is power, knowledge is only powerful when it’s consistently applied. Consistency may be the most important component of success. A small step forward each day adds up to a lot of mileage over time.

Are the little things you do each day adding up to something positive? Or is the quality of your life slowly slipping away?

With consistent action over the next 10 or 20 years, what could you accomplish? Five cold calls each day / 5 days per week equal 1300 sales calls in 1 year! Five small pieces of chocolate over the same schedule is roughly 25,000 calories, or the equivalent of over 7 lbs.

Are your consistent behaviors helping or harming?

Use the power of consistency to enhance your success:

1. If you re-lived today for the next 10 years, where would you end up? If you saved just a small amount of money each day, you’d eventually be wealthy. If you overeat slightly each day, you’d weigh 400+ lbs.

• An effective way to predict your success is to examine your average day and project the likely outcome into the future. An hour each night spent practicing the piano would give different results versus spending an extra hour watching television.
  
• Your teeth aren’t clean because you brushed them for an hour straight. They’re clean because you brushed them for 3 minutes for 3,000 days straight.
  
• Consider where your daily habits and behaviors are leading you financially, socially, spiritually, and physically. What are the logical conclusions of your daily activities?
• Realize that many changes in life come slowly. Many success gurus advocate taking massive action to see massive results, but that strategy is difficult to apply and maintain.

• Consider weight loss. You can’t lose 25 lbs. in a day. Small changes occur to your weight each day. Those small, regular changes add up to impressive results.
  
• Building a fortune, the perfect body, or a great relationship all take time and consistency.
  
• Consistency requires habits or discipline, and discipline is in short supply. Use your discipline to develop useful habits. Relying on discipline day after day is a losing battle for most of us. While discipline can grow with effort, having effective habits is more effective and much less painful.
  
• Learn to act in the moment. The greatest barrier to consistency is the belief that you can postpone an action to another day. Each day has the power to bring you closer to your goals. Each day lost is lost forever.

• The only real discipline required is the discipline to act right now.
  
• Have reasonable expectations. When your time horizon is unrealistic, it’s not easy to be consistent. When you ask too much of yourself too soon, it’s just as challenging. Be positive and enthusiastic, but be reasonable. Put your focus on regular and consistent improvement. Perfection isn’t required.
  
• Use reminders or triggers in your environment to encourage consistency. Think about the things that you do every day that could serve as reminders. Getting dressed, starting your car, and turning out the light each night are a few examples.

• Each night you turn out the light, you could visualize your goals. After getting dressed, you could do five pushups.

What you do once in a while doesn’t impact your life significantly. Rather, it’s what you do consistently. Consistency is a major predictor of success in any endeavor. Develop habits and routines that guarantee success. Consistent behaviors determine your outcomes, so choose behaviors that make sense.