What does consistency really mean, anyways?

This year, I made a commitment to myself to publish a blog post once a week. It’s a goal that encourages me to write consistently and I’m pretty proud of myself for even keeping up with it through January, if I’m being honest.

I have a story about myself that I’m inconsistent, always having ideas but little follow through. This is, of course, despite a mountain of evidence that proves otherwise— but our brains are tricky things and tend to get stuck in their ways.

This week, I’m tired. I don’t want to write a post. I don’t want to pressure myself to write anything clever, or come up with some big huge idea.

But the thing is, that’s not what I committed to. I just committed to writing and publishing.

Many times, I’ve fallen short on a goal because I didn’t think I had the time to honor the commitment I made. The reality was I was only making that assumption based on a rigid definition of the commitment: I had to have an hour to write, every day. I needed a whole day to do this project.

A while ago, I read an essay on ‘Flexible Consistency’ that’s helped me change the way I think about goals and give myself a much needed break sometimes.

Consistency isn’t the product of doing the same thing over and over in the same way, but committing to the spirit of the activity in whatever way you are able to fit it in.

So today, I am writing and I am publishing— in the time and energy I have at this moment in time.