The “Secret” To Success Is Consistency
The difference between success and failure is consistency. Because consistency is what leads to compounding: slow, incremental, constant progress. And with compounding, small gains compound on each other to create massive change over time.
This is what Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett used to build their fortunes. It’s what professional athletes and artists use to become elite. It’s what you can use to achieve anything you want.
Consistency Is Hard Because Progress Is Mostly Invisible.
Most people aren’t consistent. They start new habits with good intentions but stop before they reach the payoff.
The reason consistency is so hard to maintain is that the greatest gains come at the end of the compounding period. You can’t see the small gains you’re making on a daily basis, and so it’s very easy to assume that they aren’t happening!
That’s why most people quit before the reward. They aren’t consistent enough to reach the threshold where they will see positive changes.
Here’s Nassim Nicholas Taleb writing about this in his (great) book, Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets:
“Reality rarely gives us the privilege of a satisfying linear positive progression: You may study for a year and learn nothing, then, unless you are disheartened by the empty results and give up, something will come to you in a flash.”
No one wants to be consistent because they can’t see the progress in real-time. Here’s Peter Kaufman, long time friend and collogue of Charlie Munger, talking about this:
“Nobody wants to be constant. We’re the functional equivalent of Sisyphus pushing his boulder up the mountain. You push it up halfway, and you go, ‘Aw, I’ll come back and do this another time.’ This is the human condition. Whenever you interrupt the constant increase above a certain level of threshold you lose compounding… You have to be constant.
How many people do you know that are constant at what they do? I know a couple. Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger. Everybody wants to be rich like Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger. I’m telling you how they got rich. They were constant. They were not intermittent.”
That’s the secret to success - consistency in the same direction for a really long time.
Consistency in Professional Training.
My wife and I recently listened to Tim Ferriss’s interview with LeBron James and his longtime trainer, Mike Mancias.
Mike has been called LeBron James's "top secret" advantage and is a founder and advisor to LeBron’s sports nutrition company, Ladder. During the interview, the word “consistent” (or consistently) is said 14 times. LeBron says it 8 times and Mike uses it 6 times.
Here’s my favorite passage from the interview, where Mike talks about the most important thing he does for his athletes:
“Anything specific as far as an athlete training, working with an athlete of that caliber is to remain consistent, to remain consistent. There’s no particular exercise. There’s no particular stretch. It’s all about your own mindset and your own confidence working with someone like Michael [Jordan] and now, obviously, working with someone like LeBron. So it’s all about how to approach it mentally and how to be consistent for that athlete. Again, just be that rock.”
There is no special “secret.” It’s just about showing up every day with the willingness to put in the work and get better.
Consistency Is About Making A Promise To Yourself.
When you commit to something, you are making a deal with yourself. Most people are OK not following through on a deal they make. They may feel guilty for a short while after they break the deal, but they get over it. DO NOT be one of those people.
There’s a framework you can use when you have made a deal and don’t feel like keeping it. I picked this up from a Tim Ferriss interview wtih productivity expert, David Allen. Here’s what Allen has to say on keeping a deal you have made with yourself:
“See, agreements… there’s an automatic price you pay when you break an agreement. [Y]ou disintegrate trust, either with other people or with yourself, or both. So if you don’t want to have a broken agreement, you have three options. [One] is don’t make the agreement... [Two], keep the agreement…Or, [three] most importantly for most people, is renegotiate the agreement.”
If you want to stop feeling guilty about breaking promises you’ve made with yourself, you have three options:
Don't make the deal in the first place.
Keep the deal and do it even if you don’t want to.
Renegotiate the deal.
As David points out, most of us find ourselves staring at the third option - renegotiating the deal. I like number 2 the best though - just do it anyway if it’s a positive habit you are trying to build. But sometimes life gets in the way, and you’re better off renegotiating the deal than breaking the commitment.
I renegotiate agreements with myself all the time to remain consistent. If I can’t get in a formal meditation session with Sam Harris, then I renegotiate to ensure I work in mindfulness during my day. If I miss an hour of writing one day, I make sure I get in 2 hours to make up for it.
In a perfect world, I do all my good habits every single day without fail. But we know the world doesn’t work like that and having the ability to renegotiate instead of breaking a promise with yourself is valuable.
Don’t break a promise to yourself. Consistency leads to compounding - which is the most powerful force your can harness. Start now and don’t stop.
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Here’s the link to Tim Ferriss’s interview with Lebron James and Mike Mancias: https://tim.blog/2018/11/30/the-tim-ferriss-show-transcripts-lebron-james-and-mike-mancias/
Here’s the link to Tim Ferriss’s interview with David Allen: https://tim.blog/2019/09/05/the-tim-ferriss-show-transcripts-david-allen-the-art-of-getting-things-done-gtd-384/
Here’s the link to all of Tim Ferriss’s podcasts: https://tim.blog/podcast/
Charlie Munger quotes are from Poor Charlie’s Almanack:
Munger, C. T., & Kaufman, P. D. (2008). Poor Charlie's Almanack: The wit and wisdom of Charles T. Munger. Virginia Beach, Va: Donning Co. Pub.