If you had asked me last year about my activity level and my fitness, I would have told you I am very active. I swim, golf, hike, play pickleball, and work out at the gym.
But if my most recent experience with a “step tracker” is any indication, I am full of it and not all that active. And my failure in being active is all about my consistency. I have failed to compound consistency, and the leading cause is “I think I work out a lot.”
When we don’t actually keep track objectively by a metric we can measure specifically, we tend to “creatively interpret” that we are: Doing OK Doing quite a bit Doing a lot Doing fine Doing pretty good And a host of other BS generalities that are far from the truth.
Where are you failing because you are living a convenient delusion?
My stepper app went back to September of 2019. September through March was tracked by the app, but I was not tracking the app. I did not have a specific goal or a plan of single daily actions by which I would accomplish it. And yet I would have described my “activity” with some of the “convenient opinions" above.
Here are the stats on how far I hiked and how many days of the month I hiked or walked 10,000 steps or more … 4 miles.
All of the above stats were based on a casual relationship with being active. I never kept track.
At the beginning of April, I declared a goal, planned to hike 10,000 steps a day, and started tracking on the app. My attitude in April, May, and June was, "I would hike every day for at least 10,000 steps … unless something really important came up." I even gave myself a day off every now and then. And as you can see, there were many days that I did not commit to hitting the 10,000. I let myself fall short if the day got away from me.
After looking at the monthly “full circles” of April, May, and June, it was glaringly apparent that my less-than-rigorous approach to 100% compliance was costing me. I was losing the very thing I teach ... "compounding consistency" ... never missing a day of 100% compliance.
July, I promised myself never to miss a day. The 10,000 steps were the most important thing I would do every day. And look at the difference it made.
The difference between winning and losing, first place and no place, finding your superstar client or spoon-feeding the rest, recruiting an ace sales leader or pushing ropes for a living, just might be found in the “extra mile.”
The extra mile is that last bit of effort to ensure you get your single daily action done, no matter what.
It might mean going to bed earlier and getting up earlier. It might mean prioritizing your time differently or just simply doing it anyway … with a huge emphasis on ANYWAY.
If you double a penny every day for 30 days, you end up with $5,000,000. If you do it every other day: $163.80.
Compounding consistency is what winners do because they know the biggest payoffs are in the extra mile.
The work is worth it,
Richard
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