If you stay consistent and hungry for ten years straight, you can accomplish anything. My brother and I have been talking about this a lot. We both trained for 16 years before making the Olympic team. It was about ten years though before we knew we had something special as track athletes.
After retiring from sports, we tried to chase a million different rabbits. We let go of the magic of working at one thing for a very long time. The good news is that you can accomplish whatever you want to if you are working inside of your gifts. The issue is that it's going to take you ten years.
No one wants to hear that! Why is it that we can get microwave pizzas, super-fast internet, but we can't rush success? In our current on-demand society, it does not make sense.
Even the companies that provide these on-demand services took a long time to build. Netflix, Amazon, Airbnb, GrubHub, DoorDash, Uber, and Lyft were not built quickly. Netflix was founded in 1997! You must use daily habits to improve your life over a long period of time.
Habits are automatic. The reasons we all rely on habits is because they help our brains to be more efficient.
Consistent or Die
You're either going to be consistent for an extended period or you are going to fizzle out. There is no middle ground on this. The consistent go on to conquer the world because they keep showing up when others fade away.
Habits come down to automating consistency in your life. If you want to be an author, the number one skill you need to work on is your writing. By making writing a daily habit, you automate your consistency in that area. You don't have to wake up and think about whether you are going to write or not.
If you are not consistent with your dream, it will die. Think about breathing. If you are not consistent with your breath, you will die. The same is true for your craft. If you think that you can show up sometimes and still succeed, you're wrong. That would be like breathing only once every hour and expecting to thrive.
You Rely On Daily Habits to Improve Your Life
Habits are automatic. The reasons we all rely on habits is because they help our brains to be more efficient. When you first learn to drive, think about how much brainpower and focus driving requires. Now think about how much concentration it takes to drive once you have learned how.
Getting in the car
Adjusting the mirrors
Turning the key the right direction
Backing the car up
Knowing when to turn the wheel
Using the turn signal
All these things are automatic once you know how to drive. This is what allows people to listen to the radio, and talk with friends while driving. None of these things are viable when you are first learning to drive. It takes too much brainpower to focus on doing anything but driving.
The problem and good thing about habits are that they run in the background. Running in the background is excellent when you have good habits. It's a curse when you are trying to change the bad habits you have developed.
The Successful Are Consistent and They Thrive on Habits
Successful people are consistent. They understand that success takes time. If you put it in the microwave, you get microwave pizza results.
Homemade pizza with high-quality ingredients produces better results. If you want quick success, you have to understand that a fence that goes up fast falls fast.
Successful people are intentional about their habits because they understand their power. It's not about what you sometimes do. It's about what you do all the time. The things you do daily dictate your life if you let the habits add up long enough.
The author knows that they need to show up and write every day
Painters know that the canvas is not going to paint itself every day
The CEO knows that the power of reading daily ads up
The runner makes sure to run every day
Unsuccessful People Hope For Events
When you are not consistent, or you don't see its value its because you believe in blowing up. The writer that thinks the book will be complete one day due to a massive surge in inspiration. The athlete that hopes they get drafted. These are events.
Daily actions are what create events. When you develop the habit of shooting 300 shots a day, working with your one on one coach, staying hydrated and stretching daily, the result could be getting drafted to the NBA.
When you write every day, you read and work with your editor every day; the result could be a New York Times Bestseller.
These events come from habits. These are not regular habits. These are habits that are built with intention over a decade. You look at anyone who is thriving today, and you will notice the same reliance on habits.
Start Your 10 Year Grind and Be Consistent
If you have been working at one thing for the last eight years, this article is sounding great. If you have spent the last ten years of your life doing different things, this article may suck. It's hard to think about working at one thing for ten years. To see real success, it's the only way.
That is a big reason why people say that you need to love the process. Success is not about the rewards people see. The journey is learning to love the day to day habits. If you are going to have to practice the same backflip every day for the next ten years, why not enjoy it?
Keep showing up. Show up when people laugh at you. Show up when people don't understand why you don't quit. There will be plenty of rabbits to chase. You will see people making money with every fad that you can think of. You have to stay the course.
It Will Get Hard and You Will Be Dying to Quit
Success is not so much about having talent. It's more about being able to be consistent when most people would quit. We are hard-wired as humans to find the paths to the least resistance.
The goal is to find the easiest way to get everything we want. That is how habits form; our brain is looking for the most natural path.
Success tests everyone who dares to reach for it. It asks how bad do you want it? 98% quit at the first chance they get. They see a way out, and they take it!
Ask most people how they choose their path in life and they will tell you about the way of the least resistance. Ask why you don't chase your God-Given talents, and they will tell you about how hard it is.
Difficulty should be welcomed. Successful people learn to love the grind. They know that the grind contains all the secrets of the world.
Each challenge or obstacle that comes is a chance to wash out the weak. Challenge is an opportunity to rely on your habits. Habits won't let you down when times get hard.
How Do You Make Sure You Build Your Habits?
Habit Stacker provides resources to help you improve your habits. The first way we do this is through our online course Habit Mastery. The second way is with the Habit Stacker mobile app.
Olympian and founder of Habit Stacker Ian Warner, teaches the Habit Mastery course. He walks you through practical techniques that you can use to improve your life. No fluff or non-sense! You get instant access to over 45 different videos breaking down how to build good habits.
The Habit Stacker app is what you use to live out your habits daily. It's a habit tracker that lets you know what you need to do each day.
The app sets your daily routine board for you each day, so you all you have to do is get the task done at the top of the list. You can look back and see your streaks for each habit. You will be able to rude your way to daily habits to improve your life.