How consistency makes a huge difference in your long-term success

You need to succeed.

The method you use to achieve success may differ from what you think.

Hear this:  “The longer you do the right thing in the right way without changing, the greater your chance of success.”

I love this verse:  “Jesus Christ is the SAME yesterday, today, and forever” (Heb. 13:8).

I always deal with leaders who jump, start, change, discard, and innovate continually.  

They attend one conference and seminar after another.  No one knows what their current strategy is.  

Try these secrets of “success by consistency”:

1.  Make good decisions.

Learn to take your time on decisions.  Weigh out all options.  When the decision is made, stick with it.

Leaders cannot doubt their decisions.  Everyone will “sell” you their decision and strategy.  Stick with yours.  

Be confident that, given time, your strategy will work for you.

2. Make small improvements.

Through feedback, you can continually improve your methods.

Implement “micro-changes” that make “macro-differences.”

Keep your values, premises, and goals the same.  Don’t throw away your methods just because someone else reports tremendous success at their method.

3. Develop good habits and routines.

Habits are the bedrock of consistency.  From the time you roll out of bed, your habits of personal organization, diet, exercise, devotion, and work should kick in.

Habits form routines.  Your personal routines, done over time, will produce fantastic success.

Don’t implement the routines of others.  They may not work for you.  Do routines you can sustain over many years, and don’t worry about someone else’s opinion.

My aunt is 95 and still does her income tax record daily.  Her routines over a lifetime have made her a financial success.

4.  Learn to encourage yourself.

Everyone will have discouraging moments.  Moments you want to quit, change, throw it all away.

Smile.

Tell yourself that you are on a journey of success.  You may have a “red light” occasionally, but it will turn green eventually! 

Keep doing what you are doing.

5.  Look down the road to ten years from now.

A highly successful leader once said, “Anything worth doing is worth committing ten years to.”

You will never succeed if you re-analyze your chances of success every month or year.

Tell yourself that you are giving this project TEN YEARS.  That’s long enough to get past the discouragement of the first years of trial and error.

“The longer you do the right thing in the right way without changing, the greater your chance of success.”

6. Associate with consistent people.

Your friends and team members have a significant bearing on your consistency.

Some don’t stay with anything except in the “launch” phase.  They run a “sprint” and not a “marathon.”

Find long-term friends and team members.  They can fight through the valleys and dark times.  Their attitude keeps you encouraged to stay the course.

Just be “the same.”  The same parent.  The same friend.  The same worker.  The same spouse.  The same leader.

Success comes to those who stay “the same”: yesterday, today, and forever.