Consistency is Key

 I didn't get fat all at one time. In fact, it was such a gradual process that I barely realized it was happening. I really would love to blame it (fully) on my glands or one really epic trip to the buffet. A few years ago I had lost my gut and that didn't happen overnight either. I did not turn into a gym rat. I didn't make big sweeping changes. I held firm to a few simple things and did them every single day. 

The universe has been talking to me about consistency for a minute. I have not been listening. I have always loved telling the story about the time I weighed nearly 450 pounds and I jumped on the treadmill and decided that I was going to walk five miles or die trying. I huffed. I puffed. I made it to five miles eventually.  

I defined that as my transformative moment. It wasn't. I was just recognizing the start of a bigger thing. I rarely ever talk about walking for an hour every day after without fail for the better part of a year. Literally, I skipped taking days off walking because I was afraid if I stopped that I would never start again. It is easy for me to get distracted and stop enjoying the process. It is easy for me to stop being consistent. 

The same thing is true of me stopping drinking soda. I made this big pact with a friend that we would give up sugar and soda on New Year's Day of 2014. We did exactly that. The difference between that time when I quit soda and the three or four times beforehand where I tried was not the friend, the date, or the New Year's resolution. 

The difference is that I have been consistent with the decision ever since then. I didn't just make the choice to stop enjoying a cold refreshing bottle of Coca-cola in 2014 and it was a one and done decision. Every day since 2014 I have woke up and made that choice again. Every meal where I could have ordered a soda and broke my consistency I did not. I tell you that the night I had terrible indigestion and I knew in the pit of my heartburn that a big Dr. Pepper belch would fix me right up was a huge test of my commitment to be consistent on not drinking sodas.

Consistent is powerful. It also cuts both ways. The hard part of the pandemic was a forced change in routine. Habits, the macros of our brains, are hard to set and difficult to break. With gyms shut down and a positive reinforcement for people to stay home it got easy to fall out of consistency. For example, I love to walk in national parks around my house. With those closed I wasn't able to be consistent with my walks at my usual spots. 

To take accountability I have to admit that I didn't fight hard to replace these venues with available options. I have a little bit of property that I could easily have made circuits around, a thing that I did later, and it would have been different but allowed me to keep consistent with my exercise routine. I say this to point out that I am not blaming Covid-19 or government shut downs for my behavior. I didn't act to protect my habit or progress. It got away from me as a result. 

Instead I started consistently sitting around the house. I made the choice daily to reinforce an easy choice to take a break. Having Covid-19 a few times over the past few years helped to make that easy and keep me sitting, resting, and "recovering." Being sedentary consistently absolutely does have impacts. An object at rest, according to Newton at least, remain at rest. My experience with his first law of motion certainly rings true. 

By itself losing my exercise routine probably wasn't great, but I put in some other consistent choices. I cooked hearty meals. I ate large portions. I let sugar creep back into my diet as a salve to my stress. Little Debbie and Hostess like to gang up on me and cause trouble. That is obviously hyperbole. A Twinkie or Oatmeal Cream Pie occasionally aren't the end of the world barring food allergies. There is the dark side of consistency though. I consistently soothe myself with junk food. Even a single snack cake when it is consumed consistently after each meal will pack on calories and pounds. 

Leaving the realm of physical fitness, Consistency is also important in any type of skill based pursuit. I have always been an avid fan of target shooting. I don't believe myself to be anything more than an average shot with a pistol, rifle, or shotgun. I probably enjoy shooting more than the average person. Over the past few years I have been consistent with my target practice with the weapons that I have a ready supply of ammo for. 

That consistent practice has improved my shot grouping. I have increased my effective distance with my rifles and pistols. I was already accurately at the maximum effective range of a shotgun loaded with shot shells...which is to say not all that far away at all. I have doubled, or with my Keltec CP33 quadrupled, the distance at which I can accurately group a target. I am at a point with my rifles that my vision is the primary limitation on getting more distanced accuracy. 

All of this isn't coming from study or mentorship. My growth comes from consistent practice. Each shot gives me reinforcement of effective skills. Each trigger squeeze helps me develop and reinforce muscle memory. Honestly, I am at a place where I can steadily increase both my on target speed and accuracy. 

The same thing is true of knife and axe throwing. I will use knife throwing as this example because I am terrible at it. I do mean absolutely terrible. I can accurately throw an axe at nearly 30 feet. I got good enough that I was doing damage to the axes from having one strike directly on top of the other. I wish the skill directly translated for me. It doesn't. I can hit the target consistently just not with the pointy end of the knife. 

Knowing the fundamentals of how to throw a blade, a skill I learned from my grandfather, I have been able to consistently improve my pitiful skill. When I first got back into throwing knives I often missed my target entirely. I would spend several minutes hunting down my knives and then try again. Now, with that consistent practice, I still completely suck at throwing a knife but I can hit the target with a satisfying *CLANG* and often have the knife go flipping into the ground.  This doesn't sound like progress, but it means that starting to strike consistently is just a matter of regulating my throwing motion and taking a few half steps forward or backward to adjust. 

Knife throwing is a lesson in consistency. You use the same blade or near identical blades for each throw. You start in the same stance. You hold the knife the same way either by the blade or handle. You draw back your arm paying attention that the motion is the same each time. You try to release your blade in the same motion each time. Adjustments are made in distance to the target, strength of the throw, or release position. You only adjust one element at a time and each of those at measured and intentional intervals. 

Incidentally, my lousy knife throwing skills aren't for a lack of applying consistency. I started throwing knives with a boot knife my grandfather bought for me as a boy. I carried it and practiced throwing that knife for years. I was in my mid twenties when I launched the knife at a target, watched it stick nicely by the point, and promptly snap in half. Because it was a cheaply made, off-brand blade I haven't ever found a close facsimile with any durability. The rather costly version it was copied from felt like a worthwhile investment. I got a decade and a half at minimum out of the original cheap knife. The name brand knife it was cloned from lasted exactly four throws before having the same failure. I felt it was cheaper to learn to throw other types of blades than to keep buying expensive (to me at least) knives that are going to break quickly. 

I have written multiple times about the blog being an exercise in consistency. In 2005 when I first started blogging, I sat down to post when I had an idea I thought would make something interesting or controversial to write about. I was writing to write and for attention at the same time. Those early days saw me staring at a blank screen a lot of the time and calling it writer's block.  

Eighteen years of writing later has taught me a few things about writing (though almost nothing about transitioning to professional writing.) Writing only when you are inspired is foolish. As terrible and rambling as many of my posts are, I have found that it is much better to just start the act of writing on a consistent schedule and train your inspiration to join in on the fun. That may seem like poor advice given that I am the source. Still, there is no arguing that I produce content (of questionable validity or value) extremely consistently. I have even considered increasing my posting habit to three times per week. I am sure the eight to ten people who actually read these wouldn't be upset with one more per week. 

The place where I have been exploring consistently most in the past few years has been in my mental health practices. I discovered, discarded, and then modified my gratitude practices. Yes, I did it in that order. Gratitude makes all the difference on my perspective on the world. I cannot practice it in a way that doesn't ring true to me. I would love to practice it on social media by either posting or tweeting out three things I am thankful for every single day, but when I began doing that the sense of putting on a show that others would see as fake though I meant them sincerely drove me back into privacy. 

I do want to share my mental health journey with everyone because it is a topic I am increasingly passionate about. The thing is I don't want the message to get lost in the mix. Positivity, encouragement, and support isn't something I see represented in any form of popular media. Should I jump into the void and try to make a difference? Probably. Someone needs to do so with passion and sincerity. What I noticed about myself though is that being met with scorn, indifference, or even the much more common eye roll discouraged me to the point that I lost the benefits of the exercise. 

As a reforming negative person, I cannot afford to take steps backward. My practices that keep my heart and mind positive are sacred to me. I won't do anything that threatens to break the consistency there. That is so important because gratitude is the internal language of positivity. 

I have come to firmly believe that whatever you tell and reinforce yourself manifests itself in your life. If you spend your time in deep self loathing and negative self talk then you will manifest situations in your life that match that inner truth. By changing polarity and eliminating negative self talk (and negative other talk a.k.a. gossip and complaint) you can improve what you manifest. 

I started practicing this intentionally a little over a year ago. A few weeks later I noticed I was having quite a few less headaches and body aches. A few months later my energy level actually improved. Being consistently kind, compassionate, and forgiving of yourself produces a healthier inner self which then radiates outward through your attitude and outlook. 

 I wish I could go back and teach a younger version of me these lessons. I am certain it would have kept me from making some of my more self destructive choices along the way. Then again, the little supportive voice in my head spoke up and reminded me that changing any of those choices would have caused me to miss important life lessons that made me who I am today. That would be a bad thing because I am pretty awesome most of the time. When I find myself being less than awesome rather than beat myself up like I used to do, it is easy to examine what has me feeling bad and address it. 

It is easier to admit that I am grumpy from hunger, upset about a situation, or even feeling insecure when I am not drowning perpetually in a sea of my own misery. I have even come to believe something my Mother told me throughout her life. She was fond of saying," It will all come out in the wash." It was her way of telling me to stop worrying so much  because things always work out as they are meant to. 

I still spend more mental energy than I would like chewing on the 'what ifs.' Like every person I know of on this planet I am a work in progress. I have given myself permission to not try to be perfect, in control, or even always right and reasonable. I have found that consistently reminding myself that it "okay to not be okay," gives me permission to go ahead and feel what I am feeling honestly without judging myself.  That is important because it give me space to feel, work through the feelings rather than criticizing myself for being emotional, and come to terms with all

Honestly as I have been working on all this stuff in my life I didn't see the key theme of the story was consistency. It has been an interesting revelation. It makes me want to reinforce the things I am consistently doing well and modify the choices behind the things I am doing poorly. I have all the evidence in the world to know that this works in multiple ways. 

Unlocking these little secret understandings of life is always amazing.