Last week, on my new youtube vlog channel, I made a video about overcoming weaknesses.

One of my biggest weaknesses is my lack of consistency. I tend to be extremely productive for an extended duration, lose interest for a while, and then I am productive again. It leads to results that resemble a sine wave. Up and down. Up and down.

I realized that if I’m going to achieve my new years resolutions for 2015, then I’m going to have to overcome this flaw! So far, I’ve been doing pretty well by implementing some of the techniques below.

1. Pre-Schedule as much as possible.

I used to write blog posts on the fly. I might publish 5 one week and 2 the next. As I looked back over the past year, I realized that I averaged about 3 blog posts a week.

Rather than going through these extreme swings of productivity, I realized that the only way I could be consistent was if I wrote out blog posts ahead of time and then used the wordpress scheduling feature to make sure that I stayed consistent.

So far this has worked out great! I’ve also scheduled my social media posts on Twitter and Facebook months in advance, so I don’t have to worry about constantly adding interesting articles to Buffer (you can also use Hootsuite to schedule social media posts).

Finally, I’ve lined up over a months worth of episodes for my new Podcast, so that I don’t have to worry about that new project each week!

2. Commit to a Schedule and Don’t Give Into Emotions

This is really hard for me. I hate not going all out when launching a new project. When I commit to a schedule like one youtube vlog a week, it makes me feel like I’m underperforming. I want to be doing it 24/7. Unfortunately, this kind of work ethic is only sustainable up until a certain point.

By creating a basic schedule and designating days for each task, you are committing to get those tasks done on those days, no matter what. There is no other priority. I’ve found this makes it a lot easier to make to-do lists throughout the week and I find myself thinking “well I could work on this, or work on this,” less than I used to.

3. Stay Focused on What Matters.

This is particularly important if you have multiple projects going at the same time. If your goal is to grow a new blog to 1,000 subscribers, then spend your time creating amazing content and promoting it! Don’t look at new cool wordpress themes every day. Do what matters with the time you have.

This helps you stay consistent because the more time, work, and energy you put into the things that matters, the more progress you will make, which will make you want to work on the project longer. Combined with point #1 about pre-scheduling, this is a winning combo for staying with a project over the long run!

4. Eliminate Negative Mental Habits.

As motivational speaker Tony Robbins mentions in his bestselling book, Awaken the Giant Within, our emotions often times dictate the actions we will take. If you’re feeling in a funk or lazy, then you’re not going to be motivated to go to the gym.

Every day after work, my immediate desire is to go home, plop on my bed, and watch TV or a few funny youtube clips. What ends up happening? Two hours go by and it’s almost time to go to bed. I’m all comfortable and I don’t really want to go to the gym. This negative mental state breaks my consistency streak!

Let’s be honest, TV, comfortable beds, and especially cute videos of puppies on youtube are hard to turn down for a grueling session at the gym. Therefore, rather than trying to force myself to get out of bed, I try to avoid that mental state all together.

After leaving work, I listen to intense music, which gets me in a state where I want to dance or do something active. I don’t let there be any time between my getting home and my going to the gym. I just go and then relax afterwards. Problem solved.

5. Are you acting “more often than not?”

Initially, this seems really obvious, but I promise, it’s a powerful way to determine whether or not you need to up your game in some area of your life.

The question is simple: Are you doing what you should be doing to achieve your goal more often than not? In other words, are your “cheat days” rare, or is it rare that you’re going to the gym?

This question is best evaluated over a long duration, like a month.

For example, if you have the goal of going to the gym 3 times per week, but you only went 2 times per week throughout the entire month, your result is 8/12 or 66% of your goal.

If you went to the gym 3 times per week except for one week, in which you went 2 times, your result is 11/12 or 91.66% of your goal.

If you begin to experience anything less than 80% of your goal, you’re going to see drastic drops in your results. However, that’s okay. No one is perfect. I would shoot for 90% and up.

Conclusion

What techniques do you use to stay consistent? Let me know in a comment below so that I can improve my consistency in business and life!