Success and consistency

Consistency is one of the key things young and budding entrepreneurs are never told enough times is fundamental to long-term, enduring success. In a lot of success talk and teachings people tend to concentrate on qualities that CREATE success, such as a strong desire for something, networking, working hard or smarter, etcetera. Based on experience so far, I can confidently say there’s something very close to what’s sometimes called “Beginner’s luck”. The easy-going, free flow of positive events at the start. It’s quite endearing and a lot of aspirants, quite literally, lose it at this early stage. Why that free, easy flow is often classified as success possibly has a lot to do with small, achieavable goals people set at start. Have you ever had a great idea you tried out and at the very beginning things just worked out and you marveled at either your genius or how easy it actually was? What usually follows after such early success is a trial of the building blocks of your foundation. Achieving early success, however little but most likely significant (for Rome wasn’t built in a day) is pretty easy. Sometimes a start in itself is an achievement that’s lauded. I think we all have the raw ingredients to pursue whatever calling we hear and in the early stages of doing so, it’s our passion and determination that comes to the fore and leads us to early success.

One of the major thrills in life is conquering bigger challenges. What comes straight after the early success and self admiration, for some, is the bigger test that I think should be given the respect and mention it deserves: consistency. The gift and wonder of life is in its impermanence and every conquest often has to be overridden by an even bigger one of greater importance. Consistency is all life asks for after every victory. It’s a simple question that begs answers to find out if you have mastered enough principles, processes and discipline to replicate previous results at a greater scale. This is where the general population fails.

Whereas early success doesn’t have humongous demands, consistency, the cog that creates enduring success, cannot be cheated.

In our pursuits of different goals that define success, let’s keep the bigger picture in mind, let’s look for patterns that reproduce certain results and keep in mind that whatever happens today, will have a future bearing on the bigger picture. Let’s become craftsmen of situations and take as much learning from positive and negative experiences. In future, we should have no one to blame except ourselves for (in)consistent results.