The Untracked Metric

The Importance of Consistency in Health and Performance

We’ve all had those days, weeks or maybe even months when we’ve really been on point with things. Be that training/exercise, diet, sleep or all of the above. We are in a great routine and then something comes along and derails this, maybe it’s a deadline, travel or illness, it doesn’t really matter but the fact is that momentum is halted and we feel like we have an uphill task to get back into the groove.

We have probably also had times (or at least observed others having them) where we couldn’t be more motivated (hello January 1st) and go 100 miles an hour ahead towards our goal. Only to later struggle to continue any amount of effort for whatever reason, largely these probably fit the catch-all of “unsustainability”.

Being who I am means I interact with a variety of people on a regular basis, almost all of whom are interested in health and fitness (at least on some level, if not deeply so). Some are more performance focussed in the realm of their physical training, but almost all care about both health and performance. As a result, most of these folks are tracking their progress in any number of ways, be it via apps, diaries or something else.

But what are they tracking?

For most people they’re tracking specifics of whatever they’re interested in, it may be macronutrients, workout details or sleep metrics. Sometimes they’re even looking at the interactions of these (something I wrote about here with respect to ‘the dashboard of everything). Almost none of them are explicitly tracking the metric which generally tracks best with success: consistency.

In some conversations, particularly in the fields adjacent to the hard sciences, we can fall prey to ‘scientism’ (aka science as a religion rather than a process), in which we become somewhat militant about science and the need for explicit, published research. In this case, I will avoid this, using a mixture of the research, empirical learning from others and some personal experience (both from personal efforts and working with others).

Why Does Consistency Help?

The simple answer here is probably “compounding”, if you’re unfamiliar the below image should explain things.

From James Clear’s “Mastering Continuous Improvement”

Beyond compounding, I think momentum plays a significant role in the success born out of consistency. That is, consistency helps with momentum and eventually then forms habit (more on this later).

Dopamine gets a bad name, but leveraging it can be powerful (just ask Meta) and we should learn from the way it is being manipulated. When we are looking to achieve significant goals, even if assuming that these are just about total effort (if we think of effort as intensity x duration) bound meaning that one ten hour effort is equivalent to ten one hour efforts, the mere act of consistency can feel like an achievement. If we set this up correctly, we can feel like we are having many daily wins, rather than feeling the project is unachievably big. These little wins (via dopamine) help reinforce our behaviour, making things feel easier and ultimately driving more total work (at least if normalised for effort if not ultimately).
This should sound very familiar, it may even be rephrased as “being process focussed”.

How do you Gain Consistency?

One way that I think could aid the majority of people significantly is planning for worst case scenario. Don’t set your plans contingent on everything going to plan; you gain consistency via planning for everything to go wrong. From there you can do more if needed - this reframe is unbelievably powerful. It looks something like this; if on the average week I think I can do something like an hour a day of whatever activity I care about (exercise, cooking to eat healthier, meditation, whatever you like), but I also know that on the occasional week that may be more like 75mins a day and on the worst week it maybe be 30mins a day then I have my bounds. I then set my plan (in which I am optimising for consistency) to be for the lower bound - 30mins a day, and everything more than that then feels like a win. Rather than setting it for the average of my bounds (60mins a day) and feeling like on days with 30mins I have failed.

If this sounds familiar, it may be because it is somewhat similar to and leverages the concept of the pareto principle.

Similarly, it may be that you gain consistency by doing the absolute bare minimum on some days for the single fact that you have maintained consistency and thus momentum. This sounds silly but again it is quite powerful in practice (take it from someone with a Duolingo streak soon to eclipse 1900 days).

Should you Lower the Roof?

Many people, especially when starting out (and thus as motivated as they will ever be), will shoot for intensity over consistency (as discussed above). It’s not that they don’t want to be consistent, it is that they’re not optimising for consistency because they have an emphasis on intensity through their well-intentioned motivation.

What do I mean? What does this look like?

You start out with the goal of 100 consecutive pushups (because you read this article). One strategy that many employ is to do as many pushups as possible in training, the challenge being recovery and soreness. So the intensity means that you may then skip a day or two, whilst getting over soreness etc. On day 3 or 4, you want to hit another training session - but now you don’t have the time with a busy schedule and you push it to the next day. Even though this may be an exaggeration, you get the point here.

A strategy optimising for consistency may be something like committing to a doing some pushups (maybe just one) every day, no matter what. You can see in this strategy, we aren’t going to knock it out of the park on day one but we won’t miss a day - raising the floor, perhaps at the expense of lowering the roof. In the race to 100 pushups, specifically, this may not be the ideal strategy, but perhaps in the race to running 100 miles it is - where risk profiles are different and you’re probably further (you’re welcome) from the goal.

What Should you do Once You’ve Lost Consistency?

The simple answer is get back on the metaphorical horse ASAP. James Clear, a New York Times bestselling author focusing on habits, has multiple tactics I like in the realm of habits and habit formation (which is really what consistency drives, so the two are intimately connected). One of his rules in regards to habit formation, and perhaps the answer to the question here, is “never miss twice”.

Beyond James’ tactics, the answer will really lie in your own quirks, triggers and personality. This is a case where there are almost unlimited tools and tactics available which probably means none of them are the answer for everyone (otherwise there would be only one tool or tactic). This ultimately probably boils down to a level of self insight and understanding yourself as a person - something which seems to be increasingly rare in society, difficult at times, and perhaps the most important piece of work we could do.

Habits vs Consistency

The number of books written about habit and habits should be enough of a clue that it’s either the world’s best buzzword or a very powerful quirk in human existence that can be harnessed (hopefully for good).

Not all consistency is a habit (these take time to form, probably longer than you think - hint, it ain’t 21 days), but all habits are at least somewhat consistent.

One thing habits allow is reduced cognitive load and motivation. This is their value. Generally, a reason that people fail in their goals is that, motivation wanes and the brute force approach (aka intensity of effort) isn’t available too them - no amount of David Goggins videos and caffeine can overcome some levels of fatigue. That said, few of us have skipped brushing our teeth due to fatigue - it is just a habit, it’s what we do. Herein is the value; a reduced cognitive load and effort.

Ideally, if we are trying to create behaviour change in ourselves and/or achieve a goal, we can build enough consistency such that the new behaviour becomes a habit. This will allow much less cognitive load and/or perhaps a new or concurrent goal. Having said all this, I live in the real world, and this isn’t always so linear. Personally, I’ve been battling for more than a decade to form a consistent and substantial meditation practice, I have gone through better and worse periods but cannot seem to make it stick properly, so please don’t think I am so naive as to assume this writing is enough to build a habit in you. That said, it should be equal parts recognition that this is possible (albeit hard in some cases) and information to perhaps inform your strategy (and maybe tactics).

References

1. Raysmith BP, Drew MK. Performance success or failure is influenced by weeks lost to injury and illness in elite Australian track and field athletes: A 5-year prospective study. J Sci Med Sport. 2016 Oct;19(10):778-83. doi: 10.1016/j.jsams.2015.12.515. Epub 2016 Jan 7. PMID: 26839047.

2. Gardner B, Lally P, Wardle J. Making health habitual: the psychology of 'habit-formation' and general practice. Br J Gen Pract. 2012 Dec;62(605):664-6. doi: 10.3399/bjgp12X659466. PMID: 23211256; PMCID: PMC3505409.