How to Stay Consistent When You Feel Like Quitting

Chapters
04:20 – Why You Still Don’t Feel Like Showing Up
07:11 – The Systems That Force You to Stay Consistent
14:05 – I Kept Starting and Stopping… Here’s Why

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I was just very start and stop, start and stop. A lot of regret. I wasted so much of my potential. Like, where would I be if I was just consistent? Just caused a lot of anger and upset within me. Just existing and living a meaningless, purposeless existence. Years go by and nothing really changes. And I just had to be honest with myself. Like, if I don't sacrifice for what I want, then what I want now will become the sacrifice. If you're only consistent when you feel motivated, you will never actually be consistent. The reason you keep stopping and starting isn't because you're lazy, it's just because you're relying only on motivation. Most people don't struggle to start, they struggle to keep going. You get excited at the beginning because you you make a plan, and then for a few days you're consistent, but then the motivation fades, and then you get tired, and it just feels harder than you expected, and that's when you stop. And then you tell yourself you'll start again, but it just turns into this cycle of starting and stopping. For me, I struggle to stay consistent with writing the scripts for this very video. Yesterday I was meant to continue writing the script for one of the videos I'm going to record today. It was honestly like a struggle. I was tired. And what made me start was I saw um I saw a I saw a text message from my mum and she was just like checking in and she was just like just checking in to see if I was being productive. Literally, that made me get up immediately because I was like, oh my gosh, if my mum FaceTimes me right now and I'm in bed that's not really good. But I was just feeling really overwhelmed because I had to script six podcast episodes. I had to script six and yeah, so I felt really overwhelmed. But then I saw that text from my mum whilst I was literally just on YouTube, like watching binge watching videos on YouTube, and I was like, oh my gosh. I'd like so it just literally made me get up and I knew like okay, I already knew that it's not I don't really focus well in my room, like when I work in my room, like it's like better for me to go out in a structured environment that's suited for work. So I literally just got up and left. I went to like a Costa, but the thing is it was Easter Sunday. Yesterday was Easter Sunday and everything was closed, the library was closed, the student union was closed. So I was like, where can I go? Literally, like, where else am I gonna go? There was a coffee shop open, so I just went in there and just did some work there, and it really helps, like it just helped me to continue. I feel like starting is the hardest part, but once you start, like you kind of just get into the flow and just keep at it, and then you literally build a habit to continue. I think the truth that really changed things for me is that consistency isn't just about motivation, because motivation comes and goes, like you can feel excited one day and then the next day you feel absolutely nothing and you can't be bothered. So if you're relying on how you feel, you're always going to be inconsistent. I feel like people quit because they it's just the motivation just runs out, and then like all the emotions just come to the surface, like feeling tired. Honestly, like maybe you don't have the same like passion exactly. The motivation the motivation's gone, you don't have that same passion and urgency you did at the beginning. Yeah, just the emotions you start listening to your emotions rather than like the logic and also a lack of structure, planning your day. If you just like free-flow it, you're kind of like you're making it harder for you to start and then be consistent because then now you need to think, Oh, what am I gonna do? And then when you start getting lost in the thoughts, that's when distraction can come because then maybe you start feeling overwhelmed. But if you plan your day the night before, that structure will definitely help you. Right. So let's move

Why You Still Don’t Feel Like Showing Up

SPEAKER_00 4:20

on to the solutions. What is gonna help you to show up anyway and stay consistent? Before we dive in, smash that subscribe and follow button. It really helps us keep dropping real, raw content just like this. Also, check out the merch in the description. Every purchase supports charities helping young people who've been bullied. And so if you want to support even more, you can also donate. Links below. Grab the merch, represent the message, and be part of something powerful. Accountability. Accountability really helps. Get yourself an accountability partner and um just have the task that you want to do, you want to get done, and tell the other person this is the task I want to get done, and then they'll tell you the task that they want to get done, and you keep yourselves accountable, like work in the same room separately on your tasks. Um, set yourself deadlines. I my mom is my accountability partner, and every week we have our goal, our one-week goal, like we have a week to complete it, so that's the deadline. Next thing, consequences, like raise the stakes a little bit. We have a consequence if we don't achieve our goal, and we have to pay £100 to the other person, and so like just adding like penalties and consequences if you don't achieve your one-week goal um motivates you a lot and just kind of like forces you to show up and to be consistent. And then I also found that like if I'm not consistent, like if I quit, I start beating myself up about it, like I start condemning myself, and I it just made me realize like self-sabotage is so real, self-indulgence is so real, and I need God to like help me give me strength because I like my strength runs out, my strength runs out, and today's Easter, it's Easter Monday, and Jesus Christ he had strength when he was carrying that cross, and they were whipping him, and he was being nailed to that cross. He could have chosen to not die, like he could have literally just been like, No, I'm not gonna do that, yeah. But he stayed consistent with the reason why he was born, he followed through, you know, so that requires a lot of strength, and that strength, that same strength that Jesus had is available to us if we ask him. The final thing is rewarding myself, like giving myself a reward. Because like at the end of the day, like if I have like if I'm meeting with friends at the end of the day, it's like if I met with the friends, I would kind of feel a bit guilty that I didn't do my work. So it just means like, yes, I mean do my work fast. It makes you want to do your work faster so that you can go and enjoy yourself at the end of the day. So those are things that helped me to show up, anyways, to just show up. Number two, my second solution is the

The Systems That Force You to Stay Consistent

SPEAKER_00 7:10

systems that forced consistency routines. Have your fixed morning and a fixed night routine, like wake up the same time every day. Wake up the same time every day. Like some people say they're not a morning person, but it's kind of like you only have 24 hours in a day, and you might as well maximize every single time you have as opposed to going to bed late and then waking up late, you know? Might as well just wake up early. I've been reading this book, I was like, I forgot what the book is called, but anyways, um it's basically a guy who like he interviewed so many billionaires with a B billionaires, and like in the book it also it goes through like their common habits, and for them, it they wake up early. They woke up early and they put in the hours. So maybe they woke up early and went to bed late, but if you go to bed early, it will help you to wake up early, you know, and it just means it reduces sleep deprivation, which means you're at your best, you're at your optimal during the day. So like they're like really maximizing every single hour of the day, and to do that is having a fixed routine, and so they had a fixed morning routine and a fixed night routine, and they kept it the same, and they made sure they made sure they did all the things they needed to do in the day to make sure they were at their optimal, which was if they needed to take um a shower first thing in the morning, um if uh exercising, eating well, yeah, those are the common ones, and also the common time they woke up, the mean average time they woke up was five. Yeah, so just like maximizing every hour of the day your environment. Like if it doesn't make sense for you to work in your room or to w work in bed and you find that you're you're a you're easily getting distracted, don't work in your bed or in your room. Like, literally don't. Like, even if it means you have to go and do your morning routine outside, you know, go and do that. When I say outside, like literally like bringing your toothbrush and toothpaste, your your cream and not being in your room, just so that you can make sure you get a good start at the day, as opposed to scrolling on your phone immediately when you wake up. To just do what you've got to do to stay consistent. And in order to stay consistent, you need to start, and starting is the hardest. To do what you've got to do to start. My third solution for you is changing your mindset. Like what really changed things for me was realizing that I couldn't trust my feelings because most days I didn't feel like doing my work, but I started choosing discipline over my feelings, and something else I realized is that you don't wait to feel motivated to take action. You take the action and then the motivation comes after the flow state, you enter the flow state. So instead of asking myself, do I feel like doing this? I started saying, I am going to do this anyway. Because every time you stop, you're not just taking a break, you're restarting the whole process again. And over time that adds up. And weeks go by, months go by, years go by, and nothing really changes. And I just had to be honest with myself, like, if I don't sacrifice for what I want, then what I want now will become the sacrifice. Hope you're enjoying the episode so far. Please take a moment to leave a comment sharing how the episode has had an impact on you. And smash that subscribe button right now to get the algorithm going so that more young people can be inspired. So consistency isn't just about what you do, it's about who you become. Like you become someone who shows up even when it's inconvenient and even when it's uncomfortable, even when you don't feel like it. And then the more you do that, the more you start to build up discipline, the more you're able to be consistent. Because you're no longer someone who starts and stops, starts and stops and never finishes. You're someone who follows through. Jesus was consistent on his way to the cross. So ask him for strength, you can't do this on your own. It's really, really hard. It's it's hard, and you don't have to do it on your own. So if you're struggling to stay consistent, I really want you to know that you are not the only one. I've also struggled to stay consistent. I s I was I was struggling to write the script for this video, you know, so you don't need to feel motivated all the time to be consistent. You just need to force yourself to show up and restructure your environment to show up, even on the days that you don't feel like showing up. Okay. Um, and then also like just making good friends. Be friends with people who are productive and inspiring, people who know where they're going, who have a goal, and they seem to be really striving to reach that goal. Be friends with them and make them your accountability partner. And I know like sometimes it can feel um, like maybe this person like you can clearly see is absolutely absolutely smashing it, like smashing everything and doing so well. Maybe like you're not like friends with them, maybe they're just like someone you know, and like there's a little bit of distance between you. Literally just go up to them and just be like, hey, like I've been seeing your work ethic, and I'm super inspired by you. And I was just wondering if you would like to go for lunch together and like just start spending time with them, be friends then, make friends with those people, make make sure you're friends with those people, and then literally just tell them, hey, I'd like for us to like work together, study together, but I want to lock in and I'd love to be accountability partners for us to smash our goals in the next coming days, next coming weeks, next coming months. Literally, like make them your accountability partner. Amazing. Like, oftentimes it's the people you don't want to talk to or you're scared to talk to that you need to go and talk to and make friends with. Amazing. Alright, so I want to do a video on how you can actually start and especially on the days when you feel stuck and unmotivated. I saw that you guys also asked for that on my Instagram story. Thank you so much for participating on the poll. So that will be my next video. I'm super excited. Thank you so much for interacting with me on my Instagram story. It's just so nice to be like doing this procrastination series to help you with things

I Kept Starting and Stopping… I regret it

SPEAKER_00 14:05

that you need help with. I want to give you encouragement. Like the the thing that I struggle to stay consistent with the most in my life was this podcast. Being consistent with this podcast. Um, because I receive a lot of backlash for sharing my story. Like I'm very open with sharing my story on this podcast on this podcast because I find that just open, honest, real conversations is what helps people the most. And I've seen has helped me the most, and also I've seen has helped people who watch the most. So I'm just very unapologetic of sharing common struggles. It meant that I just froze and stagnated and I didn't continue with the podcast. I was just very start and stop, start and stop. It made me feel a lot of regret, made me feel like I wasted so much of my p potential. Like, where would I be if I was just consistent for these three years? Like if I was consistent, I'm 19 now, but like I started when I was 16. And where would I be? You know, three years of pure grinding, like I probably would be in a really great place. And yeah, like it just caused a lot of anger and upset within me and feeling like I'm just existing and living a meaningless, purposeless existence where I'm not helping the people who God has called me to help, God has asked me to help, who I feel called to serve, helping people who were once where I once was, was well once struggling with the things I was once struggling with, slash are struggling with the things that I'm currently struggling, struggling with and going through and trying to navigate uh in my life as a student, as a young person starting their career. I just want to encourage you, you're not the only one. But honestly, like accountability partnerships work really, really well. Like, really, really well. Did I mention the £100 fine? I can't remember, but yeah, like raise the stakes, give penalties in terms of accountability, like set your goal, set your one-week goal, maybe get a group of friends every week. Set yourself a goal, and then once that week is over, check if everyone has done their goal, make sure there's photographic evidence. If the person doesn't complete their goal, then they have to pay like a £100 fine. Make it an amount that will motivate them to actually do their goal. So, whatever that amount is. I think for students, £100 is a fair amount, and then that money can be in a shared account, pull the money together, and then at the end of the month, the money can get shared between everyone else who actually did achieve their goal and has never had a penalty in that month. For goal setting, I use this principle from the book called The One Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasson. The core question from the book is what's the one thing I can do such that by doing it, everything else will be easier or unnecessary. Basically, what that means is you need to find the one action that creates the biggest domino effect. You do that first, and then everything else either becomes easier or it just doesn't matter anymore. So it's it's basically called the focusing question. So you write down your list of all the things you need to do in like one area. For example, I have like studying work and then podcast work. So in my one area, let's choose podcast work. Um, like let's say I have loads of things to do. I have to do my reels, then I have to actually edit an a long form episode, then I have to brainstorm guests, then I have to reach out to the guests, then I have to book the guests in, then I have to record with the guests. It's like a lot. So I have to pick that's like six things I've listed. So then I pick one thing from that, and then one thing from that that will move me furthest, that will propel me the most, that will basically lead to the most success, an urgent thing that will help move me forwards the most. And that should be your one week goal. Okay, I really hope this helped. Bye.