Is Consistency Overrated?

Why your consistency isn't creating the success you thought it would.

Author

Jon Kalis
November 19, 2024 • Read Time: 7 minutes

Hey there đź‘‹

We have all been told that consistency is the key to success.

It’s an extremely prominent belief. Scroll through motivational content on any social media platform and you’re bound to find people highlighting the importance of consistency.

And it’s true. Consistency is a prerequisite for success. But for many of us, it often feels more true in theory than in reality. Many of us are consistent with our actions but feel like we aren’t improving or getting any better.

That’s because while consistency is the foundation of success, consistency alone rarely leads to mastery.

Consistency: The foundation of success

The purpose of this letter is not to claim consistency isn’t important. Consistency is the first step towards achieving your goals.

And there are a lot of smart people who have said so.

In Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers (an amazing book if you haven’t read it) he consistently mentions the 10,000-Hour Rule. Essentially the rule states that if you do anything for 10,000 hours you’ll become a master of the discipline.

This touts massive amounts of volume as the key to success. And he was right. You will never be great at anything if you don’t build experience through consistency. Good luck running fast, writing beautiful stories, building an impactful strategy, or singing a song without hours and hours of practice first!

Growing up playing tennis, we had a similar “rule”.

To be a good tennis player you need to hit a million shots. To be a college player you need to hit 2 million balls. To be a great college player you needed to hit 3 million balls. To be a professional tennis player you needed 4 million, and to be one of the greatest it was five million.

But this rule only gets you so far.

You’ve probably noticed it. Despite spending the same amount of time doing something, some people are still better than others.

Deliberate Practice:

When Malcolm Gladwell popularized the 10,000-hour rule people latched on. It gave them a tangible way to think about achieving success. It’s an “I just need to put in the work” approach.

And that’s where most people sit today. They’re going to the gym and not getting fitter. They’re showing up to their 9-5 every day and not getting richer. They’re in a relationship but feel like they aren’t building any depth.

If that’s you. If you feel like you’re putting in the work but not moving forward let me introduce you to deliberate practice.

Deliberate practice is a method of skill development that breaks down skills into smaller parts and practicing them intentionally and repeatedly.

What makes practice deliberate?

Deliberate practice is intentional practice. Unlike consistency, Deliberate practice is a strategic approach to skill development focusing on maximizing strengths and improving weaknesses.

Deliberate practice is:

  • Goal-oriented: the purpose is to improve performance, not check a box

  • Focused: every action is done with a purpose and expected impact

  • Intense: deliberate practice is challenging. It pushes limits to make us better

  • Strategic: deliberate practice looks at the full picture and informs practice sessions based on areas with the biggest impact.

This is what separates the good from the great.

Consistency might be the ladder to success, but deliberate practice is how you climb it.

Back to my tennis example:

“What makes some people better than people who have hit the same number of shots?”

Deliberate practice.

I probably played hundreds of opponents who hit more tennis balls than me, yet I was better than many of them. What’s common in “good tennis players” is they have a decent serve, a really good forehand, and a horrible backhand.

In practice, this person runs around backhands to rip forehands. They win some points and games, but they never develop their weaknesses.

That’s why when it came to competition, I was able to beat them. I could attach their weaknesses while my more well-rounded and complete game left weaknesses for them to take advantage of.

How to practice deliberately

The first step to deliberate practice is to break down the skill you are trying to build into smaller, contributing pieces.

I like to use a spider chart like below. I try to pick a skill I’m trying to build and identify the key subskills that align with it. I then rate my current expertise in those subdomains to understand where I could focus my practice moving forward.

The second image is an example from HYBRD. HYBRD is revolutionizing the “Hybrid Athlete” world by creating a quantitative measurement tool to track, benchmark, and improve as a hybrid athlete. (They’re currently accepting Beta users!)

You can see how clear this graph makes understanding what this athlete should work on - endurance training.

You can do the same thing with any skill.

Is deliberate practice for me?

Deliberate practice isn’t just for athletes trying to improve their fitness.

Deliberate practice doesn’t require you to spend 10,000 hours to master a new skill. Deliberate practice is actually the best way to get the most bang out of your effort.

Deliberate practice is for…

The everyday athlete trying to do better in their 5k

The wife who wants to improve the relationship with her husband.

The father who wants to have a meaningful impact on their kids’ lives with limited time.

The marketer trying to grow a business and improve their skills.

The Renaissance man trying to become a better person.

The believer, trying to get closer to god.

Deliberate practice is for you!

Combining Deliberate Practice and Consistency

This is where the magic happens.

Deliberate practice has an exponential effect on consistency.

The Rule of 100 says that if you spend 100 hours a year, or just 18 minutes a day working on a skill, you’ll be better than 95% of people at that skill by the end of the year. This is the power of deliberate practice and consistency!

I don’t know what you’re trying to achieve, but I promise that upgrading your consistency to deliberate practice will have a profound impact on your success.


Best,

Jon Kalis

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