You’ve heard of the story of the tortoise and the hare.
If you haven’t, SPOILER ALERT…
A turtle beats a rabbit in a race because he stays focused and persistent while the rabbit showboats with intense -but- random bursts of energy.
I’ll admit, the hare would have been more fun to watch.
His approach would have played much better on social media.
“So thankful for my speed. Humbled by such a wonderful race! Better rest a bit, lol #grinding.”
Then prayer hands with a fire emoji for some reason.
The problem is that the hare put on a good show of intensity but lost.
For the last 2 decades I’ve been helping people develop the energy to “win” more consistently in work and life.
I do this by giving them the tools to create the tortoise’s consistency so they have access to the hare’s intensity when it counts.
When I was a coach at the Olympic Training Center early in my career, it opened my eyes to the role of consistency in high performance.
Before I got there, I pictured a world of intensity.
Screaming athletes and coaches pushing themselves to the point of sickness.
When I arrived, I had never seen training that boring.
No screaming coaches, novelty training toys, or other gimmicks.
No puke-ers.
Ever.
Just a slow, intentional build towards a central goal.
Day in, day out.
That level of consistency with training and recovery was something I had never witnessed.
The Olympic training cycle was more tortoise than hare, and it created the highest levels of performance I’d ever seen.
The athletes’ consistency allowed them to take their intensity to world class levels when it counted.
This experience gave me a perspective I’ve helped others adopt to help them continually improve their life.
If you want to be capable of your version of “world class” performance when it’s necessary, focus on simple consistency.
Even if ex-Navy SEAL Jocko Willink posts his 4:30am wake- up time on Instagram every day and you’re thinking that’s what you need to do to be more productive…
You get up at 7am right now.
You’re not Jocko.
Yet, that is.
If you try to be Jocko tomorrow, you’re introducing a new, high intensity (getting up 150 minutes earlier) habit.
Even low intensity, simple stuff that isn’t part of your routine requires a lot of energy.
When that new thing is also really intense, it requires nuclear amounts of energy.
You’re going to need a serious accountability system in addition to a clear life-or-death reason to continue “splitting the atom” in order to power your consistency with the new really intense thing.
If not, as soon as your energy system becomes sub-optimal, consistency will stop.
Back to square one.
You did something really intense for a little bit, but it didn’t pay dividends because it wasn’t consistent.
It was just hard.
Your brain and body will remember how hard and unsuccessful the pursuit was.
Future success with the same thing becomes less likely.
On the other hand, if you started your pursuit of productivity with a less intense change, say, waking up at 6:30, you wouldn’t need nuclear levels of energy to make it happen.
You wouldn’t be at the edge of your energy and self-discipline threshold, so even when you were feeling sub-optimal, you’d probably still have the juice to make it happen.
After a few weeks, this new habit would require far less energy, thought, and discipline.
It would become a reliable part of your schedule.
You can now count on this extra time in your day from which to be productive.
If you still want to be like Jocko, continue to slide your wake-up time back 15 minutes after 2-4 weeks of consistency.
When you approach this goal with consistency vs. intensity, not only will you reach it, the repetition over time solidifies each step.
It becomes sustainable.
If your goal is to perform at the highest levels in work and life, you’re going to need access to elite levels of intensity.
World class intensity is built on a foundation of consistency.
Being consistent like the tortoise allows you to continually perform with the intensity of the hare.
