Is Consistency Hurting Your Sustainability?
Top 5 learnings from my online writing experience
👋 Hi, this is Akash with this week’s newsletter. I write about leadership and growth in software engineering. Thank you for your readership ❤️.
Staying consistent is important but hard. We judge ourselves too quickly as soon as we miss even once. This week, I’m sharing five key learnings from my journey of writing a book, newsletters and short-form posts. Hope you enjoy this edition!
Who doesn’t know consistency is the key to success?
But do you struggle to stay consistent? I do. At times, I feel burnt out trying to stay consistent.
From career growth to investment growth, consistency remains central.
But life is unpredictable. Staying consistent is impossible. Then how do you succeed?
I recently wrote a book, and today, I will share my top ten learnings that will help you work around inconsistency.
⭐ Main Takeaways
5 tips for staying consistent in the long run
Traps to avoid for trading your mental health for consistency
I’m a hard worker. Consistency means the world to me. But sometimes, I compromise my mental health, trying to stay consistent. I call it “Forced Consistency”.
Does this also happen to you?
In my career, I’ve grown quickly to become a Staff Engineer at FAANG. I attribute this to the amazing people I’m surrounded by and my hard work. I don’t have above-average intelligence.
During this time, I have felt burnt out two times. One of which happened very recently. This sent me through the thought process of “What went wrong?”
The answer I found was repeated “Forced Consistency”.
Now, let’s dive in!
1) It’s okay to be inconsistent sometimes
Writing the book took me a year. Towards the end of that journey, I started writing shorter content online. Between two newsletters and a daily LinkedIn post, I’m only consistent on one.
I've been consistently inconsistent for the remaining 66% of my target. Due to personal reasons, my days are booked. Initially, I’d beat myself up for missing one day to the point writing was turning “not fun”.
Instead, you should,
Update your plan that respects flexibility
I dropped one newsletter and daily LinkedIn posts from my weekly goals.
Balance priorities to match your current load
I reassigned priorities, and writing daily on all three is not my target.
Decide on a comeback date or adjust expectations
I’m going to start posting regularly from Aug 31, 2024.
2) Life is not a sprint
In the face of fast growth, we forget life operates at the scale of years. Judging ourselves on a daily scale doesn’t work.
After starting Leadership Letters, I started a second newsletter on “Cracking the Security Engineering Interviews”. I aim to provide practical tips to aspiring security professionals and help them break into desired roles.
After four articles, I couldn’t post another one. I asked myself the following questions,
“Am I still motivated by the goal?”
“Can this wait for a few months?”
“Am I ready for the consequences?”
Answers to all of them were “yes”. It’s important to recognize life is long. Taking a pause and pushing goals to the future isn’t always bad.
3) Never give up
When I started posting regularly on LinkedIn, my growth on the platform accelerated. But as soon as I became inconsistent, the growth stalled. At the first sign of inconsistency, you should:
Understand
Metrics will be messed up, and it will take effort to come back.
Plan
Put an end date to your inconsistency, don’t make it “tomorrow”.
Execute
Pick up where you left it or slightly lower.
The idea of consistency is never to give up. Here’s what established writers (
) are saying on this topic,
Now that we have discussed how to avoid “Forced Consistency,” let’s explore a couple of lessons on how to stay consistent for longer durations.
4) Write in batches
During the book's writing, there were days when I could not write a single sentence. Yes, there was lots of writer’s block. Read more on writing tips to learn how to minimize it.
Later, in
’s LinkedIn Creator boot camp, I received a tip that will go on to formalize this experience.The idea is simple: you can’t predict the future. So write when you’re in a flow state.
Prepare for the future in advance
Schedule prepared material
5) Consistency is a journey
Last thing before closing this post, I have repeatedly mistaken consistency as a goal.
Whenever I missed a day, it felt like I was missing my goal.
Do you have a gym membership? If you missed one day, does that mean you failed?
Going to the gym every day was not the goal. The goal was to stay healthy.
Accepting and developing a “bounce-back” plan is what matters.
🌟 🔍 Parting Thoughts
We talked about how compromising mental health to stay consistent is not the solution. Writing a book, newsletter, and short posts inconsistently taught me a few things. But this applies beyond writing. In just about everything in life.
It’s okay to be inconsistent sometimes
Update your plan that respects flexibility
Balance priorities to match your current load
Decide on a comeback date or adjust expectations
Life is not a sprint
Ask these questions to yourself
“Am I still motivated by the goal?”
“Can this wait for a few months?”
“Am I ready for the consequences?”
Never give up
Understand
Metrics will be messed up, and it will take effort to come back.
Plan
Put an end date to your inconsistency, don’t make it “tomorrow”.
Execute
Pick up where you left it or slightly lower.
Write in batches
Consistency is a journey
What are your thoughts about trying too hard to be consistent?
Share them in the comments!
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👋 💬 Get In Touch
Want to chat? Find me on LinkedIn.
If you want me to cover a particular area of leadership, you can reach out directly to akash@chromium.org.
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I liked that life is not a sprint; we need to find our goals and follow them to achieve them. Don't compare yourself with anyone; compare yourself with the previous day. How much have you done today better than yesterday? comparison kills your success
Really great article! I sometimes have the same problem of pushing myself to complete certain tasks when I am really tired. But taking a break time to time helps me get more focused work. Congratulations on the book launch!