- The single most important factor for success in any type of endeavor is consistency. It’s absolutely key. But here’s the thing, this consistency doesn’t have to be all that dramatic! If you start by having one small routine that becomes a daily habit, such as doing a 5-minute mobility session or reading 5 pages a day on a topic you love, you’re on your way to drastically improving that endeavor. Think about how that habit adds up over the course of a year – you clocked in over 30 hours of mobility work or read six 300-page books. This habit can be tailored to anything in life – whether it be your diet, your workouts, your studying, anything! It’s the small, seemingly insignificant individual habits that are performed day-in and day-out that shape you into the person you are, for better or for worse.
- Now let’s look deeper into where you would be a year into this habit. You’re now 30 hours more mobile and its effects begin to seep into other areas, such as in your exercise program where you now have that dorsiflexion needed to stay stable on a heavy overhead squat, or simply through injury prevention where you avoided spraining your ankle after tripping over a curb. Or you’re now 6 books more knowledgeable on a subject you love, able to understand topics and utilize concepts and information you wouldn’t have thought of previously and having conversations with people you wouldn’t have had otherwise.
- It becomes evident that this small consistency doesn’t just affect us in a linear fashion, but in a compounded one, in a way that exceeds the scope of the original endeavor itself. The creation of this habit or these habits is entirely within our hands and it’s never too late to start up a new good one or rid an old bad one. Choose your habits wisely. Like the famous phrase “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then is not an act, but a habit” – Will Durant’s summary of Aristotle. So, focus on starting that one small habit in an area in your life you want to improve on, trust the process and stay consistent, and watch the benefits unfold!
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Written by Dr. Brandon Buchla, DC, CSCS
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