Consistency is a great characteristic to build in your life and implement in business to help achieve even greater success. To get started figure out how you want to be more consistent and practice with small goals to begin with. Over time as you become more consistent, you will automatically be more motivated and have an improved sense of accountability.
To develop consistency in life and in business, you must decide that firstly that this is an important value to you. Secondly, start making a list and prioritize what you want to be more consistent about. Don’t set yourself up to fail by making promises to yourself that you can’t keep, keep it realistic and achievable.
When a person is consistent, they follow through on promises, commitments and appointments. It then becomes the tendency to do this on most occasions. Consistency when managing a team will generate greater respect, as staff know where they stand. When it comes to quality of work and providing excellent customer service, consistency is a must with your clientele.
Consistency in Business:
- Create realistic, simple and specific goals. Become very clear on what you are aiming to achieve. Once you have identified your goal, break it down into smaller steps to help achieve your goal and stay on track.
- Create a schedule for yourself, as this will help you plan your days, so you get everything done on time. A plan also helps you to see what your total commitments are. Allocate realistic amounts of time for all your business tasks. For larger, more long-term goals set small, daily tasks, that your can do to work towards this goal. Remember to plan for downtime and breaks.
- Place reminders around your workspace, as sometimes it is easy to forget new goals and habits, commitments and promises when we make them to ourselves.
- Consistency often involves making commitments and keeping them. When running a salon, it is very easy to get overwhelmed if you make too many promises. If you think a request is too difficult, remember it is ok to say ‘no’. This includes making promises to yourself.
- Reward yourself when you accomplish goals, no matter how small. Give yourself a reward! To help keep yourself motivated, recognise that even small goals deserve to be acknowledged. As salon owner or manager, it is part of your job to keep your team motivated. However, you also have to keep yourself highly motivated.
- Start again, keep going if you make a mistake. Plan for potential failure, and don’t be too hard on yourself when. Consistency is effort, not perfection. In fact, plan for setbacks – that’s life. The key to consistency is to pick yourself up and keep going.
- Take time off to recharge your batteries. Consistency does not mean you have to be at work non-stop. In fact, it is the reverse. By giving yourself time off, you avoid burnout and productivity improves. In your diary schedule in time for yourself and refuse to let work or other people’s demands get in your way of your precious downtime.
- Use accountability and motivational tools to keep going even when you don’t feel like it. For example, when you are tired or stressed, it can be so easy to let your important goals slide, causing you to go completely off track. Therefore, you have to find ways to stay motivated. Maybe, remind yourself of your long-term goals. When you are faced with a difficult day, learn to compromise with yourself instead.
- Accountability is vital! To be more consistent and disciplined, you have to be honest with yourself, recognising when you don’t reach the standards and goals that you have set. Reconsider if your goals are realistic and decide how best to improve. If possible, ask a colleague or friend to be your accountability partner. And, maybe you could do the same for them? Check in with one another weekly. If they see you dropping your consistency levels, give them permission to call you out. And, vice versa.
- Give yourself time to see changes. New habits take time. It generally takes at least 21 days doing something for it to become a new habit. Don’t tackle too much, start with small steps and build your way up.
- Set boundaries for your commitments and relationships. Boundaries make it easier to implement commitments because you then have a specific limit in which to function. Before taking on new tasks, establish what you are willing and able to do, as well as what you know you realistically cannot do.
- Build your willpower, because consistency tends to lean towards performing even when you don’t feel like it. Avoid temptation if possible. Take care of yourself, as exhaustion and burn out are the enemies of consistency.
- Practice positive thinking and work towards eliminating negative thinking as much as possible. When you think negatively you are making yourself less likely to be able to hold on to your new consistent actions.
Positive thinking brings inner peace, success, improved relationships, better health, happiness and satisfaction. It also helps the daily affairs of life move more smoothly, and makes life look bright and promising.
When you learn how to think positively, you gain the key to changing and improving your life. It is easier to keep a positive frame of mind when things go well. It’s tougher to do so when in the midst of problems, difficulties or obstacles. In such times you will need more effort, attention and patience. It you learn how to think positively when not under pressure, stress or strain, it will be easier to do so when things are tough.
Don’t ever beat yourself up when you don’t hit the mark. What matters is that you keep working towards your personal and salon goals, and consistency will follow.
