Discipline and consistency redefined

Everyone talks about discipline and consistency to become successful and achieve everything in life. I have also tried to follow the bandwagon but lately life has given me a lot of time to self-reflect and that has me question how I perceive discipline and consistency in my life.

Very early on in life I was taught to become disciplined and follow a routine, right from my tutoring to dancing, tennis and school. However, my relationship with discipline and consistency has evolved. Over the years my definition and reaction to these words have also evolved.

Initially, I associated discipline with hustle. I thought that having long to-do list, lots of work to do, running behind dreams, etc was discipline and consistency. However, when I did that during Covid, I burnt myself out totally within a year. And then when I came to the UK, got global perspectives, met people with diverse backgrounds, it expanded my mind and perspective towards discipline and consistency.

Today I don’t associate discipline and consistency with hustle but rather to showing up in whatever capacity possible every single day, honoring my needs, body and mental wellbeing. Now my definition of discipline is to consistently show up and work towards my goals, even if it means only 10 minutes a day (on some low days). And my definition of consistency now is to live up to what I promise myself. If I say I am going to do x today, I will do it, even if it is imperfect and not up to what I expected. This also includes taking enough rest time and giving myself some moments of comfort and saving my energy to push myself outside my comfort zone at least once a day.

Now I do not plan my day and beat myself up for not being able to do everything in the plan perfectly. I instead recalibrate and change my plan so it is aligned to my energy that day or week. As a woman, my period cycle impacts how much energy I have in a week to be productive. For example, when I have my periods, I am very low on energy and so my plan is to work on my goals such as studying for exams, preparing content, etc for say 15 minutes instead of 30 minutes in that day. I give myself time to disconnect from my work and study in order to rejuvenate. I reward myself with good food, candles, etc when I show up.

This mindset shift is no rocket science. Many have preached this approach for years but truly adopting it has helped me  achieve way more than I anticipated and has shifted my perspective from associating discipline with hard work, effort and negativity to something I look forward to, something that motivates me and something that helps me become a version I truly love and envision.

This is not limited to personal life. Even finance and markets work on the exact same mindset of discipline and consistency which grows your money and generates returns for you. It does not have to be big sums of money, a small £10 a week or month put in savings account or some investment scheme compounds to a larger figure eventually, slowly and gradually if you are consistent and disciplined in maintaining the consistency.

Everything I have written is nothing new. All of us know this but then question yourself on what your blocks are, why has all your knowledge not seen your action? It is the mindset! Even I have been the culprit of bad financial decisions (my family is witness to this) but now that I am shifting my mindset and working on my relationship with concepts of money, discipline and consistency, I can see progress in my finances and so can you. It is not massive initially but it truly compounds eventually.

The backbone of all of this is patience which is the true KEY to success and true wealth building.

This piece is not technical nor innovative. It is a mere reiteration and reminder for all of us to be disciplined and consistent to achieve literally any and every life goal including financial goals!

I hope this gives you a push to work towards your goals and helps you take a positive lens to discipline and consistency.

Disclaimer: This is for educational purposes only and is not investment or financial advice.