Skylar: I won’t laugh until you’re done.
Dan: You won’t laugh until I’m done? Okay. I’m recording with an audience of here. This is day two, and the reflection, or the thought of the day, is the power of consistency. On Saturday I was listening to Jeff Goins podcast, he calls it “The Portfolio Life”. He’s talking about, “If you write just a few words everyday, a hundred words, two hundred and fifty words, or three hundred words everyday that overtime you’ll end up producing, not only more content but a greater quality of content. As opposed to, if you just spend three to five hours writing as much as you can whatever you can think of every Saturday, you’ll just end up with more content, more and better content.”
Today, I was home. We were having some work done on our house and I was talking to an inspector and having general conversation. I’m finally at a point in my life where I’m making enough money that I can afford to pay somebody else to do the work on my house instead of having to fix it myself. He asked me what I did, I said, “Well I’m a marriage counselor.” “Oh cool, any one sentence advice?” I said, “Date night. Have a consistent date night.” Saying that partly because tonight was the once in a blue moon that Skylar and I could get out for a date night. We haven’t had very consistent date nights. Then the contractor was just coming up the stairs at the same time and he heard me say that, and he said, “Oh, so that’s why my wife and I have made it eleven years.” He thought that was pretty funny.
At our dinner tonight, Skylar and I were discussing different stuff and where we’re at with some of the things that have gone on for us, and there was a contrast. I’ve been in a very consistent bible study with pretty much the same group of guys for, at least, the last six years and I think maybe even the last nine years. Kind of fuzzy when I started going to that bible study, but it’s the same group of guys. We meet every Thursday morning at 6:30 unless it’s Thanksgiving, or Christmas. I think we’ve met on New Years one year. We’re very, very consistent.
Consistency is one huge thing. That discipleship … The way that I’ve been disciple and mentored by that group of guys, it’s been huge, been a huge blessing. We noticed that there’s not a women’s group at our church that has been as consistent, so the discipleship that my wife has received is lower over time. She’s got some pretty deep relationships with some really awesome people, but the total amount of discipleship is less because there’s lower consistency.
Tonight as we’re driving home from picking up our daughter and our son from the in-laws, we’re doing bedtime prayers which is one of the very few consistent things in my life that has, at least, survived recently. Our bedtime prayer routine is really really simple. “Keaton, what are you thankful for today?” Sawyer’s not quite old enough to participate, doesn’t talk yet. “What are you thankful for today? What did you learn today? Who did you help today?” That’s something … When did we start that, about a year ago babe?
Skylar: Maybe two years ago.
Dan: Maybe two years ago? Okay. We started that a while ago and it’s very important to Keaton. She will throw a fit or cry if we don’t do bedtime prayers, and of course I don’t have a problem with that because that’s something I want to pass on. It’s part of passing on my faith. Four things, talking about consistency and how that makes a difference in our lives over time. We produce more over time. We’re more poured into over time by things being consistent. That begs the question, well how would you build more consistency in your life?
A little while ago, I wrote about how to form and hold new habits. The things that I thought of then were: Start with something small. Start with a set of things that are sequential, they go in order. Make sure that each thing that you add is sustainable. You don’t add something that you can’t sustain for the long haul. If you want to do something really big, it has to be scalable. You can’t just be able to do it one time, you have to be able to do it ten times or a hundred times over the long haul.
That’s about consistency. How to build consistency, and as far as the change in format going from writing to video, this is a little bit of practicing what I preach. I’ve been telling a lot of people who struggle with writing to start with video, just talk on a video, transcribe it. I’m practicing what I preach doing that, and then also just because of the recent loss of my brother. This is easier for me. I can get in the space to record a video for five, or ten minutes as opposed to trying to sit down and write an article length piece of content. If you like this, let me know and thank you for your comments and your support.
