Consistency

Detoxifying Success

Before we kick off this week’s newsletter, we are introducing our “Rockstars of the week”,  who are amazing people we’re currently working with. 

If you have a hiring need for these individuals, please reach out to rob@zarrellco.com. 

Rockstars of the week!

Denver - Safety Manager - 10 years at one company, worked at Top 15 ENR contractor, CHST, OSHA 500, 510, EM 385

Salt Lake City - Finance Director with 15+ years of experience, worked at a top homebuilder, has MBA and excellent tenure

My wife Sami asked me this morning what we’re going to write about this week. 

I told her “I don’t know…maybe we can skip a week”. 

She said that was fine but we have gotten a lot of really good feedback from people who follow the newsletter, and they might be disappointed. Plus we missed an article a few weeks ago.

I changed my mind immediately and dedicated this week’s newsletter to consistency. 

Consistency is needed if you have a goal in mind. I highly doubt everyone wants to be consistent every day. Especially on days they don’t want to be. I’ve been there many times.

I have three points for you to consider on the consistency topic:

1. You have to be honest and kind to yourself when it comes to consistency with anything. 

2. Throw perfection to the side - continuous effort over the long term gets you better and better. 

3. Have an accountability partner to ensure you stay consistent (spouse, colleagues, etc).

Today is our 1 year “house” anniversary - we closed on our home 365 days ago. Over time, we saved in several different ways, even though we didn’t think we could. We questioned things at times, but the consistency towards our goal ultimately got us there.

The same goes for this newsletter - we’ve been consistent almost every week this year and have almost 1,000 followers. 

If you’re struggling with consistency, start with something today. Then the next day. Then the next week. You can do it. And you don’t have to be perfect. 

Now for Sami!

Sami’s Take

Perfectionism is usually what gets in the way of consistency, not laziness. We tend to judge ourselves harshly when we miss a step, give up on our diet, slide back on our goals, etc. But missing a beat isn’t the problem; how we talk and think about our mistakes and about the quality of what we do is the problem. 

How often have you given something up after trying it and finding out you kinda suck at it? How many times have you talked yourself out of doing something because you didn’t think you could get it right? And how many goals have you dropped because you had a bad day that took you a little off-track? 

Messing up, being bad at something, and getting distracted are all normal. There’s nothing wrong with it. Nothing at all. Why would you be good at something you’ve never done before? Why do you think something has to be perfect to be done at all? Why do you have to follow every single step of a goal every single day or do none of it at all? 

As usual, I blame our culture. We are hard on ourselves and each other and it’s holding a lot of us back.

Make room for mistakes. Make room for bad days. Make room for being bad at something but doing it anyway. Our culture pushes so many ideals of perfectionism on us it’s suffocating, but we don’t have to perpetuate it. We can give ourselves the freedom to be messy, to be wrong, and to make mistakes. When we let up on ourselves we also give ourselves the energy to get back on-track, to improve, to adjust and correct. Those moments of failure make us better at stuff and are how people actually achieve their goals. 

When I first started writing, it was bad. Really bad. And it stayed bad for a while. It slowly got better over time, but I’m sure there’s still someone out there who thinks my writing is awful. That used to haunt me and keep me from writing. But I figured out eventually that I can’t please everyone and I can’t please myself either. Writing isn’t about pleasing anyone. It’s about communicating things that people need to hear; things I need to say. That’s the important part. It doesn't need to come out perfectly to come out and be useful to someone. 

Also, it doesn’t need to be useful to anyone! I needed to get something out and that is plenty good enough of a reason to do it. It’s okay to be our own audience and to not monetize and profit off everything we do. Capitalism has no place in our hobbies and self-expression. We are allowed to exist as humans who are bad at things and have fun being bad at those things. 

So, what goal are you failing miserably at? What hobby do you never let see the light of day? What are you so terrible at, it's hilarious? Show us! I can’t promise we won’t laugh, but I promise we won’t think any less of you…unless it’s really, really weird.

Rob + Sami

ZARRELLCO