It’s time to befriend Mundanity and Consistency
It’s time to befriend Mundanity and Consistency
Do you have a project in mind that you want to start? In this blog, we’ve already established that it’s important and fun to go for the things you love. People are quick to tell you that once you start, you’ve succeeded in the hardest part — the beginning.
Congratulations! Now come closer and let me stick that shiny star on your forehead, you winner.
Not exactly.
Everyone who’s ever started something in life — and I believe you’re one of them — knows this isn’t true.
Honestly, beginning something can be as easy as buying a domain, creating a new IG account, or announcing your new business to your loved ones. It takes seconds and quite literally zero effort. I’m not saying it’s not a crucial step. In fact, I believe that first tiny step you take for yourself holds a lot of symbolic value and is designed to get you all quirky and excited. So don’t take this the wrong way — it is exciting, and I encourage all of us to go through these emotions every so often until we die.
But listen, in the beginning, everything that somehow sparks your interest is exciting. Whether that’s a person (not the focus of today’s topic, but God knows we’ve all been there), a new job, a major at your university of choice, or that seemingly easy social media career you’re exposed to virtually every day at this point.
You may have heard the saying, “Find what you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life.”
It implies that there’s this one thing in life that fulfills us to our core without a single downside — magically freeing us from every bad day and filling us with absolute, uninterrupted joy until the end of time.
See the issue yet?
Look, I’m all for positivity and optimism, but we need to draw the line somewhere. First of all, it implies that if you ever feel like shit, unmotivated, or question your newest little passion project, you haven’t found the one thing that’s meant for you. I cannot begin to stress how misleading this is.
Secondly, if you know me, you know I’m a firm believer in the law of attraction, manifestation, and all the fun stuff that surrounds those topics. That being said, I also think life is here to challenge us. We all have to face difficulties and choose our battles. After all, those are the ones that really finesse that diamond we aspire to become.
Everyone can smile when the sun is shining, all bills are paid, and you’re having a good hair day. The true challenge is deliberately working on your attitude, your beliefs, and your thoughts when things don’t go your way.
And that’s where consistency enters the chat.
Consistency is a handful. She’s needy, hard to please, and she makes us suffer — but she also gives us the greatest joys of all, if we decide to stick around. If consistency were a person, she’d rank high on the crazy/sexy chart: absolutely annoying but addictive at the same time. We all secretly want her, but a lot of us don’t have the mental capacity to handle her.
There’s another element to her, though, that doesn’t get enough attention in my opinion. Spoiler alert: it’s in the title.
I could hype this up all day, but many of you would still decide not to smash Mundanity. I can see why — it’s unattractive and dull. But guess what? It’s the main ingredient of consistency. It’s the equivalent of that water percentage in a cucumber — inconspicuous yet essential.
While we sometimes romanticize the idea of being this consistent Übermensch who shows up for themselves every day, we shouldn’t forget what that actually entails.
Although most of us will probably never take part in the Olympics, we’ve all heard stories of professional athletes who take these two elements to the extreme. One of the most famous examples is Michael Phelps.
This guy collected gold medals like they were glass coasters from IKEA. I’m not exaggerating — you can Google his career achievements. When asked about his training regimen, Phelps revealed that over the span of five to six years, he never missed a single training day.
Eh, please pause for a second and entertain that thought. Not a single casual Sunday, no vacation days, no “I don’t feel like it today” — for years.
In an interview, Phelps once said:
“If you look at the greats of any walk of life, the greats do things when they don’t always want to — and that’s the separation.”
There’s no doubt that this man’s mental strength is rock solid. At that skill level, his improvements — if any — come in milliseconds.
Imagine coming home after yet another long day of swimming and telling yourself, “You know what? Today was a good day. I was two milliseconds faster than yesterday.” And he has every right to feel proud of that.
The good news is that for most of us, this extreme level of consistency isn’t required — unless, of course, we want to push ourselves to become the best in our chosen field.
The bad news is that we’ll still get a taste of it if we ever want to make it in any area of our lives.
In today’s world, mundanity has become so awfully unsexy that most of us can’t handle the mere thought of it. All we see are these seemingly instant wins left and right. Name any social media app — sure, the subject may change, but the drill is always the same: look at me and my overnight success.
Please don’t buy into this. If someone with a proven track record tells you it took them months or even years to get where they are today, believe them.
Unlike that Candy Crush algorithm that rewards your brain with dopamine often enough to hook you forever, the same small wins we crave in real life may take months to show up. Success takes time — and it’s not linear. It never is.
This period between when you start and when you see that first little glimpse of “maybe it’s not for nothing after all” is almost exclusively filled with days that require you to push through and see the bigger picture.
As the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once said:
“To live is to suffer; to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.”
It sounds a bit gloomy, but if you think about it, our friend had a point. After all, the bumpier and longer the road, the bigger the win.
We need to fall in love with the process and understand that the path to success requires a lot of consistency — that is, showing up for yourself when no one’s watching and no one’s here to cheer for you.
I’ve come to believe that true success doesn’t lie in the end product but in the road that leads you there. After all, people won’t ask Michael Phelps how to swim — they’ll ask how he set up his training routine and how he managed to push through the bad days to reach his goals.
In the words of my favorite Pilates instructor, Nicole McPherson: “If it hurts, you’re doing it right!” Shoutout to you, girl — absolutely love your classes.
So, let’s set ourselves up for success, rekindle that love with our sexy muse and her cucumber, and fall in love with the process again.
And no matter what you see out here, know that you’re on track — and if you decide to show up for yourself today, I see you, and I’m cheering for you, bestie.
