Consistency is Uncommon, But It’s a Shortcut to Success

“When you can do the common things of life in an uncommon way, you will command the attention of the world.” – George Washington Carver, Born Jan. 10, 1864.

One of the simplest secrets of success at I know is to do just do the simple things well. Unfortunately, that is uncommon.

Show up every day. Write every day. Publish every day. Make an offer every day. Interact with your audience every day. Plan a little every day. Follow up a little every day. Or at a bare minimum, do one or two of these each day. You'll be amazed at where you get in just a year.

Notice that you don't really have to deliver miracles, or even excellence. All it takes is consistency. Consistency only requires discipline. Discipline just means that you show up and do the work even if you aren't motivated or inspired.

And it's that consistency that is an uncommon thing. Being there. All the time. With fresh value. Even just a teeny tiny shred of value works, so long as you provide it consistently and without fail.

If you're a service provider, over-communicate and hit deadlines early. Even if your work isn't the best of the best, being reliable and making their lives easy will take you so far you won't believe it. Otherwise, you're creating stress for them over your lack of discipline and that's not a good experience.

If you're a product creator, deliver the core value and usefulness and applicability of your stuff – do it often and be there to provide help and support in your community. You'll discover that slickness and constant new-ness aren't required.

And if you make informational products, don't go for gimmicks or tricks or over-polish. Focus on foundational, universal, eternal wisdom type stuff. Sure, maybe people have heard it before if they've been around a minute… But go deeper. Provide insight and new perspectives to that “basic” stuff and people will devour it and make it the new classic.

All of these strategies take the pressure off of you to invent and create and innovate – you still CAN do that. But you can do it inside a service or product business that makes a healthy living and gets great testimonials by simply doing the basic things uncommonly well.