Consistency over brilliance

How repeated small efforts – and the promises we keep to ourselves – become our most important work.

Jun 20, 2025

In January 2022, I made a quiet decision.

It wasn’t loud or dramatic – there was no grand announcement. Just me, my laptop, and a commitment I’d put off long enough: I was finally going to start a newsletter.

I’d talked about it before. I had a modest list of contacts and more ideas than execution. I hadn’t been writing consistently, and part of me wondered if I could really stick to it. But that day, I decided: the thing that mattered wasn’t whether I had the perfect strategy or the perfect writing voice. It was whether I would keep showing up. Whether I would follow through – for myself.

So I made a promise. I would publish – no matter what. I started fortnightly, then shifted to weekly around 18 months later. And with only a couple of exceptions, I’ve kept to that rhythm. I’ve written through busy weeks, tired weeks, inspired weeks, and flat weeks. Some posts have landed well. Some have been “fine” (if you write regularly, you’ll know what I mean 👀). But each time, I hit publish. Each time, I honoured that commitment.

And here’s the thing I’ve learnt: every time I follow through on a promise I’ve made to myself – especially the ones no one else is checking up on – I build something. Not just an archive of newsletters, or a habit, or a readership. I build trust in myself. Quietly, steadily, I strengthen that internal belief: I can do the thing I said I’d do.

And that belief – that trust – is the foundation for everything else.

This newsletter today marks my 100th, which has kind of crept up on me. But it isn’t just a marker of quantity. It’s an invitation to reflect on what consistency really means. Why it’s hard. Why it matters. And how we can start building it – not for show, but for ourselves.

We get consistency wrong – and that gets in the way

For a word that sounds so straightforward, consistency gets wildly misunderstood. We load it up with expectations, misconceptions, and a fair bit of self-judgement. And ironically, it's often these myths – not the actual work of being consistent – that stop us from sustaining anything meaningful.

If you’ve ever set out with good intentions, only to burn out, drift off, or talk yourself out of it, you’re not alone. We tend to aim for a version of consistency that’s so rigid or so idealised that it’s impossible to sustain. Then we conclude we’ve failed – when in reality, we’ve just been sold the wrong version of success.

So before we talk about how to build consistency, let’s clear out some of the myths that quietly sabotage it.

Myth 1: Consistency means rigidity

We often assume that consistency means doing the same thing, in the same way, at the same time – every single time. But life just doesn’t work like that. Things shift. We shift. And when we try to force a rigid routine onto a dynamic reality, we end up burnt out or frustrated.

When I first started writing this newsletter, it looked very different to what it is now. The structure has shifted. The length varies. Sometimes there are headings, sometimes not. The tone has evolved too. You probably wouldn’t recognise the early versions from January 2022. But that doesn’t mean I’ve been inconsistent – it means I’ve allowed the format to grow with me. Flexibility within commitment is what’s made this sustainable.

Myth 2: Consistency is always easy and effortless

There’s a version of consistency we like to believe in – where the ideas just flow, the motivation never dips, and the rhythm settles in without resistance. But that’s not how it works. Consistency isn’t easy. It takes commitment. It takes follow-through, especially when you don’t feel like it.

There have been weeks – plenty of them – where I’ve stared at a blank screen with absolutely no idea what to write. Earlier on, this was more frequent. Now, with a book behind me and AI to support my thinking, it happens less – but it still happens. Some weeks the ideas flow. Other weeks it’s a slog. That doesn’t make me less consistent. It makes me human.

Myth 3: Consistency guarantees success

This one’s tempting. If I just show up enough, if I just keep doing the thing, the results will come. And while consistency does matter – it matters enormously – it’s not a magic formula. Strategy, timing, and luck play their part too.

If I’m honest, when I first started this newsletter, I wasn’t entirely sure what I wanted it to do. Was it about building an audience? Clarifying my thinking? Opening up opportunities? The truth is: it’s been a bit of all of those. But consistency alone hasn’t handed me a magic outcome, it’s created a platform I can build from. The next 100 issues might need a clearer strategy. But without the first 100, I wouldn’t even be in the conversation.

Myth 4: Consistency means doing the same thing, even when it’s not working

Sometimes we confuse persistence with stubbornness. We stick with the same method, long past the point it’s serving us, because we think that’s what it means to be consistent. But real consistency includes evolution. It includes paying attention to whether something is actually working.

At the beginning, I had a rigid format – a structure I followed every time. It gave me a useful starting point, until it didn’t. Over time, it started to box me in. I felt frustrated and creatively stuck. The solution wasn’t to stop, it was to change. I gave myself permission to write differently, to find a rhythm that felt more natural. That’s still consistent – just in a way that works.

Myth 5: Consistency is the same for everyone

There’s no single template. What counts as consistent for me might be completely unworkable for you, and vice versa. The measure isn’t how often you do something or how closely it mirrors someone else’s version. It’s whether you’re doing what you said you would, in a way that fits your context.

For some people, writing weekly would be overwhelming. For others, it’s not enough. Some people write daily, some monthly. The point isn’t to hit someone else’s cadence – it’s to find one that’s sustainable for you, in whatever you’re doing. Hopefully, my newsletter doesn’t look or sound like anyone else’s. And that’s the whole point. It reflects the way I think, the way I work, and what I want to offer. That’s what consistency should do – not conform, but connect.

Image is titled SHOWING UP DAILY. And shows two rows of 9 circles. The top row has text saying, “What we think it means”, and each of the circles is coloured in completely green. The second row has the text, “what it actually means”, and the nine circles are coloured into different levels, some are full, some nearly full, some are half, and some have hardly any green. — @**coach.cathal**

So how do we build consistency – really?

Once we stop chasing the wrong ideas about consistency, we can start to build it in a way that actually works. At its core, consistency isn’t about being perfect – it’s about showing up and doing our best with what we’ve got.

Some days, that best will look sharp and insightful. Some days, it’ll be a bit muddled or rushed. But if we keep showing up, it adds up. The discipline isn’t in always being brilliant – it’s in coming back.

There’s a quote from James Clear I come back to often: “Never miss twice.” You’ll miss a day, a week, a post. That’s fine. The key is not letting one miss become a pattern. That’s the difference between a momentary slip and a slow fade. The goal isn’t perfection – it’s recovery.

Here are a few ways to think about building consistency in practice.

Start with sustainable habits

Consistency that burns out after three weeks isn’t really consistency – it’s a sprint. So start small. Really small. Think less about what sounds impressive, and more about what you’ll actually do, reliably.

Find a rhythm that works for you. That means paying attention to when you have energy, what your natural patterns are, and how to make the behaviour easier to repeat. Set up your environment to support your success – whether that’s a standing calendar reminder, a dedicated time slot, or a low-friction tool you actually enjoy using.

And don’t underestimate structure or accountability. You don’t need an audience of thousands. Sometimes just knowing that one person will notice – even if it’s just future-you – can make the difference.

Show up for yourself

One of the most powerful shifts I made in my coaching work – and in my own practice – was realising that I always kept promises to other people, but not always to myself.

If I told a client, a friend, a colleague I would deliver something – I would. No question. But when the only person affected by a broken promise was me, I was far more likely to let it slide. Somehow, I’d decided my own commitments were negotiable. That my word to myself mattered less.

That realisation was uncomfortable, but also freeing. Because once I saw it, I could change it. I could choose to value my word to myself just as much. And from there, everything else started to shift. It became less about “motivation” and more about integrity. When I said I’d do something, I did it – even when it was inconvenient, or imperfect, or late at night on a Thursday. (And I’ve definitely written a few newsletters up to (or even after) my usual Friday lunchtime deadline.)

This isn’t about being inflexible or punishing ourselves. It’s about deciding that our own goals, our own intentions, are worth following through on. That we’re as deserving of reliability and follow-through as anyone else.

Because when we treat our commitments to ourselves as seriously as we treat our commitments to others, we build the kind of trust that lasts. We prove – over time – that we can rely on ourselves. And from there, we start to move differently. We get braver. Clearer. More grounded.

Not because we’re exceptional, but because we kept showing up.

What would change for you if you could build consistency in a particular endeavour? Are you willing to make that promise to yourself?

The next 100 newsletters

Well, you heard it here first. Here’s my commitment out loud to you all! You can check in on this in mid 2027 🤣

And my commitment isn’t just to write for the sake of writing, but to make a difference. To provide value, to support each of you in your leadership journeys, wherever you may be in that process.

Some of you are kind enough to message me sometimes to thank me for these, for which I want to thank you. At times it can feel as if things disappear into the void, and the occasional kind word, or mention of how much you enjoyed a particular edition, is always gratefully received.

As part of the next phase of growth of this Substack I’ve decided to experiment with introducing a paid subscription option. For now, it is completely optional. As in, you will all still receive all of my posts, there won’t be anything paywalled off.

And it is an opportunity, if you enjoy these, to say thanks via a small subscription that’s about the same as the price of one coffee a month.☕

The link to subscribe is here:

I also have some plans afoot for additional benefits for paid subscribers, so watch this space!