Tiffany Han [00:00:00]: Raise your hand if you have ever heard the advice. Don't break the chain when it comes to setting and establishing and following through on creative ideas. Hand up. Raise your hand if you have ever heard the advice. Make sure you don't skip more than one day. When it comes to keeping up habits. My hand is still up. And raise your hand if you have ever felt victimized by this advice and actually had this well intentioned advice.

Tiffany Han [00:00:33]: Keep you from following through on something that was important to you because you figured if you break the chain or if you miss more than one day, why bother? Obviously I'm never going to be able to do this. My hand is still up and I bet yours is too. Today we are going to talk about consistency. We're going to talk about everything that all of that advice has gotten wrong about consistency. I'm going to give you new ways to think about consistency for yourself and then some consistency hacks that you can use to follow through on the things that you say you want to do. Will you be doing the thing every day? Honestly? Probably not. Because if you were doing it every day, you wouldn't be here. Instead, what I want to give you today is a whole new perspective on consistency so that you no longer use how many checks are on account or in a tracker to determine how you feel about the progress that you are making with your goals and in your life.

Tiffany Han [00:01:35]: Before I get into what's possible with consistency, I want to talk for a minute about why this, again, very well intentioned advice has steered you wrong. Because if that advice worked for you, you probably wouldn't be here trying to find new ways to approach stepping into the life you want and remaining consistent. When I ask what would make your life easier when it comes to hitting your goals, what would make your life easier when it comes to productivity, what would make your life easier when it comes to being creative and thriving in your life? And over and over people tell me, if only I could figure out how to be consistent. The advice of don't break the chain. The advice of make sure that you don't ever miss more than one day in a row is great for some people. And what I find is the people that it is great for typically are not neurodivergent, probably don't have more interest and things to do than they have available time. Often too, these are people who maybe don't have kids, or they have a partner who's home full time, or they share custody of their kids so they're out the door, or they have a whole lot of other support mechanisms in place that allow them to more easily carve out these boundaries. Now, I'm not saying everybody, because obviously some of us are able to remain beautifully consistent.

Tiffany Han [00:03:07]: I also would suspect that if you think that you are not consistent, you're probably pretty consistent with some things. You just don't value them the way that you value the idea of what some of these more creative endeavors or hitting your goals could get you. For example, I am highly consistent with opening Instagram. Maybe a little too consistent. I'm less consistent with creating and posting content of my own. What would happen if those flip flopped? What would happen if I deprioritize looking at what other people are doing, got myself out of that habit and into the habit of putting my own content up? Things would change for me, I am certain. I suspect maybe if you're watching this, that you are more consistent at seeing other people's creative projects on social media than you are at creating and executing your own. Again, what would change if you flip flopped that priority so much? And it's going to take some deliberate reconfiguration.

Tiffany Han [00:04:19]: So the old advice about consistency, let's just say that's not how my brain works. Let's be willing to say that's not for me and that's okay. That knowing that my brain doesn't work that way is actually a win. We are really good at beating ourselves up for that. We are really good at making ourselves wrong. But instead, I want you to practice grace. Practice giving ourselves grace so that you can find a new way forward. So we understand and we all agree that the way to get the life you want, the way to do the things that you want to do is not to beat yourself up, is not to make yourself wrong for your brain working the way it works.

Tiffany Han [00:05:05]: It's not to have to grit your teeth and white knuckle your way through discipline. You are not going to have to grit your teeth and white knuckle your way into a life that feels good. And so often we think, well, if only I could punish myself enough to do the consistent thing, then my life would feel like freedom. I know it is an easy way to think. That is how the world has trained us to think. And if you could self punish your way into the life you wanted, we would not be here right now having this conversation. It would have already worked. You would have already gotten it.

Tiffany Han [00:05:40]: Case closed. Let's move along. Let's try a different way. Here is what I want to try. Instead of consistency looks like this one way of doing things, or that you never miss a day, or that it's even something that happens so regularly that you could set a clock with it. This is the first mindset shift that you have to embrace about consistency. Your version of consistency does not, should not, and will not look like anybody else's consistency, I have a little visual aid for you. This is my planner for the year.

Tiffany Han [00:06:20]: This is Sterling, Inc. Common planner. In this planner, I have taken one of my monthly spreads and I turned it into a workout tracker for myself, where at the beginning of the year, instead of saying I'm going to do x number of workouts a week, or every other day or Monday through Friday or every day, I've tried all the different permutations. Instead, I said I would like to do 100 strength workouts in the year. That's roughly two per week with a little bit of wiggle room. Listen, in my heart of hearts, I wanted to double that goal, but I didn't. I'm so glad now that I didn't. Even if you have also made a goal of 100 strength workouts this calendar year and you've been tracking, I promise these are not gonna look the same.

Tiffany Han [00:07:13]: So the second mindset shift that I want you to play with is asking yourself, what kind of consistency will work for me? Can I experiment to find out? And also, maybe I am at a point in my life where the consistency that used to work no longer does. None of that is a problem unless we decide that it's a problem. And usually it becomes a problem when you let somebody else's rule about consistency dictate and determine how you feel about the way that you naturally want to move through your life. And part of the reason that these rules are so popular is they're very easy to repeat. They're hard to follow through on unless you're Jerry Seinfeld. And it leaves all of us in this churn of, oh, if only I tried harder, then I could be like Jerry Seinfeld. Well, here is our third mindset shift, is that you can be your own version of whatever that success is by embracing your own version of that consistency. It's not a second place way of doing things.

Tiffany Han [00:08:19]: It's not a subpar way of doing things. It's not a, well, if I have to do it this way, I will. But Jerry's way is the best. No, no, no, no. This is about you saying, oh, right. The way that works for me is actually the best way for me to do something, period. Okay, so consistency hack. Number one, visual reminder part is going to be to make a longer goal for yourself, stretch out the timing so that you have more flexibility.

Tiffany Han [00:08:56]: Part of what we're doing here for creative people, if you are neurodivergent. I have ADHD. Listen, I need me some structure and I also do not ever want to be trapped in a box. And so if you tell me I have to do something every day, I am going to think of 1 million reasons not to. Great, good to know. But if you tell me that I get to do 100 of something within a year, cool. I can do that. Now.

Tiffany Han [00:09:28]: Guess what? In January, I only did eight workouts. In February, I only did five. Wow, that wasn't very consistent of me. February has 28 days and I only did five workouts and I wanted to do two a week. Should I have given up? No. Obviously time says no because we can see that in addition to that eight and that five, I'm now as of the end of July at 60 workouts. Great. Currently I'm working on a goal of three workouts in a week.

Tiffany Han [00:10:04]: And listen, this goal has looked every different way. Sometimes it looks like me doing my three workouts Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and even on that Friday thinking, could I just do two tomorrow? Don't recommend. And because I'm letting it look messy and I'm embracing that chaos. This week I did my workouts Monday, Wednesday, Thursday. What? Hey look, my consistency is changing. Oh, what a brilliant thing. Our next consistency hack is to figure out a way to give yourself routine check ins. We could do a whole series about why we don't like to check in with ourselves.

Tiffany Han [00:10:42]: So many reasons and why we don't create habits out of that. But for the sake of consistency, I want you to think about, is there a way that you could check in with yourself regularly so that you can come back to be reminded of what you want to? If we revisit my goal tracking planner for the year with my strength workouts again in January, I did eight. In February I did five. I did count one that I did at the end of December. Because it's my consistency. I can do what I want. By the end of February, which I should have had 20 or so, I only had 14. Okay, I'm accepting that with no judgment.

Tiffany Han [00:11:21]: But if I had not gotten into the habit of coming back here at the end of every month to tally how many workouts I had done, I may not have been able to recommit to myself. Here's what I need you to know. Every time you recommit to yourself, you are strengthening your resolve to make that thing in your life happen. We are so primed to see the need for recommitment as a failure, when in fact it is such a success. Recognizing that you need to recommit and then actually following through and doing it every single time strengthens your resolve. We have got to stop seeing that as a sign of weakness. It is a sign of being human and having way too many things on your plate than one person could possibly handle. And if you are somebody who has been accustomed to being the flight attendant to the entire world, like so many of us have, and being praised for your whole life, for how lovely you are and what a joy you are, and it's so great how you just handle everything.

Tiffany Han [00:12:25]: Yeah. I wonder why it's so hard to be consistent with our goals when the world's needs are not going to go away. So you recommit as many times as you need to come back to yourself and I will be here cheering you on every single time. Got fired up there. Our next consistency hack. Make it stupid simple. This is a perfect example. There are a million ways that I could be tracking a workout, but instead of finding an app and downloading it and blah, blah blah, I picked a way that for me was extremely simple.

Tiffany Han [00:12:59]: The most challenging part of this whole thing was figuring out how big to make the squares and then actually following through with making them. You might look at this spread in my journal and think, that looks awful. I would hate having to do that. Okay, then you figure out what is stupid simple for you and let it be enough. That's the rest of this hack. Let it be enough. But some other people are doing the things and they have the apps and they have the things. Good for them.

Tiffany Han [00:13:31]: I would rather you do it so simply so that you can follow through and get it done, than over complicate and have this whole process that you can't maintain. If you want consistency, you can always add on later. I promise you can always make something more complicated. If you want consistency and you want a way to track that consistency and celebrate it, make it stupid simple. The other thing to make stupid simple is what you are trying to be consistent with. So if you want to do something like working out, how do you make it a no brainer? How do you reduce that friction between you and what you want? Let's say that you want to be creative every day. You want to do 15 minutes of creativity every day. Great.

Tiffany Han [00:14:14]: Cool. Goal. I love it. Do you need to take a journal and leave it open on your kitchen? Table so that you don't forget to show up to it. ADhd. Hi. I forget everything. Out of sight, out of mind.

Tiffany Han [00:14:29]: So my planner that I use lives open on my desk because if it's closed, I will literally forget to look at it. I've forgotten that I own planners before. Good to know, right? Good to know. Does that mean there's something wrong with me? No, that's just how my brain works. Just how my brain works. It's just how my brain works. And so for me, when I wanted to start exercising and working out and doing these weightlifting workouts, I knew that I needed to hire a trainer. And she gives me workouts on an app and I do them and I know exactly what to do and they are hard and I don't want to and I show up and I do them anyway.

Tiffany Han [00:15:09]: It is stupid simple. I'm privileged enough to be able to pay for this. It's not free. And there are other things one can do. If I wasn't doing this with Ann, I might be doing peloton workouts. Great. Arms, legs, abs. I don't know.

Tiffany Han [00:15:25]: That sounds good. Arms, legs, full body. It doesn't actually matter what you pick. Just pick something. Here's the key. Pick something and decide that it's good enough for now. Am I going to get to a point with my strength building workouts where after two years I want to go to a gym and do like the dumbbells and the big plates and, I don't know, maybe. Let's see.

Tiffany Han [00:15:48]: Here's the thing. I have radical self belief, so I'm trusting that in that moment I will be able to make that decision and know what's best for me. Our next hack for getting your consistency is to create visual reminders of the thing that you want to be consistent at. Okay, me, strength building. I have got my kettlebells live currently in my living room because I'm tired of going down to my basement to work out. I wanted better lighting, so they live there. I see them all the time. And if I have to keep looking at those things and I haven't picked them up in a while, that's going to start feeling annoying.

Tiffany Han [00:16:27]: It's going to feel like they're taunting me. What visual reminders can you create for yourself so that you can remember? Remember, oh, I am a person who works out. I am a person who does these workouts. Next hack. Habit stack. What habit stacking is, is taking something that you're trying to introduce into your life and adding it to something that you already do. My easiest, clearest example of this is I floss my teeth at night, after I wash my face, before I brush my teeth, I do a floss now. I'm just, I've done it for so long, I'm just in the habit.

Tiffany Han [00:16:57]: I just grab the floss and do it. Great. What kind of habit do you want to do? One thing that I, that I thought about as I was prepping for this episode is I want to start doing more push ups. And so I do my push ups on the stairs so they're a little bit elevated. But what do I do every day? Think about, what do you do every day? Every day I go upstairs and tell my daughters good night when they're going to bed. So what if on my way up, I stop and do five push ups? Is that going to work? I don't know. I'm gonna try it. Is it gonna be perfect? Of course not.

Tiffany Han [00:17:27]: Nothing is. Will it be good enough to get me going? Heck yeah. Will any push ups I do be better than zero push ups? Heck yeah. Am I gonna beat myself up if I completely forget that this is even a goal I have? No, it'll be fine. And here's what I'm trusting, is that if it's something that is for me, it will come back. Two more hacks. Second to last hack. You can't become consistent with something until you start.

Tiffany Han [00:17:52]: I know that's super obvious, but how often are we like, oh, if only I was consistent with this, and it's like, we've got one toe in the pool. Give yourself a chance to start. What's your starting place do you need to make that starting place easier? What kind of support do you need? How are you going to be able to check in with yourself? What kind of reminders will you put up? And again, oh, this is so important. We are doing this from a place of love for ourselves, not a place of punishment. Okay, finally, consistency hack. Talk about it and celebrate it. Celebrate that consistency. I can sit here right now and celebrate with you that I am seven and a half years sober because I have an app on my phone that tracks it.

Tiffany Han [00:18:37]: I don't have to do anything except I just had to say the date, but I stopped drinking. I celebrate that. I say it out loud. I share pictures of my workout tracker because every time that I am able to say it out loud and celebrate it and have somebody else acknowledge it, that reinforces to me that I am that person who regularly works out, makes it easier to talk about, makes it easier to come back to. And here's my big secret. Every single one of these boxes is colored in has been its own celebration. That is part of how I celebrated. Yes, I can tell other people, but I have also created these individual celebrations for myself, for the things that I want.

Tiffany Han [00:19:21]: I can create my own positive reinforcement. I don't have to wait for the world to offer it to me in order for something to count. Now, here's what I want you to do next. I want you to pick one thing. One. Just one. I know. You wanted to pick 100 million things to become consistent with.

Tiffany Han [00:19:40]: I know. Pick one thing. Maybe it's flossing your teeth. Maybe it's push ups. Maybe it's picking up heavy things. Maybe it's making art. That is something that I can recommit to, because I bought myself a journal a couple months ago, because I was gonna do daily creative pages, and I've only done one on July 10. Should I just chuck it in the garbage? Should it just go in the garbage? No.

Tiffany Han [00:20:02]: No. This still matters, and I still want it, and it's still valid, and I can return to it whenever I want. So what I want for you. Pick one thing. One thing to practice consistency with and figure out what kind of structure do you want, and where will there be freedom within that structure? Here's something else I know. Have I flossed my teeth every single night for the last five years? No. But I know two things. Number one, my dentist once said, I don't care when you floss your teeth.

Tiffany Han [00:20:30]: I just want you to try to do it every day. So if I don't do it at night, I might do it in the morning. That's okay. Great. And number two, I'm much better off flossing my teeth 300 days in a year than missing one or two days and thinking that it's a lost cause. So where can you build some flexibility into what you want? What is your lengthened out timeline that you're gonna bring into the picture? What visual reminders will you have? How are you gonna make it stupid? Simple. Talk about flossing teeth. I know people who keep those plastic flossers.

Tiffany Han [00:21:06]: Yeah. They're not the best for the environment, but I'm sure that you are a good steward to the environment in so many other ways. I know people who keep those in their car because the only time that they can handle flossing is if they're sitting in traffic. Great. Whatever works, works. Let's not think that it has to look any which way. I would much rather you have floss teeth than not and then let yourself see how it goes. Give yourself great.

Tiffany Han [00:21:32]: Have faith that you can keep going. Recommit and come back to yourself as many times as it takes. Celebrate. Please celebrate with me. If nothing else, I would also love to hear down in the comments what you are excited about bringing consistency into. If you run into any speed bumps, please let me know. Ask any questions you have. You can also dm me over on Instagram.

Tiffany Han [00:21:53]: I'm thetiffanie Hahn. If you like what you hear, make sure that you are subscribed. Please like this if you can. If you're listening on the YouTube, thank you so much for being here. Let me know what else comes up and more soon.