Hey everyone,
For a long time now, I’ve been preaching the concept of consistency.
As in, you must write every day and you must market every day, day after day, every single day.
It’s the “every single day” that leads to massive resistance and gets me the questions.
Do you mean every day, even on the weekends? What about national holidays? Do you really never take a day off, ever? I don’t want to write on my vacation time, do you?
You know, sane and sensible things like that.
And admittedly, I backtrack a bit sometimes, saying well, when I say “every day” what I really mean is “every day that you choose to work.”
But that’s untrue. When I say “every day,” what I really mean is every single day.
The way I work is not for everyone and I also assume that everyone here is an adult and fully capable of understanding that there are times when you should take days off for family or to go on holiday. But I also don’t believe in sugarcoating things. I don’t want to pretend that I get the results I do in ways that are easier than they actually are. I don’t want to pretend that it took less effort than it actually did. I don’t want to tell you that I have achieved what I have working three days a week part-time, when in reality, many of the big things I have achieved have been done so working seven days a week, twelve hours a day, day after day with a child on my lap. (Or, as is the case right now, on the floor building puzzles by my side.)
When I commit to something and say I’m doing it consistently, I’m doing it every single day. I show up on the weekends, when I’m on holiday, whether it’s Diwali or Christmas. I work when everyone else has enjoyed the festivities and gone to bed. I go to the pub or a party, get drunk, come back, pour myself two cups of coffee and get to work when everyone else has passed out even though I’d rather not.
When I’m consistent, I work every single day.
But, and let me now put you at ease, I am not always consistent.
There are many reasons for this. Sometimes it’s just that I’m lazy and procrastinating and avoiding work. This is rare, but it happens. It accept it. I don’t fight my body when it tells me that it needs to stop. I allow myself the luxury for a while, then I get up and get on with it.
Often it’s because I’m indulging in self-care. I make the distinction between balance and self-care. There is no such thing as balance for a driven person. If you’re a high-achiever, you may as well spend your life chasing this mystical belief and it’s never going to materialize. I don’t care about “balance” but I care very much about self-care. I believe in listening to my body and mind and looking after myself. I exercise daily, I eat extremely well, and I spend a lot of time reading, watching movies, and lying on the beach with my son. I don’t do it on a schedule, that is, I don’t necessarily feel the need to take weekends off, but when I’ve been going full-speed for a while and need to take a break, I will—without apology—shut everything down, cancel appointments, and not even look at my computer for however long I need to be away from it.
I don’t believe in balance. I believe in giving it my all, stopping to recharge for as long as I need, then giving it my all again.
The third reason why I’m not consistent is the most important one and essential, I think, for you to know. The final reason I’m not always consistent is because I no longer have to be.
I’ll use freelance writing as an example to illustrate. Here’s the thing: I no longer need to market myself extensively to bring in freelancing work. I turned down two assignments last week and I can get work now with little to no marketing effort. As I wrote last month, I wanted a regular high-paying freelance client after moving to Brighton. It took me about a week of marketing to connect with a few potential clients and then—and this is important—I turned down clients that weren’t offering regular monthly pay and accepted a contract working a few days a month that covers a large chunk of my family’s living expenses.
I don’t market every day now because I can bring in work whenever I need it with a week of consistent effort.
But when I was starting out? I was marketing FIVE TIMES A DAY. Consistently. Every single day. Five times a day. Daily. On the weekends. On the bank holidays. On Diwali and Christmas and New Year’s Day. On my birthday. After a 7-hour flight. Every day. Every single day.
Because back when I started, consistent marketing was everything. It was essential in order to build my career.
I barely need to do marketing anymore for freelance work because I learnt how to do it efficiently and well in the early part of my career. Not only did I do a lot of it, I learnt to do it effectively. And, crucially, I learned to find ways that worked for me.
So of course, I learnt how to write excellent query letters that got me assignments from national magazines. But I also did a whole bunch of other stuff, such as getting on Skype calls with potential clients in the UK and the US (I was in India), contacting agencies, and learning where to put my portfolio online—and how to do it effectively—so that the work could find me.
This is what I did in my career and what I suggest: When you don’t have the clients and the income you want, become a beast with marketing. Learn the strategies, experiment with the different types of marketing, and do a whole lot of it (five marketing efforts a day was my motto).
If you do this consistently for 1-3 months, I can guarantee that the following things will start to happen:
- You will start getting better at marketing and seeing more results.
- You will feel more confident and will attract better clients.
- You will begin to understand your unique skills and identify which marketing strategies (of the dozens available to you) are the right fit, not only for the kind of work you want to do, but for your personality.
Consistency is important for success, and let’s not beat around the bush about that. If you want success with anything, you’re going to have to be consistent with it, at least in the beginning. Once you’re at a certain level though, consistency becomes a matter of choice.
Keep going until it becomes a choice.
Cheers,
Natasha