Why Consistency Feels So Hard at the Beginning

Consistency without immediate reward. This is the tough part of learning, growing, or jumping to a new identity.

It feels awkward to begin, slow to progress, and suddenly...

Doubt creeps in.

Am I doing the right thing?
Am I capable?
What will the future look like?

Then, you're up against your next great adversary: Rest Day. This requires patience in a different form, a sort of detachment from the thing you haven't yet become a part of.

Trail running is a brutal sport and one that's perfect for giving this abstract concept some solidity.

If you're a beginner, the first time you run, every step feels awkward and exhausting. You can't maintain a running pace for more than a few steps. You're panting. Why are there so many rocks on the trail? As the body begins to say 'this is impossible', mental fatigue starts plaguing the mind. Running gives you energy, they say. No way.

You follow a plan for a week, and enjoy your hard-earned rest day. Gratitude for having made it rivals the doubt that it will ever work out for you. The day after rest day definitely feels like a second one, like the first cookie definitely tastes like two.

However...

A few weeks later, something begins to happen. You've stayed consistent. You go out for today's run. Your legs have some extra spring, and your mind jumps ahead on the trail. Your feet follow, perfectly navigating the minefield of rocks and roots crowding your path. The small hill that looked huge last week appears a little smaller today. You're breathing is lighter and you're actually... maybe... kind of... enjoying yourself.

These changes are so small that you think, 'Maybe I'm just imagining it'.

These small, subjective wins turn into performance soon after. This reward, the delayed reward of true consistency, only arrives after your trial period. After you had countless opportunities to talk yourself out of running, or pursuing whatever it is you want to pursue. This is purgatory.

Consistency like this seeps into the other parts of your life. This is why they say 'the way you do one thing is the way you do everything'. The more you prove to yourself that you can grow, learn, and maintain your integrity by having your own back, the more you will display this confidence in all areas.

When you're just starting out, know you will get the reward, but give yourself time. Understand that it is coming, but you have to rise up to meet it. You need to be patient, you need to be consistent, to make it to the tipping point. To the other side of purgatory.

In the mean time, enjoy that middle part, while your lungs are burning and you feel like you have two left feet, in a twisted sort of way. It defines who you are.