When Consistency Doesn't Cut It
+ A cool new Freebie
Happy Thursday, and welcome to the 27th Edition of the Thrive Protocol Letter.
Today at a glance:
A short reminder of the potentially deceiving nature of everyone’s favorite self-improvement hack: “consistency”
“It’s not 10,000 hours. It’s 10,000 iterations.” — Naval Ravikant
And, for those interested, the new prep vlog on YouTube at 13 days out.
It features some philosophical pondering on why I’m bothering to do this (since it’s getting quite hard), a physique update (little disappointing, to be fully honest) and a full day of eating at a frankly sad amount of calories.
When I was in Grade 12, the high school I attended hired a young teacher to teach band and some music classes.
His job could be tough — he was a bit of a shy “band nerd,” and my friends and I could be, well — assholes (at times).
We were particularly rowdy during the “World Beat” class: imagine trying to handle a bunch of 17-year-old jerks with hand drums…
But to his credit, Mr. Cho did a great job, and he imparted a tremendously valuable lesson to me that helped me through music college and has served as an important reminder in other aspects of life.
Practice doesn’t make perfect.
Perfect practice makes perfect.
The worst thing a young musician can do is practice something wrong diligently for hours.
They’ll just drill the incorrect technique into their muscle memory, making it far more difficult to correct for the right approach when they learn about the mistake.
This is relevant to self-improvement in general.
Modern self-improvement is obsessed with consistency.
Play the long game.
Head down and do the work.
Focus on the process, not the results.
All good principles to some degree.
But consistency isn’t enough.
Too much focus on brute force consistency can turn you into the musician who’s practicing something wrong.
You’re so focused on the discipline — the fact that you’re showing up — you miss that you’re working on the wrong thing or approaching something in an inefficient way (or whatever the problem might be).
It’s not 10,000 hours. It’s 10,000 iterations.
Success in any endeavour requires consistency, but it also requires feedback, reflection, considered iteration, and deep focus.
The danger of consistency is when you deceive yourself by slacking in the other aspects, but pat yourself on the back for your consistency.
Some people work for years without moving up in their careers.
Some people go to the gym for years without ever making any gains.
I’ve had to be brutally honest about my own gym progress over the past few years and the fact that I haven’t made the progress (particularly with strength) that I feel I should have.
I’ve been incredibly consistent with fitness since I started training just about 6 years ago.
So, what’s been my issue?
A combination of shiny object syndrome and some other issues that I’ve discussed in more detail here:
Consistency is necessary but not sufficient.
It only works when it’s combined with a smart strategy, a process for feedback and reflection, iteration, and a deep commitment to focus and effort.
On its own, consistency is overrated.
The worst-case scenario isn’t benign — consistency can be dangerous.
It can be a tool for self-deception.
You can deceive yourself for a long time into thinking you’re better off than you are if you focus too much on consistency without the other key pieces.
Practicing incorrectly is worse than not practicing at all.
Hope that proves to be a useful insight for someone out there.
Content I’ve Been Enjoying
I’ve been reading (or listening via Audible) Behave by Robert Sapolsky.
It’s fascinating, I’m not even half-way through and have learned a ton about the brain and hormones. It’s been making my cardio sessions very useful.
New Freebie:
I’m working on some new freebies to give out, and I wanted to share this with current readers: The current iteration of “The Fast Food Bible.”
Here’s the scoop:
I make a personalized menu for every client I work for. I ask someone for their 5 favorite restaurants, and I send them a menu (assuming I can find it online) consisting of different options from each that have the most protein and fewest calories.
I’ve been seeing some of the same fast food restaurants come up, so I’ve started adding the usual suspects into what I’m calling “The Fast Food Bible” — a quick reference doc that contains ordering options that have < 1000 calories and a decent amount of protein at common fast food restaurants.
While 1000 calories may sound like a lot, most people who are able to eat at least 2000 per day can do well with ~1000 calories allocated for dinner. And it’s easy to go waaaay over this when eating fast food.
Point is, this is useful.
Check it out if that interests you:
I’ll see you next week -
-Colin “Perfect Practice Makes Perfect” Matson
