How to Be Consistent When You Can't Be Consistent: Part I

Consistently showing up in your business is the difference between making and breaking your business...but what happens when you can't show up consistently? Maybe it's because of time, motivation, your mindset, health...

But whatever the reason, the question becomes, How can you show up consistently in your business even when you can't show up consistently in your business?

Seems fake, right?

In this episode, I talk about my own journey with consistency, how I worked on the issues that were keeping me from being consistent (in my case, motivation, mindset, and mental health), and, ultimately, how I worked on those issues without making my business wait for me to get my crap together.

 Hello and welcome to the Client Attractor Show, where we talk about concrete tactics and strategies that you can use to attract your dream clients. I'm your host, Jacob Ratliff, client attraction coach, and author of the brand new book Client Attractor. If you've not gotten your copy yet, you can order that today at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or clientattractorbook.com. 

In today's episode, we are going to be talking about consistency. We all know that consistency is really key to showing up in your business every day. Consistently showing up is the difference between making and breaking your business, but what happens if you're struggling with that consistency? Well, the truth is that not showing up consistently is really going to negatively impact your business. If you're not putting out content regularly, you're not regularly connecting with prospective clients, and you're not regularly getting on those discovery calls or strategy sessions with your qualified prospects—if you aren't consistently doing those three things—well, you're not going to get new clients, and your business is not going to move forward in the way that it perhaps needs to. 

The reality is that life is life, and life happens, and there are a lot of things that can really get in the way of that consistency. Some of the most common ones I see are time—you just don't have enough time to do everything you need to do every day in order to get your business thriving. The other is mindset—you're not in the right mindset, or your head isn't “on straight,” which is preventing you from showing up consistently in the way you need to. Maybe part of that is motivation, and that's before we even start to mention all the other things that can come up, whether it's your physical and emotional health, family crises—especially if you're a parent. There are so many things that can come between us and consistency, and at the same time, consistency is still so, so important. We absolutely need it, even though all these things are getting in the way of it. 

In this episode, I am going to be talking about my own journey and relationship with consistency in my business. Then, in the next episode that's going to come out tomorrow, I'm going to talk about some of the concrete things that I did in order to continue to be consistent without necessarily having to show up every day. It was about two years ago that I was really, really struggling with my consistency. It had a lot to do with my mindset, my motivation, and really my mental and emotional health. I was in a spot where I was overcome by my anxiety and depression, and I've been dealing with those things since I was 12 years old, but I was in a spot where they were really, really affecting my ability to show up every day and do the things I knew I needed to do to push my business forward. I knew without a doubt that not being consistent was literally shooting myself in the foot and keeping things from moving in the direction that I wanted them to be moving. 

The solution, I figured, was to address those mindset issues, those motivation issues, those mental health issues, and that once I had addressed those, then the consistency would come because I would be in a much better mental and emotional place. On paper, that actually looks like a really good plan, and it makes perfect sense. The problem there is actually around the timeline; it’s that addressing your mindset issues, your motivational issues, and the whole of your mental and emotional health is not something you can do in a week, or six weeks, or even 52 weeks. It is a lifelong process and a lifelong journey, which means that there's never going to be a point at which things are fixed and I will be able to say, “Okay, now that everything is fixed, now I can focus on my business.” 

Of course, I didn't actually realize that until I had already started taking more and more time away from work to focus on my healing, with this idea that “In two or three weeks, I'm going to be ready to jump back in, full force.” Now, taking that time, taking those two or three weeks was really important, and it was a really important space for healing, but it did not fix everything. Even when I came back from that break with a newfound sense of clarity and relief, I still struggled with that consistency piece. It wasn't until several months later that I had a realization or a revelation of sorts, which is that in running my business, I have my limitations with my mindset and motivation. Yes, I should be really, really intentional about addressing those and working on them, and at the same time, I still need to be moving forward with my business in light of those limitations. 

I need to be working around them while I'm still working on them, so that I can keep moving forward in my business without making my business wait for me to get my stuff together. I began thinking through that a little bit more, and as I journaled and reflected on that idea, I realized that if I could find a way to be consistent that was only 75% as effective as it would be for me to actually show up and “do the things” every single day, it would be absolutely worth it. Even if it's only 75% more effective, I wasn't doing the thing that was 100% effective in the first place because I was not being consistent with it. 

Let me clarify exactly what I mean by that: It is much more effective to do something that is 75% effective and have it be done 100% of the time than it is to do something that is 100% effective and do that only zero or 5% of the time. That became my big question that I knew I needed to answer: What is going to be 75% effective in my business but can happen 100% of the time, whether I'm showing up or not, whether I'm feeling motivated, or whether I'm having a good or a bad mental health day? 

The main takeaway from today's episode is that it is indeed possible to have that consistency without having to show up every single day, and the extent to which you can do that certainly does vary based on how established you are in your business, and how well you can make it work. But it is indeed possible, no matter what level you're currently at. In tomorrow's episode, what we're going to do is talk through some of the concrete things that I have actually done in order to create this consistency that does not depend on Jacob showing up and grinding and hustling every single day. 

As always, thank you so much for joining me for today's episode of the Client Attractor Show. I'm your host, Jacob Ratliff, and I look forward to seeing you tomorrow for our next episode. Take care.