Be Consistent

Hey team! All right, so here we are on Wednesday, and it’s already May. Can you believe it?

I have a quote from a gentleman named Jeremy Bentham: “The rarest of all human qualities is consistency.” Being consistent. I’ve read a number of leadership books, and in all reality, that comes back over and over. You don’t have to be the best at something, but you just need to be consistent.

As a matter of fact, many employers, including us at Northwest Enforcement, are looking for that consistency. Are you dependable? Will you show up on a consistent basis? Will you provide your best on a consistent basis? Are you going to make mistakes? Sure. Are you going to fall short some days? Yes. Are you going to get sick? Absolutely. Are you going to be tired? For sure. But can you remain consistent even through all of that? Can you be reliable? Can you continue to show up every day, day in and day out? It’s that consistency that gets us to the end.

It reminds me of the tortoise and the hare story I read with my little boys. The tortoise wins the race simply because he remained consistent and he just kept moving. He’s not the fastest, but he was consistent. He didn’t stop; he continued to keep going. Sometimes in life, we have a setback and we give up. We just let go and say, “Well, life is over.” But it’s not over—it’s not really actually over. So remain consistent, pick yourself up if you’re falling down, get up, and keep moving.

I know I’ve shared how my son learned to ride a bike. We worked on it last summer, and we worked on it again just recently. Now he’s out there, and it only took a minute or two, but he is consistently getting faster and better and more capable. It’s a beautiful thing to watch my son stand up, be able to get started all by himself, and start daring and doing little tricks on his bike.

But it’s that consistent practice and consistent movement towards that thing, not fearing or shying away, that makes the difference. He’s fallen off his bike a couple of times all by himself, but he comes in, grabs his own band-aid, puts it on, and says, “I skinned my knee,” or “I skinned my hand.” And I’m like, “Are you going to be okay?” “Oh yeah, I’m fine, Dad. Where are you going?” “I’m going back out to ride my bike,” because he’s consistent. He’s no longer afraid of the things that are scary.

So what are you excited about today? Whether it be work or other things at home—in your marriage, your parenting relationship with your children—be consistent. Many times, what Karen wants from me is not an answer. She does want answers from me sometimes, but she’s not always looking for me to provide her with advice or answers to her problems. She wants me to listen, and she wants me to be consistently there for her when she needs me. If I’m consistent in that way, that’s a great thing.

My boys are the same way. They’re not always looking for me to answer them or feed them knowledge and information. Sometimes I maybe overdo that. They just want to know that I’m there. Am I going to be there every night? Am I going to be there consistently? We do a little thing in the morning we call “555,” where we spend five minutes reading scripture, five minutes praying, and five minutes listening to a worship song or something. It’s neat to see my boys expecting to do that because they understand the consistency of the importance that we have put on that thing.

They consistently goof around at night before bedtime, but we’re working on a different consistency there. More importantly, they are consistent about the fact that at the end of the night, we read a little devotional and we talk, share, hug, give kisses, and go to sleep. If I don’t go in and give David a hug, he’s telling his mom or he’ll come into my room and say, “Dad, you didn’t come and give me a hug,” because he’s used to that consistency.

The rarest of all human qualities is consistency. So be consistent. Be rare. In a world that is just covered with people that cannot consistently do the same thing over and over and over. Be consistent. Be that person. You will be someone that everybody will strive to want to be around, hire, and be friends with. Be consistent. Be friendly, be caring. And be guided by those principles. Be consistent. Be that rare quality in our human existence.

All right, on this Wednesday, God bless you guys. Have a wonderful rest of your week, and I will talk to you next week.