Consistency Vs Intensity
If you’re trying to create positive change in your life, you have to take action.
Simple enough.
But as you may realize, or have been told by social media or self-help, taking action alone is not enough.
You have to take consistent action.
As Aristotle said, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit”
Any personal trainer, writer, doctor, or entrepreneur will tell you the same thing: It’s what you do most of the time that matters over what you do some of the time.
Consistency is what makes a difference.
Which surely is true.
As the cliche goes, you don’t gain weight from eating one burger, and you don’t lose weight from eating one salad (annoying, I know 😖).
To reverse engineer consistency, people often set their sights on what stops them from being consistent (a tactic I use with clients to this day).
So, what is the biggest enemy of consistency? If you ask social media, the answer that comes up most is “intensity.”
Imagine you are driving a solar battery-powered car.
Going slow and steady, you will drain the battery, but at a slow enough pace that the sun refills it as fast as the energy is depleted.
Going like this, you can drive across the entire United States without an issue.
That’s consistency.
Intensity is like slamming on the gas pedal (side note: do we need a new name for this in the age of EVs?), revving the engine to blast off as fast as possible.
You go with a lot of force and speed, but since you’re burning through energy faster than it can be replenished, you’re destined to run out of fuel and be on the side of the road sooner rather than later.
To highlight this point, look no further than the near infinite infographics on websites like X and Instagram that illustrate this concept, such as:
this,
this,
or this
So clearly, it’s settled: in the battle of “consistency vs intensity,” consistency wins! Case closed! 👨🏼⚖️
And to be fair, I’d be inclined to agree. I’ve made plenty of posts, blogs, and podcasts espousing exactly this point. It’s true, except for when it’s not.
WHEN INTENSITY WINS
I recently had Jonothan Goodman, author of “The Obvious Choice," (the most recent of a dozen books he’s written in his career), entrepreneur, father, and much more, on the Change Made Easy Podcast. (Listen here)
While speaking about consistency, he pushed back against my assertion that consistency is one of the most important ingredients in the recipe for success and offered an interesting contrarian view.
Jon agreed with me that consistency is important, sure. However, he pointed out that people can often get stuck in the trap of “consistent mediocrity” (his concept, my term).
Lots of people are consistent with half-assing a lot of stuff.
They then check the box of “consistency,” but don’t make progress towards their goals because they are consistently coming short of what it takes to move the needle.
His point was that for some things, it is intensity that moves the needle, NOT consistency.
To illustrate this point, Jon used the example of writing a book, a task he has surely earned the title of “expert” at.
As he explained, if you look up “how to write a book,” you’ll undoubtedly come across advice like
“just write 500 words a day. That will take 30 minutes a day. Do that every day for 6 months, and you’ll have a 50,000 word book.
In that way, the consistent small inputs would add up to a completed book in no time!”
Jon went on:
“The issue is, ‘Just write for 30 minutes a day’ is minimizing the reality of the task. When you sit down to write, you have to remind yourself what you wrote before, reading through what already came, re-familiarizing yourself with everything. This alone takes 30 minutes, so when does the writing get done?”
So how do you write a book?
Jon says in short bursts of intense work.
Jon said “It’s fine to try to write a little every day, but when I really want to get a book done, I lock myself in a room for 4 days, no family, no responsibilities, no distractions, I live like a degenerate, I don’t shower, I barely sleep, I lock-in, and I get it done.”
At this point, I was nodding my head so hard it nearly fell off my shoulders. This has surely been my experience as I try to write my own book.
Every time I try to write little by little, I forget where I was the day before, it takes me more time to get into “writing mode” than it does to write. I end up just writing in circles
I have the first chapter and introduction of my book written about 40 times over, and not much more than that.
So is consistency the answer?
Or is it intensity?
When working at Harbor Fitness from 2012-2022 in Brooklyn, I’d always see a similar cast of characters. I had my personal training clients, but I also saw the gym “regulars.”
The people who were there like clockwork.
Some of whom would, at some point in time, express frustration to me.
They’d say “I don’t get it, I’m coming in, I’m doing the work, I’m being consistent. Why am I not getting the results?”
Which to me, was evident: They were too far on the “consistency” side of the scale, and not enough “intensity.”
These people were often coming in doing the same thing in the gym they had for months, if not years. They were doing the same workout, the same weight routine, the same hour on the elliptical, five miles on the treadmill, whatever it was.
Their bodies had adapted to the novel stimulus.
So, for them, was the answer more consistency? Probably not.
They needed intensity.
And this is what the conversation with Jon reminded me.
So often we want a simple “either/or” answer.
We want neat little buckets.
Is it consistency OR intensity? Tell me which to choose, and I’ll do it!
When the reality is, it’s always both, and sometimes neither. It’s the middle ground, the grey area.
Which do you need?
Whichever you are lacking.
Consistency IS important.
As I told Jon in our conversation, you can’t score if you aren’t in the game. Consistency means showing up, and if you aren’t showing up, then game over.
However, simply showing up is not enough. You can hear cliches like “showing up is half the battle,” which is true, but that doesn’t mean you can forget the other half.
Short bouts of concentrated intensity are imperative for big goals.
Going back to the gym goers frustrated with their lack of progress; if they were just looking to be healthier than if they weren’t exercising at all, then showing up and doing the same workouts for years would achieve that.
However, if they (as most people do) had goals of changing their appearance, or achieving other specific strength or fitness goals, then being endlessly consistent at low intensity won’t get there.
I use the analogy often on my podcast that intensity is like rocket-fuel. It burns hot, but it burns out just as fast.
Consistency is like an ember; it burns low and slow and can go forever.
If you’re trying to slow-cook a can of beans over a campfire, maybe that’s enough.
But if you want to change the world, or just yourself, then you need a combination of both.
Really well written. Thanks for doing this Paul.