Woody Allen once quipped, “80% of success comes from just showing up”.consistency-success

And one of my favourite sayings is, “Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.  After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water”.

Put another way, success usually comes from doing the day to day, often mundane tasks.  Tasks that others give up on, sadly often just before the breakthrough comes.

Marketing your business falls into this category.

All too often people undertake bursts of activity, then nothing.  Not realising that this is generally just a waste of time and money.

Success comes from being consistent and showing reliability.  Often less is more, if you’re consistent.

Take this newsletter you’re reading.

“I don’t know how you do it, Rashid”. It’s something I hear regularly about our articles at business functions from people like you who are on our newsletter list.

“I admire your regularity and consistency. Do you write all the articles yourself? Where do you find the time and how do you come up with topics?”

My answer is always the same.

Yes, we write all the material. Sometimes it’s easy and it just flows. Other times it’s like pulling teeth. I’m simply not in the mood. I get frustrated and spit the dummy going, “I don’t feel like writing anything.”

I often smile and say, “I write and Barbara pulls it apart.” It’s yin and yang. In those cases I grit my teeth and rewrite it. It’s always better for it.

So what’s my point?

There will always be times when you’re in the flow and everything seems easy. Then inevitably the wheel will turn and each step will seem like agony.

If the activity is critical to your business success, you must keep going no matter how you feel at that particular moment.

Talk to almost any well-known author and they’ll tell you they write X number of words a day, rain hail or shine. They may well throw it away, (as I sometimes do), but write they will.

Which takes a disciplined mindset.

Discipline is like a muscle. You have to exercise it. Then it grows. It’s easy to slack off and say, “I’ll miss it today, and then you find yourself missing it the next day and soon enough…

So I don’t know what’s important that you do consistently in your business, but whatever it is develop a mindset that you must do it no matter what. Anything else is ultimately cheating yourself of success.

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