01: What My 60-Day Challenge Taught Me About Consistency
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Kiara Walker
Welcome to the new website!
If you've been following along on Instagram, then you know I've been posting content called The 1:1 Memo—one insight and one invitation at a time
—for several months now.
This May, I completed a self-prescribed 60-day challenge to post a new Memo regularly and to learn how I want to go about writing for those who need encouragement.
The result?
I enjoyed myself. Yes, it was scary at times, but I found the experience to be very fulfilling. It also felt rewarding to read in DMs that something I wrote was the exact thing people needed to hear. And although I looked for simple ways to improve the quality of The 1:1 Memo by employing some good social media habits to reach more people, that wasn't the focus of my challenge.
I enjoyed myself. Yes, it was scary at times, but I found the experience to be very fulfilling. It also felt rewarding to read in DMs that something I wrote was the exact thing people needed to hear. And although I looked for simple ways to improve the quality of The 1:1 Memo by employing some good social media habits to reach more people, that wasn't the focus of my challenge.
The outcome, increased post views and clarity about Memo content, felt like a small victory, but the biggest win was discovering what consistency means for me.
When I first started the challenge, I assumed that consistency meant posting day after day in consecutive order. But a month and a half in in, my life was busier and busier as the days got warmer and as my Wildwood project ramped up. There was endless work to do. Visitors came in from out of town. I had to get myself to the gym regularly because I already paid for the membership. There were anniversaries, holidays, birthdays, and nights that I meant to post, but completely missed because I fell asleep on the couch before I could do anything else.
So I wasn't perfect
—and I am so grateful for that because it taught me the most important lesson I gained from the challenge.
At some I realized that the challenge was to post 60 days of content. It was not about doing everything perfectly, even posting consecutively in order, even if I told myself in the beginning that's what it was about.
Giving myself grace, I found a consistency framework I could actually operate in, one that works for me.
The biggest win for me was that I eventually completed the challenge. I just didn't complete it the way I thought I should, including, a couple weeks late. And, that's okay. I learned what I need to be more consistent as an individual, a creative person, a person with a full life.
So, if you're reading this and you find being consistent a challenge in of itself, maybe you're forcing yourself into a system that doesn't work for you?
Perhaps ask yourself, "What does consistency mean to me? What does it look like, within the context of my project, goal, family, lifestyle...?"
And in order to be consistent and complete a goal, you will have a system. The question is, whether that system is actually working.
The system should be built around the inherent needs the proverbial you (your team, family, etc.) has. It should work for you, not against you. The system shouldn't result in you comparing your losses to someone else's victories because you adopted a generic process that was never meant for you. And the system should not enable you to be inconsistent. Even if it requires some tears, you should be able to rise to the occasion
— otherwise that's an inherent system failure.
So, consistency can look like whatever it needs to as long as it keeps you going forward towards achieving your goal, or at least gets you to the next step. But consistency doesn't mean that you have to be perfect, it just means that you show up when you're supposed to. We can talk about excellence another time.
If there's something you're looking to accomplish and you're finding it difficult to be consistent, consider taking some time to challenge yourself and find a process that allows you to move forward in your goal. I'd love to hear what you discovered.
Talk soon,
Kiara Walker
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