Staying Motivated: How to be Consistent in your Practice

Consistency is one of the most challenging parts of any endeavor. In my experience, I've found that consistency is... not consistent. What that means for me is that as much as I try to force myself to be consistent in everything I do, it doesn't always work out as planned. In fact things rarely work out as planned. So, I'd like to chat about all thing consistency. How we can find it, maintain it, and most importantly, how to forgive ourselves when we don't meet our own expectations.

The goal of consistency in most cases is progress and success in your goals. A key aspect of progress to always keep in mind, is that it's not linear. Progress is very much a moving target and functions less like a staircase, and more like waves on the shore. Some days you feel like you're moving forward, taking big strides, while other times feel stagnant, or even like you're moving backwards. It can be so easy in those times to feel discouraged, unmotivated, and burnt out but those are the times you need to be the most kind to yourself. Do some things that make you feel happy. Let yourself be unproductive for a while, and nurture your needs. If you do this well enough and listen to your body and mind, you'll be much more likely to bounce back and ideally you'll start feeling that motivation once again.

So, if progress isn't always moving forward, how do we know we're even getting any better at all? The key to this is looking at the bigger picture, which is why I say it's important to keep track of your skill levels from day one. By tracking our movement once/month for instance, we're eliminating the need to analyze our daily progress and it can prevent us from hyper fixating on one rough day, or even a week that didn't feel quite as productive as the others. Looking at our progress in a broader frame can help us see that while we may at times take some steps forward and some back, the majority of the time, we will still be inching forward.

I like to think of it like getting a puppy. When you first get a little pup, you'll start to notice their growth quite a bit in the first few weeks and months, but at a certain point, you likely won't see it as much until someone else points out "wow this little pup is growing up so fast". The same concept applies in your singing practice. At first, you might notice a lot of progress that just comes with regular practice, but eventually you will likely start to plateau, meaning your progress will slow down. These are the times when it's most important to keep pushing through, and not get caught up on the little things.

To summarize all these thoughts into one note, the key to consistency is to listen to your mind and body, be flexible, look at the bigger picture, and to not get caught up in little setbacks. Always keep your faith and be kind to yourself. I'm sure you are doing much better than you think!