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About Matters that should Matter to Men
Let's talk about consistency today. Now the average modern gentleman can do many things. He can bench press his body weight. He can quote in Python. He can quote Epictetus when he's mildly inconvenienced.
Arvind Vijay Mohan:And yet for the love of God, he can't seem to meditate for six and a half minutes daily or drink 4.1 liters of water like a responsible adult. And that brings to my mind the word that I just mentioned, consistency. The word that haunts many a gentleman, much like their gym memberships do after the February 23 every single year. Now in light of the fact that I've attempted to meditate in the Himalayas, I've journaled in Positano, and I've also managed to eat clean and Chandni Chowk. Let me assure you, consistency is not elusive.
Arvind Vijay Mohan:It's just simply inconvenient, and that is why we men avoid it. Every man you see wants to be disciplined, but only if it comes accompanied by this hearty shot of dopamine. We gentlemen romanticize the outcome, but yet will ridicule the process. We want those washboard abs, sure, but not the repetition it involves. We want the wisdom but not the reading.
Arvind Vijay Mohan:We want the calm but not the silence. Men will often confuse intensity with consistency. We will often start a new habit like it's the latest Netflix limited series. We'll binge hard and then three nights later lose interest completely and a week down the line forget that it ever even existed. There's always life or work to blame.
Arvind Vijay Mohan:Right? Now we gladly optimize our calendar, but we won't do the same for our character. You see, consistency demands something most of us men mostly load. An honest confrontation with ourselves. To begin with, let's face a very simple fact.
Arvind Vijay Mohan:Inconsistency is seductive, and consistency is not sexy. Consistency isn't this brilliant cinematic montage of greatness. It's actually the quiet repetitive slog of mastery. I, for the longest time, believed, and I seriously believed that I could be the greatest out there if only I had a few more hours in every day, if I had lesser calls, fewer emails, nicer weather, no gluten, more summers in Crete, and a pack of it was all a pack of lies quite honestly. Lazy lies at that.
Arvind Vijay Mohan:Except for the part about gluten and most definitely the part about Crete. And then somewhere along the line, the truth found me. We men don't lack motivation. We just simply lack the rules. So what was the fix I found?
Arvind Vijay Mohan:I found a few. The first was to shrink the ambition while growing the habit. When starting off, don't attempt to write the odyssey. Aim to start with a page a day, and that's it. If you can do this every day, day upon day, you'll realize that Rome is closer than you realize.
Arvind Vijay Mohan:The second is to choose ritual over motivation. You see a habit doesn't care much about the why. It just does because that's what it's always done. So make this your constant. The third was to personalize it to the person you are in the present at this moment.
Arvind Vijay Mohan:Remember you are not Elon. You do not need a hyperbaric chamber in your single bed flat in Bengaluru. You have to make do with what you have and make the best of it. The fourth is to give your mood a serious whack on the side if it messes with your habit. I don't feel like it is not a fact.
Arvind Vijay Mohan:It's a passing cloud and you're the sky. Show up anyway. The fifth is to link yourself to your effort and not the outcome, which is what we very often do. You don't want to be that chap, you know that sorry sap who had a flair for writing. Become the chap who writes.
Arvind Vijay Mohan:Surely on some day, sure, but he writes every single day because it is that daily page that is going to make you the master of your kingdom. The sixth is to make your failure extremely expensive. For starters tell your friends about your goal. If you flake, you're going to pay for all the boys to take a trip to Vegas. Okay, fine.
Arvind Vijay Mohan:Dinner. Now being ridiculed by your circle can be a really powerful motivator. Take it from me. Though even better, footing the bill that includes that bottomless champagne offer at Olive Bar and Kitchen. Now that hurts.
Arvind Vijay Mohan:These sexy six are the one I have used and they should kick that consistency into gear and inconsistency out of the window. Ultimately, consistency is not about doing more. It's about doing less, but doing it more often. Muscles you see gentlemen don't grow from intensity. They grow from repetition.
Arvind Vijay Mohan:So lift, log, learn, repeat, get some rest and then start that process all over again. Just repeat and repeat till you finally make it. All the best gentlemen.