Success is a byproduct of discipline. Foundational to discipline is the practice of persistence and consistency. Persistence will help you attain a goal, but consistency will help you retain what you have attained. With persistence you can get in shape or lose weight, but without consistency you will soon be overweight and out of shape again. Persistence is the key to change and growth, but consistency is the key to maintaining it. Persistence is the key to solving problems, but consistency is the key to preventing them from arising again. Persistence can lead to great moments and great accomplishments, but only consistency can lead to a great life. Persistence can break, change, or create habits, but only consistency can sustain them. With persistent effort businesses are started and may even flourish, but without consistency, many businesses fail within the first five years. Persistence can give birth, but consistency supports life. Persistence can lead to great discoveries, but consistency can lead to lifetimes of change and growth. Persistence is pressing to get to a certain point, but consistency develops a pattern and sets it on repeat. Persistence can lead to courtship and marriage, but only the marriage of persistence and consistency will lead to a lifelong relationship.
Just as the sun may persist in breaking through the clouds and burning away the fog, it is the consistency of the hydrologic cycle that gives us rain for the flowers and the vegetation which sustains our lives. Just as the earth persists in its rotation on its axis to turn day into night, it is its consistent rotation that turns nights into days, and days into weeks, and weeks into years. It is the persistence and consistency of the earth’s rotation around the sun which gives us seasons. Yes, being disciplined for success is about persistence but never without its partner and comrade in arms, consistency.