How to Find Consistency in Life

Co-authored by Michelle Shahbazyan, MS, MA

Last Updated: June 3, 2020 References

Life situations are often complicated and erratic. One day you might feel sure that everything is perfect, and the next you might question every decision you've ever made. If you want to find consistency in life, you need to be consistent in your methods, habits and ways of thinking. Finding consistency can help you persevere through hard times and periods of personal doubt. It starts with building a more stable, consistent way of living for yourself, and extends outwards into other areas of your life.

Part 1

Part 1 of 3:

Developing Habits For a Consistent Life

1
Commit to change. The first step to making any transformation in your life is to commit to change. Making a conscious, willful declaration to yourself that you will stick it out and pursue your desired outcome can help keep you motivated and push you to achieve that goal. In this case, you should be committing to living a more consistent, stable life.^{[1]
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- Think about the reasons why you want a more consistent life. Are you seeking consistency for yourself, your family, or for some entirely different reason?
- Whatever your reason for seeking consistency, use it to help keep you motivated. Any time you start to doubt yourself or question your efforts, think about how much better your life (or your family's life) will be.
- Reassure yourself that you can do it, and that the results will be worth your efforts.
2
Avoid chaos. Some people become addicted to chaos, which can be just as damaging as addictions to drugs or alcohol. These individuals crave what some call the reliably unpredictable - meaning that inconsistency is the only constant in that person's life.^{[2]
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Research source} While it's good to pull yourself out of ruts by spicing things up in your life once in a while, chaos in any form is very unstable and is not very sustainable for long periods of time.
- Chaos can take many forms. It may involve erratic behavior, mood swings, or being absorbed in other people's problems (often as a way of avoiding your own).
- If you find yourself experiencing a lot of chaos in your life, step back and think about the ways in which you might be inviting or even pursuing that chaos.
- Try to step away from other people's chaos. That doesn't necessarily mean cutting those individuals out of your life, it simply means resisting the urge to get involved in the turmoil and drama around you.
- It's impossible to have real consistency in your life if you keep courting chaos. Just as you resolved to find consistency, you must also resolve to resist chaos going forward.
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3
Find a sense of purpose. Having a purpose does not necessarily mean having goals. People with purposeful lives often have clearly-defined goals that they work towards, but having goals does not inherently make a life purposeful. Developing realistic goals based on your interests and your values/beliefs may help you figure out your life's purpose and get you started in transforming your life.^{[3]
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- Part of finding your purpose may require you to define your own values, interests, and goals in life. For instance, you might ask yourself how you want to give back to society, then use that as a starting point for the path you want to follow^{[4]
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  Michelle Shahbazyan, MS, MA
  Life Coach
  Expert Interview. 22 April 2020.}.
- Having a purpose in life usually helps an individual develop consistent patterns of behavior in his day-to-day life.
- Pushing yourself out of your comfort zone to explore things that interest you is a good way to find your purpose.^{[5]
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- Let your values and beliefs guide you as you figure out what your life can become and what you can accomplish.
- You don't necessarily need to have everything figured out. All it takes is an interest in what your purpose is and a single act of exploration to get you started.^{[6]
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4
Live a consistently healthy lifestyle. Consistency in life extends to your daily habits and routines. Living an unhealthy lifestyle is an invitation for inconsistency and chaos. One of the best ways to make your life more stable and consistent is to start with how you actually live your live on a day-to-day basis. In addition, when you get your body moving, it can usually help your mind get moving, too.^{[7]
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Michelle Shahbazyan, MS, MA
Life Coach
Expert Interview. 22 April 2020.}
- Make physical activity a part of your everyday life.
- Eat at regular intervals, and follow a balanced diet.
- Avoid smoking, or quit if you're currently a smoker.
- Resist extreme binges, both in eating habits and with alcohol.
- Make sure you get enough rest each night.
5
Practice meditation. Some of the biggest challenges to consistency involve anxiety and mental/emotional turmoil. Meditation has been shown to help calm an anxious mind and restore a sense of balance to your inner self. With practice, meditation can also help you become more aware of yourself, your thoughts/feelings, and your environment.^{[8]
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Mayo Clinic
Educational website from one of the world's leading hospitals
Go to source} Most types of meditation focus on relaxed breathing, and should be practiced on a regular (perhaps daily) schedule.^{[9]
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Mayo Clinic
Educational website from one of the world's leading hospitals
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- Find a peaceful, quiet place.
- Sit down in a comfortable position. If you prefer, you can also meditate while lying flat on your back.
- Reduce distractions. Silence your cellphone or turn it off altogether.
- Close your eyes (if you're comfortable doing so). If you're worried you'll fall asleep, you can simply focus your gaze at a spot on the floor just in front of you.
- Breathe slowly and deeply through your nostrils, feeling the sensation of air passing through your nose.
- Make sure you are breathing deep into your diaphragm (below your rib cage, in your belly area). If you're only breathing into your chest, your breath is too shallow.
- Any time a thought enters your mind or something distracts you, simply return your focus to the repetition of your breath. Keep breathing slowly and deeply, in and out through the nostrils.
6
Engage in mindfulness. Mindfulness is a type of meditation. It can help you be more conscious of your thoughts, feelings, and actions. When you live a more mindful life, it's easier to be consistent in your habits of thought and action.^{[10]
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Mayo Clinic
Educational website from one of the world's leading hospitals
Go to source}
- Pay attention to the tiny details all around you. This may start with your own actions (the way you reach for your toothbrush in the morning, the thoughts that cross your mind during your commute) and extend outward.
- Try to see everything in a new light, with "fresh" eyes. Look for details in your everyday world that have previously gone unnoticed.
- Immerse yourself in your senses. Pay attention to what you see, smell, hear, taste, feel, and think.
- When you eat something, take the time to notice the way your food smells, the way it looks (color, texture, shape, etc), and as you take each bite, chew slowly to savor the complex tastes.
- As you eat food, think about how much went into that food item's production. It started with sunlight and water to make it grow, a farmer's labor in harvesting it, and a truck driver and grocer's efforts to bring that food to your neighborhood.
7
Get into a consistent sleep pattern. Sleep is how your body heals and rejuvenates itself. It's very important to get enough sleep and to ensure that the sleep you get is quality rest. The best way to ensure a good night's rest is to get into a consistent sleep pattern and stick with it day after day.^{[11]
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- Follow the same sleep schedule, even on weekends. Go to bed at the same time every night and wake up at the same time every morning.
- Develop a bedtime ritual that helps you relax. It may involve meditation, reading, or even exercise (though some people find it hard to sleep after working out).
- Keep your room at a consistently cool temperature. Somewhere between 60 and 67 degrees Fahrenheit (15.5 to 19.4 degrees Celsius) is the optimal range for sleeping.
- Make sure you're getting enough sleep. Most adults need between 7 to 9 hours of sleep at night, though some may need as much as 10 hours each night.^{[12]
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8
Stick with it. It may go without saying that you need consistency in order to be consistent. However, the fact of the matter is that you simply won't be able to find consistency in your life without commitment and without habit formation. These things can take time, so don't be frustrated if you're still forcing yourself to do these things without it feeling natural yet. Be patient, and don't give up.^{[13]
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- Some research suggests that it takes 21 days to cement a new habit into your routine. Other researchers suggest it can take up to 66 days for a new habit to become consistent in your life.
- In order for you to change your life and make it more consistent, you need to maintain a constant drive to pursue consistency.
- Don't give up. Finding consistency can give your life more stability, more satisfaction, and ultimately more happiness.

Part 2

Part 2 of 3:

Building More Stable Relationships

1
Focus on healthy relationships. Healthy relationships tend to bring stability to your life. A healthy relationship is important for your sense of wellbeing and your sense of identity, whether it's a friendship or a romantic relationship. Finding ways to make your relationships more stable and healthy can bring an overall sense of satisfaction and consistency to your life.^{[14]
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- Be respectful of one another at all times. You can joke and tease, but your teasing shouldn't be hurtful or serious.
- Show respect in the way you treat one another, including the way you speak to one another.
- Try to trust one another. If you have a hard time with trust, remind yourself that this person is not someone who has hurt you in the past, and it's unfair to treat him/her as such.
- Support one another in all of your endeavors.
- Be honest at all times. Never lie, cheat, or deceive one another, or you'll have no foundation for trust.
- Share responsibility for the relationship or friendship. Be accountable for your own actions, and make sure both people contribute equally to making time together.
- Be willing to compromise or negotiate in order to resolve disputes.
2
Develop rituals with your friends/partner. Rituals are the little habits of familiarity you share with another person. These may seem like minor things, but they can be quite helpful in building a stronger relationship between you and your romantic partner or your friends.^{[15]
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- Rituals are very important, as they can help you bond with your friends or your partner on an emotional level.
- Rituals can help you build a stronger connection based on familiarity and intimacy.
- You don't have to have grand, sweeping gestures to turn into rituals. The best and most intimate rituals between partners or friends are the little things - the way you greet one another, the inside jokes you tell, and so on.
- A ritual doesn't have to be forced. There are probably little things you do all the time without recognizing them as a sort of ritual between you, and being more aware of it as a ritual can help strengthen your bond.
3
Communicate with one another. Communication is key if you want to develop stability and consistency in your relationships with others. It's important to make time to have one-on-one communication with one another, but it's also important to always be open and honest, even if your interactions are brief at times (like when you're leaving for work, for example).^{[16]
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- Remember to communicate about the healthy boundaries in your relationship. It's important to take care of yourself, rather than pouring your energy into being a people-pleaser.^{[17]
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  Michelle Shahbazyan, MS, MA
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  Expert Interview. 22 April 2020.}
- Strong communication is the foundation of any healthy friendship or romantic relationship.
- Communication can help build consistency and stability. When you're able to talk to one another about your fears, insecurities, hopes, and dreams, you develop a strong bond, and those conversations become routine.
- Speak up about things that upset you or make you feel insecure as they arise (when the time is right). Don't bottle things up, or you'll grow to resent one another.
- You should be able to talk to one another about anything. Try to help one another feel comfortable enough to communicate openly and honestly at all times.
4
Repair fractured relationships/friendships. It's important to maintain friendships that are important to you. If an otherwise meaningful friendship/relationship is strained by something petty or easy to solve, then it may be worth setting aside your differences and focusing on the friendship/relationship.^{[18]
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- If you and a friend tend to fight about something petty, try just avoiding the fight by siding with your friend. If you have fundamentally incompatible beliefs, it may be more complicated than that, but if you fight over something like whose turn it is to do the dishes, offer to just do them.
- If you and a friend stopped talking over a meaningless dispute, call or text that friend and apologize. Ask if he or she would be willing to get coffee together and catch up.
- Recognize that not all friendships/relationships are healthy and worth keeping. The ones that are, though, may need to be nurtured a bit more.
- If you and a friend or partner do not have the measures of a healthy relationship outlined above, it may be an abusive relationship. If that is the case, you would be better off without that individual in your life at this time.

Part 3

Part 3 of 3:

Finding Consistency at Work

1
Balance your work life and personal life. Separating your work life and your home/personal life can be challenging. However, if you don't work to keep these facets of your life separate, there's a risk that you may become overworked and needlessly stressed. That kind of complication can dramatically affect your ability to have a stable, satisfying life in either realm, at home or at work.^{[19]
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- Don't obsess over work. It's important to be driven and career-focused, but don't spend all your waking hours at home planning for or stressing about the next work day.
- Try to adjust the way you spend your time. If work is emotionally or physically draining, find something you enjoy that you can do everyday after work (or even before work).
- Choose healthy and productive ways to spend your downtime outside of work. Instead of drinking alcohol, for example, try going jogging or riding a bicycle to relieve stress.
- Develop a hobby or take up a cause in your free time that will give your life a greater sense of purpose.
- Make sure you live a healthy life at home. That includes regular exercise, healthy eating, and adequate sleep.
2
Be punctual and consistent. If you want to have a consistent work life, you need to be consistent from the moment you arrive until the time you head home after your shift. This begins with arriving to work prepared and on time, which is important for productivity and for ensuring that you do not risk losing your job.^{[20]
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- Identify the factors that might make you late. Is it fluctuations in traffic, finding parking, or dealing with problems at home?
- If problems at home are affecting your work life, you may need to make the decision to avoid dealing with domestic issues until after work.
- If traffic or parking make you late, leave early to account for those factors. You might try checking a traffic map (like Google Maps or Waze) to see where traffic is worst, and try to find an alternate route that would bypass that area and save you time.
- Add up the time it takes you to get to work on a normal day and the amount of time you're occasionally late by due to factors like traffic. Then simply leave that much earlier, perhaps with an extra 10 minutes to spare in case things get really delayed.
- Reward yourself for your consistency. Perhaps you can find a way to treat yourself, like holding off on eating the other half of your muffin until you get to work (but only if you make it on time or early).
3
Prioritize your workload. You might experience days where you're so overwhelmed with everything you need to do that you don't know where to begin. But if every day is like that, you're going to have a very hard time getting anything done, and it will be impossible to stick to any kind of schedule or routine in the workplace.
- Try keeping a dry-erase board or a chalk board at your workplace, and use it to list the things you need to get done that day.
- Sort things out into what you can (and should) get done today, what needs to get done by the end of the day tomorrow, and what needs to be finished by the end of the week.
- You can check things off the list or erase them as you accomplish them. This can help you see what you've accomplished while also reminding you what needs to be done.
- Organizing and arranging your work tasks in this way can help you feel more stable and productive at work, which can lead to a greater sense of order in your life.
4
Find a work buddy and support one another. If you're struggling with having a stable work life, it may be helpful to work on it with someone else. If you have a coworker you get along well with or someone you've noticed is also having trouble getting into a productive routine, you may want to approach that individual about working together to motivate and support one another. This can help you both develop consistent, productive work habits by keeping one another on track.
- Having someone else at work who pushes you to be consistent and productive can be mutually beneficial for both of you.
- You might want to develop ways of tracking each other's progress and motivating one another to be more productive and more consistent in your work habits.
- Find ways to celebrate together and reward one another. For example, you might go out for ice cream or have a drink together after work at the end of the week if you met all your goals.

Expert Q&A
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Question

How can I explore my purpose in life if I feel lost?

Michelle Shahbazyan, MS, MA
Life Coach
Michelle Shahbazyan is the Founder of The LA Life Coach, a concierge life, family, and career coaching service based in Los Angeles, California. She has over 10 years of experience with life coaching, consulting, motivational speaking, and matchmaking. She has a BA in Applied Psychology and an MS in Building Construction and Technology Management from Georgia Tech University, and a MA in Psychology with an emphasis on Marriage and Family Therapy from Phillips Graduate University.

Michelle Shahbazyan, MS, MA

Life Coach

Expert Answer

Support wikiHow by unlocking this expert answer.

If you can think about how you're interested in giving back to the world, that's usually a good starting point. We all need each other in some shape or form, and when you have something to offer, you'll be surprised how much other people need that thing.