I talk about consistency all the time. It comes up in almost every conversation I have about marketing. This week I've been asking myself a plainer question: what builds it?
Right now I have 3 answers, in this order. Clarity, good organization, and small actions that turn into habits.
Clarity
Clarity comes first for me. Goals, mostly. Knowing why I'm posting and what I want it to do.
When I'm clear on that, deciding what to do this week is easier. When I'm not, every post starts from zero. Starting from zero every time is tiring.
Good organization
Second is organization. If I have to hunt for an idea, a photo, or last month's notes every time I sit down, that's one more reason to skip it.
Organization is the least exciting of the 3. It's also what makes the next part possible.
Small actions that turn into habits
The third one I've been calling habit building, and I don't love how that sounds. It sounds like a project. Like something I'd need a planner and a free weekend for.
What I mean is smaller. A few intentional actions, done again and again, until they're habits.
I came across a Substack post this week from Julie Fratantoni, PhD. She's a cognitive neuroscientist who writes about keeping your brain healthy. She wrote:
What you repeatedly watch shapes your brain.
What you repeatedly listen to shapes your brain.
What you repeatedly think shapes your brain.
Who you repeatedly spend time with shapes your brain.
Repetition rewires.
You become what you behold.
The word I keep landing on is repeatedly. Every line is about something small that happens over and over. That's how I want habit building to sound. Small things, repeated, until they shape who I am.
It made me think about my own marketing, too. If I spend every day scrolling hooks and "300,000 followers in 30 days," that's shaping how I think about my own posts. What I repeat matters on both sides: what I do and what I take in.
It's also why I keep going back to the writers I do. Brad Stulberg and Steve Magness keep returning to the basics, and I like that about them. The Stoics, mostly through Ryan Holiday's books, treat philosophy as something you practice every day. The same small things, done again.
This is the part that gets me through the hard times. The busy weeks, the tired weeks, the weeks where I post and nothing seems to happen. In those weeks, the habit is what keeps me posting. Motivation is low, and the small thing is still small enough to do.
How they fit together
Clarity tells me what I'm doing. Organization makes it easy to start. The habits keep me going when it's hard.
I'm not sure 3 is the full list. It's what I have this week.