The key to consistency

A surfer’s got to enjoy just being in the water. (Image by Kev)

Tracing the journey of people who have become wildly successful on YouTube, it seems inevitable that they were going to make it.

This is a classic case of confirmation bias, because nobody’s paying attention to all of the creators who didn’t make it.

Then again, who is the judge of whether creators didn’t make it?

I would argue that there are two possible definitions of not making it on YouTube.

The first is a creator who posts for awhile and then stops posting.

The second is a creator who is continuing to post videos at least once a week, following all of the best practices of YouTube (a well-designed thumbnail, a hook that creates a curiosity gap, appropriate hashtags, and a thoughtfully scripted and/or edited video with good lighting and audio) yet has experienced minimal views and no net subscriber growth since they began.

In the first case, the creator quit, so we’ll never know what they might have achieved.

And the second case — well, find me an example. Convince me that such a person exists.

It is perfectly reasonable to quit something that isn’t yielding the results you want. However, we all know that the only way the magic can happen is if you don’t. How do you stick with something through that terrible period of time in which you can’t see any tangible benefit to your hard work?

How can you be sure that you will ultimately succeed?

Well, you can’t. Especially if your definition of success is highly specific and depends on external factors.

However, I have figured out how to keep going without the promise of an external reward. I have figured out the key to consistency.

It’s not exciting, but here it is:

Do the thing you would want to do anyway.

Make the thing you would want to make anyway.

I have found that it’s easiest to make it through to success when I’ve picked something that has intrinsic value to me. In other words, when I’m engaged in something that is satisfying, interesting, builds skill, improves self-discipline, or is just plain fun, I’ll keep going regardless of what happens around me.

It is a powerful experience to watch routine actions pay off over time.

If I hate every step of the way, I won’t want to continue. But if I love the work in and of itself, I won’t even care about the big success that I’m supposedly moving toward.

As a teenager, I spent an extraordinary amount of time playing and listening to music. I confess that I harbored dreams of becoming a famous singer/songwriter, but that’s not what drove me — mostly, I just absolutely loved it.

I was passionate about my favorite artists. I explored their back catalogs and learned about their lives.

I delighted in figuring out songs by ear and incorporating the musical ideas into my own work, learning music theory along the way.

I relished any opportunity to play music with others.

I had no idea that the time I spent sitting on the end of my bed when I should have been getting a good night’s sleep for school the next day would be the foundation for my work as a guitar and songwriting teacher several years later.

I did it simply because I wanted to, without second-guessing it, and that set me up for a joyful hobby and a rewarding career that ended up touching thousands of lives.

Now, the level of success I’ve attained with my music may not be enough for some people. In fact, for awhile, it wasn’t enough for me. But during the period in which I flourished, I had no trouble maintaining consistency; someone would have had to try to stop me.

The bigger the thing you want to achieve, the greater the likelihood that there is some mundane, repetitive action you need to take in order to first rise to a level of competence; then, you’ve got to hang in there, through the ups and downs, all the way to mastery.

Otherwise, achieving the thing would be no big deal and everyone would do it.

The consistent effort is the barrier that only some people are willing to overcome. If you choose a pursuit in which that consistent effort fits your strengths, interests, and temperament, following through will be vastly easier.

Even if you reach mastery, there is no guarantee that you will find outside validation and recognition for your hard work. But perhaps by then, the inherent satisfaction you get from your efforts, day by day, will be enough to encourage you to continue on the path for its own sake.