What Happens When You’re Consistent Every Day for 10 Years?

If you’re at a certain age, you have enough life experience and enough raw data to do a certain type of “introspection” (and that’s not even really the right word for it but I’ll go with it).

Meaning, you’ve had enough data to project into the future and extrapolate where you can think where you’ll be in a couple of years based on your current actions.

If you’re in this category, this is article is for you.

This will show you how the power of consistency is the only thing that truly matters over time and how (if you stick with it), will help you achieve your goals in a big way.

This article is also available as a podcast:

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The Paradoxical Action

I call consistency the most paradoxical action when it comes to success and living the life you want to live, because it’s:

• easy to do but simultaneously easy NOT to do (that’s a slight edge concept there).
• simple yet complex
• rewarding yet also not rewarding

I’ll quickly break all of these down:

Easy to do but also easy NOT to do

Being consistent is easy. Show up and do an action every single day for a defined period of time and you then have whatever your desired outcome is.

Being consistent is easy not to do. You don’t have to show up. You don’t have to do the action. Life will continue on un-impeded.

Simple, yet complex

Let me take a relatively simple action: reading a book.

How simple is it to read 5-10 pages of a book every single day?

Very simple, in the grand scheme of things.

But in the grand scheme of things, your life may be very complex.

You may have:

• kids
• digital distractions
• a death in the family
• a partner who needs attention
• a job and a demanding work schedule
• various emotional states happening throughout the day
• etc.

Not so simple now.

Rewarding yet also not rewarding

When you check off a task from your to-do list, you get rewarded. Yay! Mission accomplished.

But, despite doing something like eating well today, you don’t lose the weight. You don’t get the physique.

That particular payoff doesn’t come until many more days of healthy eating and training. So you are left unfulfilled there.

And in a world of instant gratification and seemingly quick fixes, consistency just in general doesn’t seem rewarding enough.

The Peril of Impatience and Overall Procrastination

In order to deeply understand this problem and why it’s so dangerous, you need to internalize one concept: consistency = momentum.

That may sound underwhelming, but trust me when I say this: it’s a big. fucking. deal.

It’s a big deal because you can’t grind all the time.

You can’t be [ON] all the time.

You can’t work yourself to the bone for little reward all the time.

You get older, you get more jaded, and you just in general – get tired. So tired.

If you want an example of this: look at people who work 45 years (which is the average amount of time someone spends in the workforce).

An example of what happens when you develop no true momentum

After you are old and used up, you retire (hopefully with a sizable nest egg) and live out the rest of your days.

You invested in something like a 401k and that is supposed to carry you through the rest of your years. You are riding out the momentum on that investment.

But also conversely, your labor was disproportionate. You worked very hard for multiple employers throughout your lifetime and you saw almost little to no return on investment for that work.

You probably didn’t get equity in the company, you probably didn’t get stock options, you probably didn’t get profit sharing.

All of the antagonism, the mooching, the politicking, the not leaving work at 5 because you didn’t want to look like a slacker, the “I won’t take vacations because I want to be seen as a loyal employee”, all of it — what do you have to show at the end of a working lifetime?

For many people, the answer is not much.

All of that mental real estate taken up just to be a tool in someone else’s toolbox.

This article isn’t a critique on the labor market or investing, but it is simply an example of what happens when you don’t build up momentum in one direction.

A harsh example, but an example nonetheless.

And people of the past had no choice – in the past, it was very difficult to develop momentum. It was very difficult to develop leverage.

But we live in 2025 now. We live in a world where technology is radically reshaping things and our eventual futures.

It has never been easier than now to develop momentum. It has never been easier to develop leverage.

And this is where my point comes in: you will not be able to do so if you are impatient and if you procrastinate.

Why?

Because momentum:

1. Takes time
2. Takes effort to get going at the start

And going back to my friends, this is what I was talking about. Over time, you will gain momentum. But only if you start today and most importantly, keep going.

And this is something I can say with confidence looking into my past.

My own history with consistency (or lack thereof)

Ten years ago, I was 23 years old.

2015. And a lot of things were happening during that time.

I was really starting to get into the apprenticeship phase of my career.
I started Unstoppable Rise in 2015.
I was dating here and there.
I was getting more into self-development…so many things.

I had a few practices I had been doing consistently at that time:

• I had gotten deeper into my meditation practice, I had started that and done that for 6 years on and off (mostly on) by that point
• I had been lifting weights seriously for 3 years
• I had been playing guitar for 6 years
• I had been stretching and doing yoga for about 2
• I had been into self-development work for 4 years

And these are things that I continue today.

I still meditate every day.
I still lift weights every week.
I still stretch and do mobility work of some kind every single day.
I still play guitar regularly (starting to get back to playing every day).
I still am working to become a better and stronger version of myself every day.

These things are deeper than habits for me. They are embedded into my identity.

I don’t even think about doing them. I just do them.

Also by 2015, I had been writing online for about 10 years.

This lent itself well to the skill of copywriting, which is a necessary skill in direct response marketing.

Something that many people struggle with, I was just “good” at because I had spent so much time creating things online.

And while I did do a lot of things consistently, there were a lot of things I either didn’t do or I just stopped doing.

And looking back, these were very small things that could have blossomed into deeper things. But I didn’t reap the benefits because I just didn’t do them.

It’s like investing in the stock market. In 10 years, if you invest right, you should be in a much better position. You’re not going to see any returns right now.

But if you don’t invest in anything at all, you will surely not see any return.

Myself, I am a man of few regrets.

But if there’s any regret I have for any specific thing, it is not being consistent with the things that would have made a major difference in my life now.

Now, I am projecting 10 years into the future and I am envisioning…what do I want that to look like?

That question will only be answered with discipline and consistency.

How to Be Consistent for the Long Term

Now, let’s get to some actionable takeaways to put this into practice.

1. Have a long-time perspective

You cannot be consistent if you don’t think into the future.

If you are a person who is over the age of 25, you can easily go back 5-10 years in your past and think about those years.

For myself, I can remember 10-15 years ago – CLEAR as DAY.

I remember where I was, what I was doing, who I was hanging around, my mind state at the time – all of that. I am different, but my core is not.

My body will change but I will always be aware of my being.

So now, with that perspective, think about what you will be in 10 years.

Your situations will have changed – but you are still you.

So think in 10 years what you will be patting yourself on the back for and what you will be kicking yourself for.

Do things that will ensure the former and less that will decrease the latter. Simple! But not easy.

2. Focus on doing the thing right (today)

James Clear said something very profound in Atomic Habits:

“In any election, there are going to be votes for both sides. You don’t need a unanimous vote to win an election; you just need a majority. It doesn’t matter if you cast a few votes for a bad behavior or an unproductive habit. Your goal is simply to win the majority of the time.”

And that may seem like a DUH! insight, but it really solidified a lot of things for me.

In Western culture, we tend to think of things as “all or nothing”, where you’re either doing it or you’re not. Which, I believe is true for some cases – but not for all, for sure.

However, when it comes to being consistent, you just need to do the right thing for as many days as you can over time.

So that means focus on doing the right thing — today.

Eat the healthy meals — today.

Practice coding — today.

Save money — today.

Do the thing — today.

You don’t have to worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will become “today”.

So just focus on doing it today.

It may not be perfect, it may be a little messy — but done is better than perfect and done is better than never.

3. Train yourself to thrive on low dopamine

I’ve talked about this and the dopamine detox at length on here and in the past, so I won’t belabor this point.

But I’ll just say that if you are an adult in 21st century society, there is a very strong, almost 100% chance that you are a dopamine junkie.

What do I mean by this?

You start work and 5 minutes later – you have an urge to look at your phone or check social media.

You can’t go a single day without listening to music or going on TikTok or YouTube.

You find it difficult to read a book without checking your phone or going on during a reading session.

You can’t do a deep dive of concentration, your focus is shattered.

And that’s mainly because you are addicted to short-term, low-effort stimulation that is part and parcel of the modern world.

This is going to hurt your ability to be consistent because to succeed in the long term, you need to stay focused.

And I know that different people have different brains, you might be neurodivergent or have some form of ADD or ADHD.

I’m not talking about that in this case. I am talking about people who pretty much have nothing wrong with them ordinarily or haven’t been diagnosed.

And if you’re reading to this and you’re like “shit! I have seen my concentration plummet over the past few years”, then I recommend you look into the dopamine detox. It’s not a cure-all but I do believe it can help.

I’ve attached a link to an article in the description.

4. Dedicate yourself to discipline

This is the most important part: you need discipline to make it through all of this, through your metaphorical 10 years of silence.

The iron cold discipline to do consistent actions day in and day out without fail until you achieve your objective or accumulate enough momentum.

And when it comes to success, this pretty much means “hard work”.

Literal butts in chair, time on task just doing it.

And as much as people like to say “work smarter, not harder”, at a certain point – you cannot compensate for raw production.

And there’s a lot of people who try to “optimize” things like energy levels, time of day, etc. and I believe in all of that – but I also believe in just doing the thing.

No matter if you’re tired. No matter if you’re feeling lazy. No matter if XY or Z happens.

If you’re only inspired to play guitar on the one hour a week when you feel inspired and I play an hour a day every single day, then by the end of the year – I will be a better guitarist than you, just from sheer volume.

So that’s really what the role of discipline is in this.

You will either do it or you won’t. But either way, time passes.

Conclusion + Wrapping Up

Consistency allows you to generate momentum which generates volume (of course you can have what is known as “junk volume”, but I’m not talking about that in this article.

The more you do, the better you get and the easier it becomes build more momentum. Then your momentum just compounds and becomes crazy.

Morale of the story:

1. Get to work
2. Stay on it
3. Do it over time

So ask yourself, where will you be if you do something every day for 10 years without fail? I know that’s a big ideal to aim for, but it’s a good ideal to frame your efforts in.

It’s not about being great now. It’s not about winning big now. It’s about the consistent action, the consistent chain of days.

That’s what matters.

Beyond the emotional drama of other people. Beyond what’s going on our in the larger culture. Beyond what may be happening in your life right now.

It’s about answering the question: “did you show up today?”

That’s it. Don’t complicate things.

Liked this article? These are your next reads:

• Boost Your Drive: Maximizing Every Moment With the Philosophy of No Zero Days
• The Power of Consistency: 4 Keys to Unlocking Your Potential