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Lately, I've been thinking about what consistency means and how to stay consistent. There are many things that I want to do regularly—playing badminton, blogging, studying, and keeping up with tech trends.

When we all use the word "consistency", we usually mean a standard routine that doesn't change. Waking up at a certain time, working out in the mornings, reading before bed, etc.

The hardest part about maintaining a consistent routine that includes all the activities we need to do is getting back up after a curveball. We can keep up a routine fairly well until something unexpected happens.

A common cold, a bad work week, and even a vacation can throw our routine off. Each time the routine is disrupted, it requires conscious work to get back onto it.

**We also need to consider energy levels when looking at our patterns.**Most of the things that we struggle to do regularly require a lot of energy—playing badminton for an hour tires me out more than an entire workday sometimes—so it's not surprising that I don't want to do it after a particularly long day.

I might skip one day and, suddenly, skipping becomes okay and I skip more days. It's a slippery slope.

The problem is that it takes 21 days to build a habit but it can take only one or two days to break it.

After over a year of trying to maintain a routine, getting thrown off due to something, and working back up to it (repeated over and over), I can say one thing with confidence: the more you get back to the routine, the easier it is to get back to it in the future.

Initially, a week or two off from playing badminton was enough for me to struggle with getting out of bed in the mornings. Each time, it would take a while for my body to get used to playing first thing in the morning and be good at it.

But now that I've done it so many times, it's easier. I missed 3 weeks in June but playing 3 times a week again felt like coming home instead of an uphill battle.

Similarly, I may have blogging slumps often. I may run out of ideas, energy or motivation. But more than 8 years later, I can say that it is easier each time.

It is probably because I now have the confidence that I can get back to a routine after doing it so many times.

It may take a day, a week or a month. The point is to try to get back to the routine as soon as you can. And if you try, you will.

Our ideas of consistency and regular routines never allow for sick days or unexpected events so we always get thrown off when they occur. But they're a part of life too (unfortunately). Not every day goes according to plan.

It sounds like we need to tweak our idea of consistency a bit. We always strive to do things every day and lose our steam when we miss one or two days.

At this point, being consistent is more about getting back to the routine rather than staying on it.

Things felt easier for me once I realized that falling off the routine and getting back to it is normal and inevitable.

Life sometimes feels like a never-ending loop of trying to be consistent at different things, but that's what keeps life interesting, I guess? You will be bored in no time if you succeed at everything and continue the streak forever.