The Consistency Threshold, Pt 1

A theory on increasing consistency for neurodivergent entrepreneurs.

I have a working theory that I am labeling “The Consistency Threshold”

In preparation for this, I was trying to find the word of a “thing” that everyone seeks but no one can obtain. This word exists, but my lack of formal literary chops, a B- in English class, and 37 seconds on Google are keeping this word beyond me. 

So, Consistency.

You can barely blink without seeing a message about consistency. We’re told it’s the key to business success. It’s the key to personal growth. It’s the key to weight loss success. Content creation, learning new skills, etc.

Just this morning, I read an entire chapter on it in a book called YouTube Secrets.

I am not here to argue against the benefit of consistency…

Rather, my issue is that consistency is not as easy as people make it out to be. It is far more complicated than “post 1 video per week” to master YouTube, or “it takes 60 days to build a habit” nonsense.

While such overly simplistic advice may work for some, it hasn’t worked for me. And, if you’re reading this, I will assume it hasn’t worked for you either. And it is far too simplistic for those of us that are neurodivergent.

Let’s take a little journey together.

The Evidence Is Out There

In my experience, it has become evident that consistency works. 

And that it is in fact an important part of success.

When I look at the things that I do on a daily basis such as podcast, write, post videos, and so on, I can see a lot of evidence that consistency works.

The most successful podcasts have 100s of episodes.

Many that I follow and look up to have 500-600 or more episodes. This means that they have been publishing for years, many years, like 9 years if posting once a week, or 4-5 years with 2 episodes per week.

My most valiant effort was 117 episodes before I stopped.

The most successful YouTubers have been publishing videos for years and have 1000s of videos uploaded. For example, Logan and Jake Paul started vlogging in 2006. That is 17 years.

Personally, I was consistent on YouTube for about 3 months before I stopped.

The most successful writers and bloggers I know have been consistently putting in the work for at least 10+ years.

Don’t get me wrong, this spans beyond “business”, too.

I’ve tried to consistently read before bed. That didn’t last. Tried to consistently do yoga, but that didn’t last. Journaling, meditating, eating more vegetables, eating fewer cookies, and drinking fewer energy drinks, none of which lasted.

Searching For Evidence Of Consistency Within Us

Sometimes it’s easier to find external clues to things like a successful podcaster with 600 episodes. But that doesn’t always translate back to how it can actually work for or benefit us.

As I described in the words above, I’ve witnessed consistency and its benefits in others. I’ve also witnessed myself struggle with it. However, that does not mean I am incapable of it.

Quite the contrary, there is evidence within every one of us, that we can be consistent.

I want you to take a moment and think… What have you been consistent with? Where can you find proof in your own life that you have the ability to be consistent? 

Here’s an example from my own life: Health and fitness. 

I have been active my entire life and started working out when I was in middle school. Ever since High School, I have consistently worked out every single week and I started bodybuilding in 2010.

If I only take the section of when I was “really serious” and say 2010-2023, that gives me proof that I have been consistent with going to the gym 4-6 days per week for over 13 years. That’s proof of consistency.

While this may not be “good” consistency, but I have consistently had an energy drink daily since 2018 unless I was in a country that did not have them, or I was in a period where I was consciously trying to avoid them.

Where’s your proof?

Do you do yoga? Read? Play an instrument? Journal? Have a Sunday movie night ritual? Go to church? Carve pumpkins every year? Hum a special song while brushing your teeth?

Here’s what this tells me…

The evidence is out there (people being consistent), and I have evidence within myself (me being consistent).

Consistency Killers

As I began to learn about myself and discuss with others who are also neurodiverse I began to think…

What allows me to be consistent with something but not this other thing?

This is where the idea of The Consistency Threshold came from.

(I will say it here, I recently developed this theory, but I have no idea if it is actually a named concept already… if it exists please let me know).

I shifted my focus to what prevents us from being consistent rather than how to be consistent.

For those of us that are neurodiverse (such as ADHD) there is a term called the boom or bust cycle. This is described as “alternating periods of high productivity and engagement, followed by periods of exhaustion and burnout.”

We are intensely drawn to things we’re passionate about, we do not like disappointing people so we say yes instead of no, we often wear masks or hide parts of ourselves such as stimming, shaking, or fidgeting, we work to fit in, we struggle with executive dysfunction, and the list goes on.

The important takeaway is that all of these things compound and they all take energy. At some point, we “bust”, or break, or if “we” don’t, something does.

There are varying extremes of this. Some may not be able to get out of bed. Some may experience burnout or fatigue. There is no right or wrong, good or bad, as every one of our experiences is unique and our own.

For me,

I’ve experienced varying degrees of burnout.

Here are a few of the ways this has impacted my life when it comes to “business”:

• I podcasted consistently for 117 episodes, then stopped podcasting for 3 years.

• I created social media content 2-3x a day for 4 months gaining 5,000 followers on TikTok, then completely stopped posting.

• I built an email list of over 1,200 people in a few short months, then stopped posting and closed my ConvertKit account.

• I have created and launched over 3 courses, and no longer sell or run any of them.

• I cannot physically bring myself to read before bed because of my exhaustion.

The level of burnout I experienced made me realize I needed to pull back and this was re-inforced by my therapist.

You can read more about my experience in my recent letter discussing burnout called: What Are You Willing To Sacrifice In Your Pursuit Of Success In Business.

I have found that fatigue, or accumulation of fatigue is a killer of consistency - and therefore brought me to the idea that there may be a threshold of what we can realistically be consistent with.

The Pattern Of Surpassing My Threshold

As a neurodiverse entrepreneur with ADHD, I have intense passions and interests, I thrive on novelty, and (I’ve discovered) I am highly susceptible to fatigue and therefore exhaustion/burnout.

Does any of that sound familiar? Here’s an example of my pattern:

I start podcasting.

I love it and want to start doing more (passion + novelty), so I start recording videos for my podcasts so I can post clips on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube Shorts.

I see YouTube as a great opportunity (novelty), so I start posting my full-length videos on YouTube as well.

This creates a need to learn more about YouTube thumbnails, titles, and YouTube SEO so I can get more views on my videos, so I start listening to podcasts, buying books, and watching tutorials.

Then I realize I love writing, so I start a Substack (novelty).

Now, I begin to think about how to grow my readership on my Substack, so I start posting on Twitter (novelty).

As you can see, this is like a fatigue death trap.

I went from posting a weekly podcast…

To, posting a podcast, a youtube video, daily short form clips, a weekly substack, and posting on twitter. And all of the time learning, planning, recording, editing, and posting involved with each.

Insert the Boom and Bust Cycle.

You could say that I am living my theory. 

This example is just one facet of my life. This doesn’t include my traditional “work”, my side hustles, my personal development, or my personal life. Things that soak up energy in one area, affect the others.

Can you recognize any patterns within yourself?

It’s almost like playing Jenga.

We start as the stack of Jenga blocks. And every time we add something (like social media), we are pulling a Jenga block out. At some point, the tower falls over.

Your threshold? That’s the number of blocks you can pull out before your tower tips.

I have lived variations of this pattern for years.

I burn out, then I cut back and recover. Once I’m recovered, I start again, but my neurodiversity is still there, and I eventually find myself right back where I started. Rinse, repeat.

The awareness of this was an important step for me. This is who I am and understanding this allows me to make adjustments to better accommodate it, rather than fight against it.

Take Care Of Your Jenga Blocks

In future letters, I am going to begin to unpack each aspect of this in much more detail. I can only write so many words before everyone with ADHD gets bored and stops reading or listening to this ;-)

I leave you with this.

If we in fact have a threshold, that leaves us two things to focus on:

Simplify and do less:

In my earlier example I showed how I started podcasting but it quickly became podcasting, youtube, writing, social media, and twitter…

My past pattern would soon bring the bust from the boom and bust cycle. Leading me to stop everything because of accumulating fatigue and a lack of sustainability. So I decided to remove YouTube. I have also let go of a number of other confounding factors such as certain side jobs, side hustles, and learning to code.

I had to simplify and do less.

This can impact other areas of our lives as well…

Let’s explore fitness. 

You start exercising, 3-4 days per week. You feel good and you’re enjoying it so you add an extra day per week. You listen to the Andrew Huberman podcast and learn the benefits of cardiovascular exercise, so you try and add a couple of sessions per week of cardio or HIIT. You decide you’d also like to add yoga so that you can increase your mobility and help with your back pain. But 1 session per week isn’t enough you need at least 2-3x to see progress…

Very quickly we can go from manageable to unsustainable.

Where do you fit it all in? We must simplify and do less.

If you were wondering, Yes, this is an example from my personal life. I knew I could not manage everything so I reduced my strength training to 4x per week, I do Yoga 2x per week, and I do cardio 1x per week with one of my Yoga sessions.

What about personal development?

We may read or hear about the benefits of meditation and begin to work this into our routine. As we begin to grow spiritually or advance on our personal growth journey we may begin to extend our practice.

Maybe it goes from a few times a week to daily. From 5 minutes in the morning to 30 minutes. From 30 minutes to 2x a day. We might start to incorporate different types of meditation and mindfulness work, and we hear about breathwork, cold showers, IR saunas, nature bathing…

Simplify and do less.

We must do less in order to stay within our given threshold.

Our threshold is unique to us. For some, the threshold may be far higher than for others. But as we begin to fatigue, as our motivation begins to waine, as we begin to feel cracks in our consistency, we will learn where that threshold is. Then we need to focus on reducing our energetic load.

For me, I’ve found this to be an ongoing and iterative process. I may add things in and realize it is too much and then find things to remove.

Also, priorities can change. Right now, I have reduced strength training so that I can incorporate yoga. However, I am thinking of trying boxing. In order to add in boxing, I may need to reduce my strength training, or my yoga to properly accommodate. 

The goal is not perfection, the goal is awareness and an openness to figure things out.

Rest and recovery:

Doing less is only part of the equation. The other part I’ve found is rest and recovery.

Taking the downtime you need, doing things that fill you up, excite you, energize you. This may be bathing in nature alone on a Saturday, this might be going for a float, it might be meditating, it could be choosing to stay home instead of going out with friends, or playing video games.

You simply gotta’ recharge the batteries.

Until next time, be curious and start to become aware of your threshold.

Landon

P.S.

This is a working theory based on my own observations, conversations, and experiences. I would truly appreciate your feedback on this. Do you feel this is relevant? Did this resonate with you? If so, please share your thoughts, and I can use your feedback to drive further investigation and content to best support everyone who may be experiencing this.

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