“Which Chipmunk are you?” This was the question posed by Sarah Knight from the No F*cks Given podcast as I ironed a million pieces of school uniform. Turns out, similarly to Sarah, I appear to be a Simon teamed with a sprinkle of Theodore. Which is why {put simply} I like to be super organised but also so often feel totally out of the loop.
In the present {hello post-lockdown 3.0} I would describe my tendencies as being similar to the 80:20 rule. I probably spend around 80% of my time in Theodore mode and 20% as Simon. At my best {as Simon} I am creative, productive, form or nurture friendships, take on new clients, take actions on ideas, have school uniform ironed and ready to go and feel like I’m generally winning at life. Flip that to Theodore and I become overwhelmed, recluse, late, unorganised, unwell and unproductive.
Of course this is a sliding scale which ebbs and flows with the season and I acknowledge the fact that this current 80:20 ratio likely has a strong correlation to the recent pandemic.
My most recent Theodore episode resulted in a trip down memory lane. I was working through a free resource from Erin May Henry which included a section on thinking about your past life. Once again the common theme of a lack of consistency shone through. My diet, health, work, business, friendships, Instagram, blog – all seem to fall into this similar 80:20 ratio.
This is an area I’ve been focusing on during my 30 days of personal development challenge. Which now leads me to the question – does it matter? Is it important that all aspects of life are consistent? Is this even achievable?
Intuition vs. Consistency
For me I like the idea of certain things running in the background. In order to do this you need to form habits and create systems. Methods such as habit stacking, setting up workflows or ditching those jobs which are unnecessary will all help create processes for those things you decide need to be consistent. For example if you have a business or side hustle in order to be successful it’s very important to be consistent. On the other hand {for me} things like Instagram or blogging, whilst good to also be consistent, can be much more intuitive depending upon your mood or current circumstance.
Something which has become apparent is that although I’ve always craved structure and consistency a lot of the time strict regimes just don’t work for me. The obvious answer is to have a mixture of both.
Consistency helps create:
- Habits
- Discipline
- Motivation
- Discipline
- Accountability
But can also be exhausting and unsustainable. Part of my all or nothing tendencies means I want to work on everything at once but I think the key to creating consistency is to focus on one or two areas {max} at a time.
Which takes a huge burden off the areas where I “allow” myself to be less or inconsistent. Again this could be a sliding scale rather than so black and white. For example I will aim to publish a new blog post once a week; however I’m not going to beat myself up if I don’t. But then I will consistently show up for my children and business {more on this below}.
As I’ve already said I’m simply focusing on the habit of being consistent right now, part of which is showing up on Instagram and posting regularly to my blog. If I were to pick two areas to focus on next where I feel being more consistent would be beneficial it would have to be my health and my business. Now health has a million different aspects so I’d need to give that some more thought. And although I do show up for my business I definitely feel things could be improved by creating workflows and routines so I keep up with regular tasks and subsequently become more productive. Even simple things like checking and responding to emails or checking my diary everyday which in Simon state I’m there, super organised, written the book; but in Theordore state I let pile up so they become overwhelming.
In all honesty right now I’m happy to keep my blog and my Instagram much more about intuitive content creation. I think this makes it more real and therefore relatable rather than flat and uninspiring. And to be honest it’s not content I struggle with, it’s the time to get everything down and in a format to share. I struggle to forward plan content because the majority of my posts are spontaneous. Yet it’s good to be consistent. So how do I keep my intuitive creativity but in a consistent manner? Probably with a sprinkling of discipline. Food for thought.
I’ll talk more about creating workflows and systems in my next post but for now I’ll keep focusing on that scale of 20% consistency and admin to create space for 80% life and intuition.
Which chipmunk do you think you are? Do you struggle with consistency or prefer a more intuitive approach to life?
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