The Surprising Cost of Being Inconsistent

Some time ago, I had a student working on one of the Diabelli piano sonatinas. He wasn't getting very far.

Week after week, there would be some reason why little to no progress was made. He focused more on the other pieces. It was a busy week. He worked on it "a little bit," which is kid-speak for, "I didn't practice it but I'm too embarrassed to say I didn't."

Now, don't get me wrong. This was a great student. While this sonatina sat on the sidelines like a gym membership in March, he did quite well on many other projects.

One lesson, I realized we had this sonatina for a long time, though. It was like a dull ache at this point, from some long-forgotten injury. My student could barely make it to measure 12.

I decided to go back in his notes to find when I first assigned the piece.

And I burst out laughing.

(Don't worry, we had the kind of student-teacher relationship where that kind of thing was okay.)

Through my tears of laughter, I said, I assigned you this piece six months ago!!

If you learned two measures a MONTH, you would have been further than you are now!

If you nailed two or three beats a WEEK, you would be further than you are now!

Now, he knew I meant this in jest, and we decided that it was time to put this piece out to pasture and pick something new. But, he knows I will tease him again if another six months passes on the new one...

Maybe the piece was too hard, or maybe my student just didn't like it.

But, this moment illustrated something important for all of us - the cost of inconsistency. 

Even though I was teasing my student, my words were true. Any amount of consistency, however tiny and seemingly pathetic, would have yielded greater rewards than we ended up with. The same went for me for not pushing the matter earlier in the six months.

Have you ever noticed this phenomenon?

That as soon as we stop paying attention and start becoming inconsistent, time seems to pass faster. We blink, and before we know it, six months have passed. Maybe a year. Maybe even a decade.

Anyone who has tried to get in shape has experienced this. Initially, you think about your workout and nutrition routine every day. Those days might feel like forever at first.

Then, you become inconsistent and stop following the plan every day. Suddenly, time passes incredibly fast. Before you know it, it's almost New Year's Eve again and you wonder what happened to last year's resolution.

The lesson to take away from this? If you want to make things happen, just do it every day. Even if it's only for a few minutes. Even the slowest train on earth eventually reaches its destination. 

Don't question it. You can always question it tomorrow. 

Just do it today. Again and again.