Consistency doesn't break from lack of willpower
“Be consistent” is the most repeated piece of advice in the IB business, and also the most useless. Nobody stops being consistent because they don't know consistency matters. It breaks at specific moments, and they're almost always the same ones.
If you're wondering how to be consistent as an IB, the starting point isn't motivating yourself more. It's recognizing where it breaks.
It doesn't break over a day: it breaks in a moment
Nobody decides to stop working. What happens is quieter: on one specific day you don't open the conversations you were going to open, and nothing happens. The next day you don't either, and again nothing happens.
The cost shows up weeks later, when the month closes weak and you no longer remember which day it was. That's why consistency looks like a character problem when it's really a design problem.
The four moments when it breaks
Almost every broken streak I've seen starts at one of these four points:
- After a good month, when you feel you can finally ease off.
- After a day with no replies, when you mistake silence for rejection.
- When the day has no number and “I worked a lot” is the only measure you have.
- When you've been absent for a week and you're embarrassed to write again.
All four are predictable. And what can be predicted can be prepared for. The second one is the most deceptive: a day without replies isn't a day of rejections. I wrote about that in Your best commissions are in a conversation you're not having.
“I worked a lot” is not a metric
A day without a number can't be evaluated. It leaves you with a feeling, and the feeling always agrees with you: if you were busy, you feel productive.
That's why your daily routine needs a number that depends only on you. Not deposits or sign-ups: those depend on other people. The conversations you open and the follow-ups you make do depend on you, and they're the only thing you can promise yourself every day. They're the first two of the five figures you log every night: how many new conversations and how many follow-ups. With those two you can already judge the day.
The minimum day: what you do on your worst day
Besides your activity target, define your minimum day: what you'll do even if you're tired, sick or discouraged. Genuinely small — so small you have no excuse.
A weak day keeps the chain; a zero day breaks it. And coming back after a zero costs far more than hitting the minimum.
Consistency is a decision you make once, before the bad day, so you don't have to make it when it arrives.
I covered one of those four moments separately, because it's the most treacherous one: A good month isn't a business. And if you don't yet have a fixed hour to defend, start with how to start as an IB without quitting your job.
A daily number that depends only on you: Stage 2
In IB ACADEMY, Stage 2 is called The Daily Discipline and has a chapter for this: what to count each day, how to set your minimum day, and what to do to hit it even on your worst days.
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I work with the IBs in our network so their community grows with a system, not with improvisation: attract, support, retain and organise a portfolio. Here I write about that work, with no income promises.