The Biology Of Consistency

You’ve heard it before, consistency is key. If you want to create results in your life you need to take consistent action and with each repitition you’ll creep just a little closer to your goal. It’s the one thing that time and again you hear the most successful people in the world credit to their achievements. But beyond sharing a feel-good thought about how consistency can change your life, I want to teach you the biology behind it. 

When you consistently do, say, or think the same things over and over again, you activate the same pathways of neurons in the brain. This recurring activation causes two things to happen. First, your brain actually creates new neural connections. This can open up new communication circuits within your mind to literally reshape the way your brain works. You might know this by its familiar title, neuroplasticity.

The second thing consistency does is it creates efficiencies in the brain. One of the brain's primary purposes is to do things while expending as little energy as possible. It is so ingrained in the brain’s operation that it’s literally a core process on a biological level. 

The neurons associated with these active pathways start to myelinate, which means they grow a fatty insulation tissue. This tissue supports the way an electrical charge is conducted down a neuron. Ultimately, with the help of myelin the neural pathway becomes the “path of least resistance” and is preferred by the brain. That’s what we mean when we say that we’re strengthening the neurons that fire together and wire together - Consistent action literally makes that sequence of neurons more efficient (and therefore easier) for the brain to use.

That’s why you can get into good habits that eventually feel effortless to do. It’s because those neurons have become the defaulted path that the brain uses. This unlocks everything in your life - from thought patterns and mindset, to emotional triggering, to starting positive action, to subconscious decisions. You can control these things by teaching the brain what path to go down through consistency and repetition.

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