Intensity of work gets headlines but this is what gets results
Everywhere you look, when it comes to people doing big things in the world of note we only hear about the extremities of their output, but there’s something that is present in these success stories that doesn’t get the same level of attention.
From sports to business, politics to media, what gets emphasised are things like the power, strength, weight, speed, endurance or size of the achievement and more often than not, the shorter the timeline of the achievement the more attention it gets.
But what’s more important than the intensity of the achievements that get highlighted in these stories, is actually the importance of consistency.
For every story of intensity, underneath the surface there’s a prelude that is far less eye catching that rarely gets the light of day.
In the prelude we’ll usually find the ugly details that don’t sell. Details such as early sacrifices, experimentation with approaches, changing paths, multiple failures, broken relationships, dollars invested and lost, among many other unpleasant things.
But all the while what stays consistent is the consistent approach. Sticking to the path no matter the difficulty of the course.
So why don’t we hear about the prelude and those early, uglier years?
Well, frankly it’s not as exciting to us. It’s too slow, it’s too inconsequential, it’s too boring. It’s too painful for us to consume.
What we crave are for stories that give us pleasure, stories that light up our imagination and deliver us dopamine.
These stories of intensity give us that sharp contrast that delivers that perfect pleasure hit and the media knows it too.
Far too often a story will be covered in a way that grabs our attention first and leaves out the drab details of the consistent work that had to be put in.
We’ve been conditioned to think that the consistent, steady, slow road to success doesn’t have to be walked. If you look closely, it does.
The majority of successes we see, to some degree have required consistency to come first.
Yes the intensity does make an appearance eventually, success is rarely linear. However the big headline result is usually not available until countless hours of groundwork have been put in.
You’ll see with certain achievers, perhaps even yourself in your current most successful domain, that different experiences and skills aquired over many years start to build on top of eachother and create new connections and with it increasing momentum. The momentum needed to have an intense result.
So yes, intense results will happen, and it will be great when they do. But the consistency to create the momentum needed, can’t be skipped and this is where we must keep focussing our attention on as we look for our next intense result.
