Embracing Inconsistency
We all spend a lot of time trying to be consistent and trying to project a sense of consistency to other people. And we do that both because we think that inconsistency signals to others that we’re unfocused or undisciplined, and also because inconsistency can make us feel uncertain.
But in truth we need to embrace and make room for inconsistency in our life - because if we don’t make room for inconsistency, we leave no room for growth. By definition, growth is a state of consistently being inconsistent. Growth means that you are a version of yourself that is inconsistent with a previous version of you.
In this episode, we talk through why we cling to consistency, but also how we can start to embrace inconsistency and see it as the powerful mechanism for change that it is.
Episode Transcription
Intro:
We all spend a lot of time trying to be consistent and trying to project a sense of consistency to other people. And we do that both because we think that inconsistency signals to others that we’re unfocused or undisciplined, and also because inconsistency can lead us to feel uncertain.
But in truth we need to embrace and make room for inconsistency in our life - because if we don’t make room for inconsistency, we leave no room for growth. By definition, growth is a state of consistently being inconsistent. Growth means that you are a version of yourself that is inconsistent with a previous version of you.
So in this episode we’ll talk through why we cling to consistency, but also how we can start to embrace inconsistency and see it as the powerful mechanism for change that it is.
Here we go.
Main:
Today I want to talk about what I think might be one of the most important concepts we’ve ever covered on this podcast, which is our need and our desire to cling to consistency.
We’ve been taught since we were little that we need to be consistent. We’ve been taught that inconsistency, and flip-flopping, and making decisions that are inconsistent with one another is a sign of lack of focus, lack of clarity, and that it can signal weakness or instability.
But what I want to share with you today is why being inconsistent and having the willingness to embrace inconsistency is absolutely essential for growth.
And when I say inconsistency, I mean inconsistency in the form of: the willingness to acknowledge a change in preferences, to have a shift in what you value, to refine what it is you want to achieve, who you choose to spend your time with, your motivations, or your opinions, for example.
Now this is challenging because we all cling to the idea of consistency because we believe that consistency signals stability. We believe that it shows other people and ourselves that we know what we’re doing, that we have it figured out, that everything is under control, that we’re smart enough to have a plan. Because if I can convince myself and others that I have it all figured out, then I can project a sense of strength and stability.
And we think that as soon as we start to project a sense of inconsistency, it will lead others to think we are weak or confused or don’t have the capacity to get our stuff together.
And there’s a major reason why we don’t want to acknowledge that we may be thinking or feeling or doing something that signals inconsistency: inconsistency leads to feelings of uncertainty. And anytime things feel uncertain, we feel a lack of safety.
Let me unpack that a little bit. Our mind spends so much time constructing and projecting a version of ourselves that reflects certainty because walking around feeling uncertain all day is incredibly uncomfortable.
Think about those times when uncertainty about anything is top of mind for you, and how squirmish and unsettled that makes you feel. There’s an inherent desire to solve and to explain and to remove uncertainty, because if we think we know how it’s going to turn out in the future, then we feel safe and we can let our guard down in the present.
So in order to avoid that, each of us constructs a story around who we are because it allows us to give definition and consistency to our understanding of reality, and we cling to that structure because it allows us to move through the world each day without having to feel unsettled or unsafe.
Now the interesting thing about the construct we build around who we are is that we take so much comfort in the security of that consistency - or if you want you can call it your identity - that we will go to incredible lengths to reject, willingly overlook, or blatantly ignore any innate desire that we feel to break with that consistency.
In other words, we are so scared to experience what it would be like to live with inconsistency and not be the version of ourselves that we’re familiar with, that we’re willing to push away and outright reject the opportunity to transcend who we are and transform into a new version of ourselves.
And this is where consistency and inconsistency come into play - our minds are so expert at keeping us safe that they’ll build these elaborate incredibly well-crafted stories for us that will reinforce the narrative that we have to remain consistent or else we’re nobody. If we’re not consistently the person we’ve always been, then who are we?
Our minds justify our continual pursuit of a narrative or a version of reality that will be in line with who we currently think we are:
Like I’m a lawyer, I’m a doctor, I’m a student, I’m someone who’s disciplined, I’m someone who enjoys what I do, I’m someone who can control my temper, I’m someone who knows how to resolve problems, I’m someone who sacrifices for other people, I’m someone who can be trusted.
And our minds do anything they can to keep us caught up in this story even if we have an alarm going off inside of us that tells us otherwise. And we all know what that alarm feels like - when who we’ve projected ourselves to be in the past just doesn’t align with how we feel right now.
Let me put it this way: have you ever been day-dreaming, or envisioning a different version of your reality, and as you’re doing it you get this welling up of excitement inside of you, and it’s just like a shot of adrenaline and you feel happy and excited and infused with energy - and just as quickly as your mind took you there, your mind drags you out of that dream with a whole bunch of reasons why you can’t have, or aren’t worthy of, becoming that person or living that reality? Can you feel that experience?
For me personally I spent years being trapped inside of the story that I was a lawyer. I had gone to law school for three years, I had practiced law at a big law firm for 5 years, I even went so far as to open up my own law firm and I asked people who trusted me to come along with me as my first clients, and I told the world how excited I was to start my own law firm.
And then just six months after I started my law firm, I had this emotion that kept welling up inside of me that was signaling to me that I didn’t want to be a lawyer.
I had daydreams of being up on a stage and sharing my thoughts with thousands of people, I dreamed about getting up every morning and feeling excited about writing and speaking and creating things that helped people each and every day - but that dream was inconsistent with who I had spent years telling other people I was, it was inconsistent with the drum beat that I marched to every morning: I’m a lawyer, this is what I do, I do it well, I’m consistent, trust me, I know what I’m doing, this is who I am.
And so when i had those moments and daydreams, as fast as they popped up and as powerful as they were in the moment, I always dragged myself down in part because the inconsistency of that narrative was scary.
And one of the reasons we pull ourselves down from that state of excitement and elation is because that vision is inconsistent with our current understanding of who we are. It doesn’t match the story and identity that we have spent so much time curating and crafting and repeating, it’s inconsistent with the lens that we’ve used to look at the world through.
It’s also inconsistent with what we believe is the way OTHER PEOPLE look at us and what they think about us.
And this one is really important because: what we project to other people about who we are is a vehicle for receiving validation and praise from other people, which is another way that we feel safe. And so if we even begin to think about putting something out there that is inconsistent with who other people think we are, it threatens the flow of validation we’ve worked so hard to get from other people and that we take so much comfort in.
In other words, the inconsistency signals the potential that if you don’t stick with your current script, you’ll lose your identity and therefore you’ll lose the love, admiration, and respect that you believe people have for you that was a direct result of the previously consistent narrative and story that you’ve been living and projecting.
So if you aren’t the current you, there’s a part of you that believes that other people won’t know or understand you, and will withhold the approval and validation that you spent so much time building up.
The fear of the loss of that is powerful. So that even if we desire to break from it, the anticipation of the loss of love and admiration and validation keeps us in line.
BUT. Here’s why we need to embrace and make room for inconsistency in our life. If we don’t make room for inconsistency, we leave no room for growth. By definition, growth is a state of consistently being inconsistent. Growth means that you are a version of yourself that is inconsistent with a previous version of you.
You can’t truly grow and maintain a pure state of consistency - the two are incompatible by definition.
So while it’s natural to want to cling to consistency because it’s a technique we use to survive, I’m encouraging you to consider what it might mean for you to embrace the idea of inconsistency.
Here’s another way to look at it: The speed at which you grow is equal to the speed at which you arrive at an understanding that a previous decision you made was based on what is now an outdated set of information.
I’ll repeat this because it’s important: The speed at which you grow is equal to the speed at which you arrive at an understanding that a previous decision you made was based on what is now an outdated set of information.
So what you’re doing by embracing inconsistency is just acknowledging that you have more information about yourself, as you sit here right now, than you did a year ago, a month ago, or even five minutes ago.
Embracing inconsistency doesn’t mean we don’t have our life together or that we’re unstable, it means that we’re open to the possibility that we have new information that’s requiring us to grow.
When someone comes to me and says “I’m not sure what I want,” or “I’m unhappy with my job,” or “I want to change careers,” I say GREAT. Congratulations!
And the reason that’s cause for celebration is because the recognition of that tension inside of you doesn’t mean something’s wrong - it’s the first step in the growth process. By recognizing that inconsistency, you’ve spotted a place where you’re ready to grow.
And i want to say again, it’s natural to feel discouraged by the predominant narrative that exists that inconsistency signals confusion and weakness.
Going back to my story, for years I resisted acknowledging that inconsistency inside of me. The narrative of “I’m a lawyer” was so ingrained that even the thought of telling people that I wanted to do something else made me sick to my stomach.
This is not an exaggeration, when I started to realize and internalize that I did not want to be a lawyer anymore, I got up almost every morning for six months and felt sick to my stomach. The uncertainty of detaching myself from the consistency of who I was made me sick.
But slowly, over time, the idea that it was ok to be inconsistent seeped into my consciousness. And little by little I realized that it was necessary and natural for me to feel inconsistent, and now I celebrate moments where I feel the tension of inconsistency.
So here’s the nugget of truth - every time you embrace inconsistency, you refine your ability to listen closely to who you truly are and who you’re becoming. A willingness to listen to and observe and examine the part of you that wants to change is the ultimate sign of self-respect and the ultimate sign of self-affirmation.
It’s the essence of the human experience. So instead of rejecting it, we have to embrace the opportunity to grow into a new, updated, more informed, more fulfilled version of ourselves.
So in wrapping this up I want to leave you with these two questions:
First, What’s something that you’re holding onto for the sake of consistency? Is there something that you’ve projected into the world, or even just told yourself over and over again, that you’re continuing to hold onto not because it makes you happy or fulfilled, but because if you acknowledge what you truly want it will be inconsistent with the version of you that you’ve promoted to yourself and to the world?
This includes coming to a place of inconsistency with things across the spectrum from “This is an opinion I’ve always held” to “This is how I’ve always approached this situation” to “This is a relationship I’ve always wanted to invest in” to “This is the career that I’ve always wanted to pursue.”
Second, once you have that thing in mind, I want you to ask: “What would my life be like if I embraced inconsistency?” In other words, I want you to go to that place I mentioned earlier where you have a vision of a change that you want to see - the place where you feel excited when you think about doing something inconsistent.
And I want you to sit with that. And I want you to feel what that feels like, I want you to be infused with the excitement that comes with it.
And the reason I want you to do that is because the more you sit inside of that place of excitement, the easier it becomes to gently shift your focus away from the inconsistency.
So in the example from my life, the more often I focused on what it would be like to not be a lawyer, and how happy I would be, and how many people I could help, the more I began to not only accept that that was ok, but also understand how I was going to go about doing it.
It helped me see a path forward. And over time, if you allow yourself to go there, it blunts the impact of wanting and clinging to consistency.
So give yourself permission to be someone who embraces inconsistency, someone who sees it for what it is, and someone who knows that it’s necessary in order to grow.
Go have a great workday.