Unraveling: The Work before The Work

Estimated read time: 5 mins 47 secs

Before you can stay consistent, you have to decide what deserves your consistency. This is about the work that comes before the work.

Most people think consistency is about willpower. I think it’s about honesty.

A colleague and I were talking recently - not about morning routines or discipline hacks - but about why some things we stick with effortlessly while others we abandon almost immediately.

The Myth

We’re taught that consistency is a discipline problem. That if we just had more willpower, motivation, or the right system, we could stick with anything.

Self-help books promise frameworks. Apps promise tracking. Everyone promises that if we just try hard enough, we’ll finally be consistent.

But that completely misses the point.

Consistency is about clarity, not discipline. And most people never get clear before they start building systems.

The Real Barrier

People are consistent about what actually matters to them.
Not what they think should matter. Not what looks good online. The things that genuinely align with their values.

When I was 30 pounds overweight and lost my job, something broke open in me. That time period was a wake-up call. I’d built my identity on working hard, believing effort always paid off. But I’d worked hard and still lost my job.

So what was I actually chasing?

At first, I was terrified. Fear got me moving, but fear doesn’t last. What did last was what came next: clarity. I started asking, What actually matters to me?

The answer was simple: I wanted to be the strongest version of myself for my wife. For my future kids. I wanted to move through life without regret.

Once that clicked, showing up wasn’t a battle of willpower, it was just what I did. The consistency came after the clarity, not before.

But I wasn’t always in a place to find that clarity. When I was buried in $30,000+ of student debt, working 12-hour days, barely getting by, I didn’t have the space for deep reflection. I was in survival mode. When you’re trying to keep the lights on, you can’t always afford philosophical questions about purpose. You just do what you have to do.

This essay is for people who’ve moved past that phase - who finally have enough stability to ask what deserves their time and energy. If you’re still surviving, that’s okay. Your time for clarity will come.

Why We Fail

Most people have it backward.

They pick something to be consistent about because it looks appealing, then try to build willpower around it. They set reminders, build systems, download apps. And for a while, it works - until it doesn’t.

It's not because they’re weak. But because they were never asking the right question.

The right question isn’t "How do I stay consistent?"
It’s "What matters to me enough that I’ll show up even when it’s hard?"

If you can’t answer that, no system will save you. You’ll hit a day where the system feels like a cage and you’ll quit - then feel guilty and start over. Not because you lack discipline, but because you never truly believed it mattered.

The Hard Work Comes First

Before you build systems, get honest about your priorities. Not your aspirational ones - your real ones.

Where do you spend your time? Your money? What would you do even if nobody was watching?

Here’s the tricky part: many of us don’t actually know what we want. We’ve been chasing borrowed goals - what our parents wanted, what society told us to want, what looked impressive. So the first step isn’t building a new routine. It’s unraveling.

I spent six months in therapy doing exactly that. Sitting with uncomfortable questions, challenging inherited beliefs, separating what I actually cared about from what I thought I should. It was messy, painful, and necessary.

By the end, I could finally answer “What actually matters to me?” with honesty instead of performance.

That’s where clarity starts. Not with a vision board or motivational quote, but with the quiet, unglamorous work of questioning everything you’ve been told to want.

At the same time, be real about your circumstances. If you’re in a survival season - financially stressed, caregiving, unstable - this kind of reflection might have to wait. That’s not failure. It’s life.

But if you do have the bandwidth, then the uncomfortable truth is this: you can’t be consistent about everything. You have finite energy, time, and attention. You have to choose. And most people never do.

They try to be consistent in health, career, relationships, hobbies, and learning, all at once, and wonder why they’re exhausted.

The clarity you need isn’t about how to be consistent. It’s about what deserves your consistency. Choosing means saying no to a lot of things, even good ones.

When You Know Your Why

Once you know what actually matters, truly matters, something shifts. You stop negotiating with yourself. You stop wondering if today’s the day you skip.

You show up because the alternative, not showing up, feels worse.

This is alignment.

When your actions match your values, consistency stops being a heroic act. It becomes a natural expression of who you are. There’s no internal conflict. You’re just being yourself.

At that point, systems become tools and not cages. They support your priorities instead of defining them. They catch you on the tired days, but they’re not what carry you.

I think about the genuinely consistent people I know.
Not influencers or hustle gurus. The quiet ones.

The parent who shows up for their kids - not to optimize parenting, but because being there is non-negotiable.

The colleague who delivers steady work every week - not from obsession, but because reliability is part of their identity.

The friend who calls their parents every week - not out of guilt, but love.

They’re not white-knuckling through discipline. They’ve just decided these things are who they are. Not showing up would feel like a betrayal of self.

That’s the difference clarity makes.

Pick Your Why

Before you build another system, before you download another app, before you commit to another habit - stop.

Get clear on what actually matters. Not what should matter. Not what looks good. What truly aligns with who you want to be.

Once you know that, consistency becomes simpler - not effortless, but anchored.

Life will still get messy. You’ll still miss days. But clarity removes the biggest barrier: the internal conflict of fighting yourself.

You’re no longer pushing uphill. You’re moving in a direction that makes sense to you.

It won’t always be easy. But it will be honest.
And that’s what lasts.

Written by Thomas Denny (10/17/2025)