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- Elevate Letter #40: Why Consistency > Intensity?
Elevate Letter #40: Why Consistency > Intensity?
PLUS : The Rule of 100, Ikigai gone wrong, The Power of Quests & Rainy days.
Ajay Malhotra
March 16, 2025 • Reading Time: 8 minutes
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Loved this idea from David Cain of raptitude.com
Instead of treating your goals like to-do list items, try turning them into quests.
Here’s what makes quests different—and transformative:
1. Quests Are Adventures
Goals often feel like chores, but quests are journeys brimming with excitement. You’ll encounter challenges, surprises, and growth along the way.
Think of it like this:
Goal: Lose 10 pounds.
Quest: Embark on a 90-day nutrition odyssey to rebuild your relationship with food, slay the dragon of emotional eating, and reclaim energy for your creative projects.
2. Quests Have Dragons
Every quest has a “dragon”—a stubborn fear, habit, or lie you’ve believed about yourself (e.g., “I’m too old to change careers”).
Your job isn’t to avoid the dragon but to march toward it.
For example, slaying it might mean applying for that course or asking for mentorship—even if your hands shake.
Why?
Because the act of facing it rewires your self-concept.
You become someone who confronts challenges, not flees them.
3. Quests Transform You
Goals focus on changing your situation; quests change you.
The process itself—facing challenges, learning new skills—gradually reshapes you into a more capable person.
Take Sarah, who reframed her goal of “writing a book” as a quest to “share her grandmother’s survival story.”
She wrote 500 words daily—not out of obligation, but because the mission mattered.
4. Quests Make an Impact
Every quest adds new capabilities to your life, and those ripples extend outward. Mastering patience with your toddler?
That’s a quest that reshapes your family’s future.
Research shows that framing challenges as adventures increases persistence by 40%.
Your victory doesn’t just inspire others—it could spark meaningful change.
Chess prodigy and martial art champion Josh Waitzkin on developing an internal locus of control:
Spend 100 hours a year on any skill
(Just 18 minutes a day)
…and you’ll outperform 95% of people in that field.
Here’s why this works:
Consistency > Intensity
Most people dabble or quit. Showing up daily—even briefly—builds compounding momentum.
Deliberate Practice
Example: 18 minutes of focused Spanish conversation beats 2 hours of passive Duolingo scrolling.
The 95% Gap
The majority never commit to daily practice. Just 0.5% of your day* puts you in the top 5%.
Your move:
What seems “too small” today (writing 200 words, sketching one doodle, practicing chords) becomes a landslide victory over time.
What will you master with your 18 minutes today?
(18 minutes = 1% of your waking day)
Loved this from James Clear.
Of course, there are seasons of life that call for intense bursts.
Times when pushing hard feels necessary.
But if you want lasting change, it's the quieter, consistent actions that leave a lasting mark.
Answer this:
Where in your life would you benefit from more consistency?
If you made it this far, I have a small request.
Please reply to this email with one word to describe how you felt about this issue.
Have a great week ahead!
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Previous Elevate Letters👇
P.S. : If you haven’t read our previous Elevate Letter editions here they are 😀
»Elevate Letter #39: 3 hacks to be supercommunicator
»Elevate Letter #38: 15 mental models everyone should download into their head
»Elevate Letter #37: The real reason 90% habits fail
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