How Consistency Outperforms Intensity in High Performance

Today’s Theme:

Most meaningful progress doesn’t come from dramatic pushes or heroic bursts of effort. It comes from sustained, steady action repeated long enough for the effects to compound. Anyone can surge when conditions feel ideal. The real separator is how you move when they aren’t.

The 20-Mile March

Over a century ago, two expedition leaders set out to reach the last unclaimed point on Earth (the South Pole). They faced the same terrain, the same brutal cold, and the same uncertainty, yet their approaches couldn’t have been more different.

Robert Falcon Scott led the British team. Roald Amundsen led the Norwegian camp.

Both had capable teams and resources, but this is where things began to veer in different directions for both camps.

Scott’s team adjusted their pace based on conditions. On good days, they pushed 30 or 40 miles. On bad days, they stopped and waited.

Amundsen’s team did the opposite. They committed to what he called the “20-mile march.” No matter the weather. No matter how they felt. Twenty miles. Every day.

No excuses. No negotiation. Just execution.

In the end, Amundsen’s team reached the South Pole five weeks earlier. More importantly, every member of his team returned home alive.

Scott’s team arrived second and none of them made it back.

The same conditions. Two different strategies. Two very different outcomes. 

4 Lessons on Consistency for High Performers

This story isn’t really about polar exploration. It’s about the mechanics of progress and consistency. It’s about how the most elite performers (across sport, leadership, and life) build systems that allow them to show up with consistency, while everyone else waits for ideal conditions.

These lessons matter because every meaningful pursuit eventually tests your discipline, not your talent.

Here are some of my favorite lessons that I like to extract from this story to share with individuals and teams.

1. Long-term consistency matters more than short-term intensity

Short bursts of intensity feel productive, but they rarely move the needle in a meaningful or sustainable way. Intensity relies on emotion, motivation, or ideal conditions (all of which are temporary and unpredictable). Consistency, on the other hand, compounds. Even small, repeatable actions create outsized returns because they accumulate and strengthen our identity over time.

2. Conditional effort produces conditional results

When your effort depends on how you feel or what the circumstances look like, your outcomes will mirror that same unpredictability. Conditional effort leads to streaky performance, fragile confidence, and a tendency to ride emotional waves rather than lead them. In competitive environments, the gap between good and great is often just the willingness to take consistent action when others would pull back.

3. Pre-commitments protect you from your future self and your circumstances

Human beings are notoriously inconsistent decision-makers. We overestimate our motivation, underestimate friction, and struggle to make disciplined choices in real time. Behavioral economics shows that pre-commitments reduce temptation, limit choice, and dramatically increase follow-through because the decision is made before emotion enters the equation.

A pre-commitment is an identity anchor and it shifts the question from “Do I feel like doing this today?” to “This is what I do.” By reducing negotiation, you protect yourself from the later version of you who is tired, stressed, or distracted.

4. Your standards must stay greater than your circumstances.

Circumstances will always fluctuate. Standards are the only stable force you control. When you elevate your standards above your circumstances, you operate from principle rather than emotion.

Pre-Commitments

The race to the South Pole offers a lesson in what psychologists call pre-commitments (as explained above).

Here’s a simple way to leverage pre-commitments to become more consistent as you pursue your goals.

Choose one area where inconsistency has been showing up (e.g. your preparation, communication, routines, skill development, or leadership behaviors). Then define one clear action you’ll commit to doing each day or each week, regardless of conditions.

The key is making your pre-commitment specific, sustainable, and easy to track.

You don’t need a long list. You need one meaningful commitment that reflects the person (or team) you want to become.

Here’s my personal example: Commit to “sweat before screens” to start your day.

For many of us (myself included), it’s easy to start your day by reaching for your day and getting sucked into mindless scrolling. Within minutes of waking up, we become reactive in our lives, rather than being deliberate and intentional with our choices.

One of the “pre-commitments” I’ve played around with is “sweat before screens.” In other words, I have to do something physical (even if it’s stretching for 5 minutes before I grab my phone or look at my computer).

Helpful Questions to Reflect On:

• What area of my performance or leadership is most affected by inconsistency?

• What single action, done consistently, would create meaningful progress over time?

• What might get in the way and how can I pre-commit to bypass that negotiation

Final Thoughts

In the end, success belongs to the performers and leaders who choose who they want to be before the moment arrives. Choose your standard now and let consistency carry you where intensity never could.

Inspiration for This Piece

• Collins, J., & Hansen, M. T. (2011). Great by choice: Uncertainty, chaos, and luck—Why some thrive despite them all. HarperCollins Publishers.