Just like Einstein
Persistent, Not Consistent
I slept almost eight straight hours last night.
That might not sound like a big deal, but it was the first time in weeks I’ve rested that deeply. No tossing, no obsessing, no getting up every few hours. I woke up settled—and I know exactly why.
It wasn’t the magnesium.
It wasn’t a new bedtime routine.
It was the breakthrough that came to me in a quiet whisper just before I drifted off.
I had spent most of the day before in something I now recognize as a spiritual wrestling match.
Not with a schedule. Not with a to-do list. But between my ego and my soul.
My ego wanted movement. It wanted results, clarity, control.
My soul asked for stillness.It asked me to sit and wait.
And eventually… I did. I sat. I listened. I didn’t try to produce or perform. I stopped fighting the void. I stopped pretending I wasn’t discouraged. And in that crack—between fatigue and surrender—my soul slipped in a truth so tender and fierce it snapped me awake.
“You’re not consistent. You’re persistent.”
And I felt something anchor in me.
I’d been carrying a silent, shameful belief that I can’t do this. That I’ll never build something lasting because I can’t be consistent like the gurus say.
Everywhere I turn, it’s the same advice:
“Be consistent. Be predictable. Be disciplined.”
Shoot, the notes on my report card from my teachers often read “Monica Rose lacked discipline” Those school teachers were clueless about the inner workings of a childs soul. Even with this hung on my being like a harness, I -even then- was persistent. The only difference; nobody explained to me the value of persistence.
But what if your nervous system doesn’t run on a timer? What if your creativity comes in waves, not boxes? What if your trauma, healing, and truth don’t follow the marketing calendar?
Mine don’t.
And I’ve spent years thinking that meant I was broken.
But I’m not broken. I’m persistent.
Einstein wasn’t consistent either.
There’s a story about him walking away from a cafeteria, so immersed in thought that when someone asked a simple question—whether the cafeteria was still open—he couldn’t answer. He had no idea. He wasn’t tracking time. He wasn’t following a schedule.
He was chasing a formula that would change the world.
Do you think anyone told Einstein he needed to be more consistent?
He was forgetful, unkempt, scattered—and yet he was unrelentingly, obsessively, beautifully persistent.
He couldn’t stop pursuing what mattered. And that’s what made him Einstein.
Persistence is what brought me to the easel when I had nothing to say.
Persistence is what brought me back to the screen, the brush, the blank page—again and again, even when I doubted everything. Persistence is what made me rebuild my life after it fell apart.
And it’s what will carry me forward now.
Not routine.Not rigidity. Not some fake-it-til-you-make-it hustle.
But devotion.
To my soul.
To my rhythm.
To the truth that I will always, always return.
This life I’m building—it’s not built on consistency.
It’s built on loyalty to myself.
On sitting long enough to hear my soul when she finally speaks.
And last night, she said,
“You don’t need to become someone you’re not.
You already are someone powerful.
You’re persistent.”
That was the shift.
That’s what let me sleep.
If you’ve ever felt broken by the word “consistent”—
if it’s made you feel like you’ll never catch up or measure up—
I want to tell you what I told myself in the dark:
Let it go. Pick up persistence instead. It will take you further.
And it will feel like freedom.
Love this! Just the reframe of my way of living that I needed!