Asher's Blog

Ambition is exciting because it allows us to imagine the future at its best.

We can talk about building the largest company in an industry, transforming millions of lives, becoming financially independent, writing a book, growing a global career or creating one of the most significant businesses to come out of Africa. Ambition gives us energy. It gives language to possibility and can make us feel as though we have already begun to move.

But having a great ambition is not the same as doing the work required to achieve it.

I was discussing consistency with a friend recently, and the conversation brought me back to a simple question: after all the vision, excitement and declarations, are you consistently doing what the goal requires?

You can start something today. The harder question is whether you will continue tomorrow, next week and six months from now, particularly when the work becomes repetitive, the applause disappears and the result has not yet arrived. That is why I believe consistency is harder than ambition.

Ambition Is a Moment; Consistency Is a Pattern

It takes only a moment to announce a large goal. Consistency has to survive many different versions of you.

It has to survive the motivated version of you and the tired one. It must survive the day when the strategy feels brilliant and the day when you question whether anything is working. It has to continue through praise, criticism, distraction, disappointment and boredom.

Ambition asks, “What do I want to accomplish?” Consistency asks, “What am I prepared to repeat?”

The second question is more revealing because every meaningful outcome has a set of behaviours beneath it. A revenue target requires customer conversations, follow-ups, proposals, product improvements and collections. A strong body requires repeated choices about food, sleep and movement. A healthy marriage requires communication, attention, forgiveness and service. Spiritual growth requires prayer, study, obedience and fellowship beyond moments of emotional intensity.

We often admire the visible outcome while overlooking the ordinary repetitions that produced it.

James Clear captures this idea in Atomic Habits: “You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.” Goals can inspire action, but systems determine what happens after the inspiration fades.

What My First Sales Team Taught Me

I remember building my first sales team. They were a group of young graduates, and many of them were very good. They were intelligent, energetic and capable of learning quickly. Yet one of the most important things that shaped the team was not simply their educational background or natural ability. It was the consistency of their sales habits.

Were they prospecting every day? Were they making the required calls? Were they following up after the first conversation? Were they recording what customers said? Were they sending proposals on time? Were they returning to leads that had not yet converted? Were they learning from rejection and adjusting their approach?

Sales makes the value of consistency unusually visible because results often arrive after a delay. The call you make today may not produce revenue today. A prospect may need several conversations, an internal budget, management approval or a change in circumstances before making a decision. If a salesperson measures the value of today’s work only by today’s sale, they may abandon the right activity before it has had time to mature.

That is why I learnt to examine the habits before examining the outcome.

Before asking, “How much did you sell?”, it can be useful to ask, “Did you do the work that makes a sale more likely?”

Results ultimately matter. A sales organisation cannot hide permanently behind activity when revenue is absent. But early in a person’s development, and especially when the sales cycle is long, consistent inputs reveal whether there is a real process to improve.

If the right activities are happening consistently but the results remain poor, a leader can diagnose the system. Perhaps the message is wrong, the target customer is poorly defined, the product is weak, the price is unsuitable or the salesperson needs better coaching. Without consistent activity, the data are too thin to teach you very much.

Measure the Behaviour Before Judging the Person

For young people beginning their careers, consistency is one of the most valuable qualities a leader can observe.

Can this person do what they agreed to do without being repeatedly reminded? Can they arrive prepared? Can they complete the follow-up after the excitement of the initial assignment has passed? Can they maintain a standard when nobody is watching? Can they produce reliable work across ordinary weeks, not only during moments of urgency?

A new employee may not yet possess all the skill required for the role. Skill can often be taught. What becomes more difficult is building a team around people whose effort cannot be relied upon.

Consistency creates a foundation for coaching because the leader can distinguish between a capability problem and a commitment problem. If someone is repeatedly performing the agreed activity but not succeeding, they may need training, better tools or a different approach. If the activity itself is irregular, no technique will have enough repetition to produce mastery.

Angela Duckworth expresses the relationship between talent and effort in Grit with the sentence, “Talent counts, but effort counts twice.” Her model is that talent multiplied by effort produces skill, and skill multiplied by effort produces achievement. Effort appears twice because it develops ability and then turns that ability into results.

This does not mean talent and competence are irrelevant. Consistency cannot transform every person into an expert in every field. But unused talent produces very little, while sustained, intelligent effort can develop modest beginnings into remarkable capability.

Consistency Is Discipline Applied to a Commitment

I think of consistency as discipline applied to a commitment. You have decided that a particular action matters, and you continue to honour that decision even when your immediate feelings disagree. You do what you said you would do, come rain or shine—not because circumstances never matter, but because moods are no longer allowed to renegotiate the commitment every day.

This is what makes consistency difficult. Every repetition appears small enough to postpone.

One missed call does not destroy a sales target. One neglected workout does not remove physical fitness. One day without reading does not eliminate knowledge. One delayed customer response does not immediately ruin a company. Because the consequence of a single omission is usually small, the mind finds it easy to create an exception.

But a pattern is simply an exception that has been repeated. The same is true positively. One sales call may not transform a business, but hundreds of thoughtful conversations can reveal what the market wants. One page may feel insignificant, but pages accumulate into books. One careful financial review may not change a company, but a rhythm of reviewing cash, margins and obligations can prevent an avoidable crisis. Consistency converts small actions into strategic consequences.

Habits Take Longer Than Motivation Suggests

Popular culture sometimes claims that a habit forms in 21 days. The evidence is less convenient.

In a frequently cited study led by Phillippa Lally at University College London, participants selected a daily health-related behaviour and reported how automatic it felt over time. Among the participants whose data could be modelled successfully, the median time to reach 95 per cent of the estimated plateau in automaticity was 66 days. The individual estimates ranged widely—from 18 to 254 days.

The study was relatively small and focused on particular behaviours, so 66 days should not be treated as a universal deadline. Its more useful lesson is that habit formation varies by person and activity, and it often takes much longer than three weeks.

That matters because many people stop during the exact period in which repetition is still supposed to feel difficult. They assume that because the behaviour has not become natural, the system is failing. In reality, conscious effort may still be building the pattern.

The study also found that missing one opportunity did not materially disrupt the habit-formation process. That is encouraging. Consistency does not require a flawless record. It requires returning quickly enough that an interruption does not become abandonment.

You do not need to be perfect; you need to remain in the pattern.

Consistency Is Not Repeating the Wrong Thing Forever

There is an important qualification: repetition by itself is not a virtue. A salesperson can consistently contact the wrong customers; a founder can consistently build features nobody wants. A manager can consistently hold meetings that produce no decisions. A person can be extremely disciplined about an approach that evidence has already shown to be ineffective.

That is not productive consistency; it is organised waste. The objective is to remain consistent about the commitment while remaining flexible about the method. If the goal is to understand customers, the method may change from mass email to targeted calls or in-person meetings. If the goal is to generate qualified opportunities, the team may revise its customer profile, message or channel. If the goal is to become healthier, an exercise routine that causes injury should be adjusted rather than defended as discipline.

Good consistency includes a feedback loop:

1. Perform the agreed activity.
2. Record what happened.
3. Review the evidence at a sensible interval.
4. Improve the method.
5. Return to consistent execution.

Consistency without reflection produces rigidity. Reflection without consistency produces endless theory. Progress requires both.

Build a Scorecard for the Work Beneath the Goal

Large ambitions become more manageable when they are translated into behaviours that can be observed.

If a sales team has an annual revenue goal, do not speak only about the annual number. Work backwards. How many customers are required? What is the average contract value? What proportion of qualified opportunities normally close? How many qualified opportunities must therefore enter the pipeline? Which weekly activities create them?

The team can then monitor both leading and lagging indicators. Lagging indicators tell you what has already happened: revenue, signed contracts, churn or profit. Leading indicators tell you whether the activities likely to produce future results are taking place: qualified conversations, demonstrations, proposals, follow-ups, product usage or renewal discussions.

Neither category is sufficient alone. Activity without outcomes can become theatre, while outcome targets without activity measures leave the team staring at numbers it cannot directly control.

For an individual, the same principle applies. If your ambition is to write a book, you might track focused writing sessions or completed words each week. If your ambition is to build stronger relationships, you might create a rhythm for meaningful calls, visits or acts of service. If you want to grow spiritually, you need practices that make time with God part of your life rather than something reserved for emergencies. Do not only measure the mountain. Measure the steps.

Make Consistency Easier Than Inconsistency

Many people try to solve inconsistency by increasing motivation. A better approach is often to improve the environment.

If a task requires a fresh act of willpower every time, it will become fragile under pressure. Systems reduce the number of decisions required to keep a commitment.

You can create consistency by:

• assigning the activity a fixed time and place;
• defining the smallest acceptable version for difficult days;
• preparing the tools or information in advance;
• removing distractions and unnecessary choices;
• using checklists for repeated processes;
• making progress visible on a simple scorecard;
• reviewing performance with another person;
• connecting the behaviour to an existing routine;
• designing recovery rules for the days you miss.

The smallest acceptable version is particularly useful. A salesperson may have a full daily prospecting target, but on a disrupted day there should still be a minimum that keeps the rhythm alive. A writer may prefer an hour of deep work but commit to at least one paragraph. The minimum is not the ultimate standard; it prevents an imperfect day from becoming a lost week. Consistency becomes more sustainable when the system anticipates real life.

Leaders Must Model the Rhythm They Demand

It is easy for a leader to demand consistency from employees while managing their own commitments through bursts of attention.

The founder introduces a priority with great energy, asks everyone to focus on it and then replaces it with a new priority two weeks later. Meetings are scheduled but regularly cancelled. Feedback is promised but not delivered. Targets change without explanation; the team is then criticised for lacking discipline.

People learn what matters by observing what leadership repeats. If customer conversations are important, the leader should create a reliable rhythm for reviewing customer insight. If financial discipline matters, numbers should be examined consistently rather than only when cash is low. If employee development matters, coaching should not disappear whenever the company becomes busy.

Consistency gives credibility to a leader’s priorities. A value that appears only in speeches is an aspiration. A value that shapes repeated decisions becomes culture.

This is where leaders must apply the same question to themselves that they ask of their teams: am I doing what the vision requires with sufficient consistency?

Discipline Must Include Rest

“Come rain or shine” should not mean ignoring illness, exhaustion, family responsibilities or the limits of the human body.

Burnout is not evidence of commitment. A system that can operate only while people sacrifice sleep, health and relationships is not a disciplined system; it is an unsustainable one.

Rest can be part of consistency because it protects the ability to return. Athletes schedule recovery as part of training. Effective teams need intense periods of execution, but they also need rhythms that allow people to think, learn and recover.

The aim is not to perform at maximum intensity every day. It is to remain faithful to the important work over a long period.

Sustainable consistency may look less dramatic than constant urgency, but it produces more.

Consistency Builds Identity

Repeated action does more than produce an external result. It changes how you understand yourself.

Every time you keep a commitment, you collect evidence that you are a person who can be trusted by yourself and others. The young salesperson who follows up every day is not only building a pipeline; they are becoming reliable. The leader who reviews the numbers every week is becoming financially disciplined. The founder who keeps listening to customers is becoming less attached to assumptions.

James Clear describes habits as votes for the identity we want to build. No single action completes the transformation, but repeated votes gradually make the identity credible.

This is one reason inconsistency is so costly. It does not only delay the result; it weakens trust in our own commitments. We stop believing our declarations because we have heard them before without seeing the corresponding behaviour.

The solution is not another dramatic promise; it is a smaller promise kept repeatedly.

Consistency Is Greater Than Ambition

Ambition matters. I am deeply ambitious, and I believe we should pursue goals large enough to stretch our imagination, demand growth and create meaningful impact.

But ambition cannot complete its own work; the vision must become a plan. The plan must become a set of actions; the actions must become a rhythm. The rhythm must survive long enough to produce learning, capability and results.

This is true for salespeople at the beginning of their careers, founders building companies, leaders developing teams and anyone pursuing a meaningful life.

Ask yourself:

• What have I committed to achieving?
• Which repeated behaviours make that outcome more likely?
• Am I performing them consistently?
• What evidence tells me that the behaviours are working?
• What must I adjust without abandoning the goal?
• What system will help me continue when motivation is low?

You do not have to be the most talented person in the room. You need enough humility to learn, enough judgement to choose the right work and enough discipline to keep doing it.

Ambition tells the world what you hope to become. Consistency reveals what you are actually becoming.

In the end, the size of the dream will matter far less than the faithfulness of the actions beneath it.

References

• Angela Duckworth, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance
• James Clear, Atomic Habits
• Charles Duhigg, The Power of Habit
• Phillippa Lally, Cornelia H. M. van Jaarsveld, Henry W. W. Potts and Jane Wardle, “How Are Habits Formed? Modelling Habit Formation in the Real World”, European Journal of Social Psychology
• Benjamin Gardner, Phillippa Lally and Jane Wardle, “Making Health Habitual”, British Journal of General Practice