The Power of Consistency

What My Toolbox Taught Me About Progress

Consistency is one of those words we hear so often that it can start to lose its meaning. It appears in conversations about careers, business, fitness and personal growth, usually followed by the idea that if you keep turning up and working hard, success will eventually arrive.

There is some truth in that, but I think we sometimes make consistency sound far simpler than it really is.

Life is rarely consistent. Energy changes. Priorities move. Work becomes busy, family needs more from us and sometimes our mental health makes an ordinary day feel far more difficult than it looks from the outside. Motivation comes and goes, and there will always be periods when progress slows down or stops altogether.

For me, consistency has never meant doing everything perfectly or forcing myself to perform at the same level every day. It has meant returning to something often enough that, over time, the small efforts begin to build on one another.

I understood this long before I had the words to explain it. I could see it in something very ordinary: my tools.

When I started training as an electrician in 2011, I had a small toolkit that I took to college. By 2024, that one toolkit had become 12 different toolboxes and bags filled with equipment I had collected across more than a decade in the trade.

It did not happen through one large purchase or one sudden turning point. It happened one tool, one job, one mistake and one lesson at a time.

Looking back, that growing collection became a record of my progress. Each item represented something I had learned, a responsibility I had taken on or a stage in my career that I had slowly grown into. The tools were useful, of course, but the real value was in the years of experience behind them.

Starting With What I Had in 2011

When I began my journey to become an electrician, I did not have much. I had a basic toolkit, very little practical experience and no guarantee of where the course would eventually take me.

I certainly did not look like the experienced electricians I would later work alongside. They had vans full of tools and seemed to know instinctively what to reach for. I was still learning the basics and trying to understand the difference between knowing something in a classroom and being able to apply it in the real world.

That can be an uncomfortable stage in any career. You are aware of how little you know, but you do not yet have enough experience to see how much you are improving. It is easy to compare your beginning with somebody else’s tenth or twentieth year and convince yourself that you are behind.

My small toolkit could have felt like proof that I was not ready. In reality, it was simply the correct toolkit for the stage I was at.

I did not need every specialist piece of equipment on the first day. I needed enough to learn safely, practise the fundamentals and begin understanding the trade. The more experienced people around me had not started with everything either. Their collections had been built through years of work, just as mine would be.

So I kept turning up. I listened, asked questions, made mistakes and gradually became more comfortable with work that had once felt unfamiliar. Some days went well. Others reminded me how much I still had to learn. Both were part of the same process.

That is where consistency really began for me. It was not exciting, and it would not have made a particularly impressive photograph. It was simply a young apprentice carrying a small toolkit into college and continuing to come back.

By 2014, the Toolkit Had Started to Grow

By 2014, things had moved forward. I had gained more knowledge, spent more time working practically and started to understand which tools I genuinely needed rather than which ones simply looked good.

I bought my first drill, invested in a stronger tool bag and began adding more specialist equipment. My collection was still modest compared with that of an established electrician, but it was no longer the same small kit I had started with.

The difference was not only what I owned. I was becoming more capable of using it.

A drill in the hands of somebody with little experience is just a drill. Over time, you learn how different materials respond, when more force is the wrong answer, how to avoid damaging a finished surface and why preparation often saves more time than rushing. You also learn that owning the right tool does not automatically produce good work. Judgement comes from experience, and experience cannot be bought from a shop.

This was the stage where I started noticing that small improvements were adding up. A task that once took me a long time became more natural. I could approach jobs with a little more confidence and understand why certain methods worked better than others. There was still plenty I did not know, but I was no longer standing where I had been three years earlier.

The progress was easier to see when I looked backwards.

Day to day, the changes felt tiny. One new technique did not transform my career. One extra tool did not suddenly make me an expert. Even a good week could be followed by a job that brought me straight back down to earth. Yet across months and years, those small changes created a completely different level of skill.

That is one of the difficult things about consistency: while you are doing it, it can feel as if very little is happening.

By 2020, the Tools Were Taking Over the Living Room

Nine years after I started, my collection had become difficult to ignore. By 2020, tools and equipment were taking up roughly half of my living room.

I had power drills, wall chasers, saws, specialist hand tools and more than one vacuum. Anyone who has worked in the trades will understand the vacuums. There always seems to be a reason for another one, even if the people you live with do not share your enthusiasm.

The collection had grown because the work had grown. I could take on more complicated jobs, complete tasks more efficiently and arrive better prepared for the problems that might appear. Each purchase usually came from a practical need. A job showed me what was missing, I invested when I could and the new equipment became part of the way I worked.

By this point, I had also learned that tools can make work easier, but they cannot replace patience, planning or care. The most expensive equipment in the world will not stop somebody rushing. It will not build trust with a client, communicate with another trade or help you make a sensible decision when a job changes unexpectedly.

Those abilities had been growing alongside the collection, even though they were harder to photograph.

I had become better at looking ahead, organising a job and thinking about the person who would be living or working in the space afterwards. I understood more about quality, efficiency and responsibility. I had experienced good days, difficult customers, jobs that went wrong and moments when I questioned whether I was good enough. All of that became part of my education.

Consistency was no longer only about learning how to use a tool. It was about learning how to carry myself as an electrician.

Twelve Toolboxes and Bags by 2024

By 2024, I had 12 toolboxes and bags filled with the equipment I had built up over the years. Screwdrivers, drills, cutters, testers, saws, wall chasers and, yes, the vacuums were all there.

If you had placed that collection next to the small college toolkit from 2011, the difference would have been obvious. What would have been less visible was everything that had happened between those two points.

There were thousands of ordinary working days behind those boxes. Early starts, long journeys, training, failed attempts, awkward jobs and lessons I would rather have learned the easy way. There were tools I bought too early, tools I probably did not need and others that earned their place almost immediately. There were periods of confidence and periods when I felt as if I was still trying to find my feet.

The final collection may have looked impressive, but no single day had created it.

That is why I think we need to be careful when we look at somebody else’s progress. We usually see the 12 toolboxes, the established business, the confident speaker or the finished project. We do not see the small kit they carried at the beginning, the mistakes that embarrassed them or the years when improvement was happening quietly.

We compare our current reality with the part of their journey that is easiest to see.

Consistency Is Not the Same as Perfection

One of the biggest misunderstandings about consistency is the idea that you must never miss a day, change your routine or lose momentum.

That has never been realistic for me. As I have shared in my blog about living with ADHD, my attention, energy and ability to stay organised do not always follow a neat pattern. There are times when I can become completely absorbed in something and other times when starting a straightforward task feels unexpectedly difficult.

If I judged consistency only by whether every day looked the same, I would constantly feel as if I was failing.

I have had to understand it differently. Consistency can include losing your rhythm and finding it again. It can mean reducing what you are doing when life becomes heavy rather than abandoning it completely. It can involve admitting that your original approach is not working and trying another one.

There is a difference between being consistent with a purpose and being rigid about a method.

An electrician would not continue using the wrong tool simply because that was the tool they started with. They would assess the job, change the approach and use what fits the situation. Personal growth should allow for the same common sense.

Sometimes progress is showing up and doing the work. Sometimes it is resting before exhaustion turns into burnout. Sometimes it is asking for help, reviewing the plan or accepting that a goal needs more time than you expected.

Rest does not erase consistency. A difficult month does not cancel the effort that came before it. Changing direction does not always mean giving up. It may mean that you have learned enough to choose more wisely.

The Tools Were Never the Real Achievement

By the time I had built the full collection, I understood that the tools were not the most important part of the story.

They were evidence of where I had been, but the real progress was inside me. I had developed skills, judgement and confidence that could not be stored in a toolbox. I had learned how to solve problems, communicate with people and continue when I did not immediately know the answer.

The tools have since been sold, so anyone reading this with criminal intentions can save themselves the journey. More seriously, selling them did not take away the years of learning they represented. The equipment could leave, but the experience stayed with me.

There is something quite freeing in that.

We can become attached to visible proof of progress: the job title, the van, the qualifications, the equipment or the number in a bank account. Those things can matter, but they are not the whole story. Circumstances change. Careers move in different directions. Possessions are bought and sold.

What remains is who you became while building them.

The Same Lesson Shaped Onward Shift

I can now see the same pattern in the story of Onward Shift.

It did not begin as the platform it is today. I did not sit down with every service, resource and future direction perfectly mapped out. I began with an idea that I wanted to help people, particularly those in construction who felt they had nowhere to turn when life became difficult.

From there, one action led to another. A conversation became a piece of content. One piece of content led to another conversation. We began publishing blogs, recording the Onward Shift Podcast, sharing lived experiences and finding more ways to support people, companies and education.

There have been periods when I felt clear about the direction and others when I questioned almost everything. Some ideas worked. Some needed to change. There were times when progress felt painfully slow and moments when I looked back and realised how much had quietly been built.

That experience has reminded me that consistency is rarely glamorous. Much of Onward Shift has grown through work that most people never see: writing another page, sending another email, editing another podcast, following up a conversation and returning to an idea after doubting it.

The platform has not grown because I felt motivated every day. It has grown because the purpose kept bringing me back.

For me, that is a more honest definition of consistency. It is not endless energy. It is having a reason strong enough to return when your energy, confidence or direction has dipped.

When It Feels as Though Nothing Is Changing

There will be stages in any worthwhile journey when the effort seems much greater than the result.

You may be an apprentice who still needs help with tasks you think you should understand by now. You might be moving into management and finding that being responsible for people is very different from being good on the tools. You could be building a business, trying to improve your mental health or learning to set boundaries after years of saying yes to everything.

In those periods, looking only at the final goal can make progress feel invisible.

It can help to compare yourself with an earlier version of you instead. What can you handle now that once felt intimidating? What do you understand today that confused you a year ago? Which conversation are you now able to have that you previously avoided?

The answer may not be dramatic, but that does not make it unimportant.

When I was carrying my first small toolkit, I could not see the 12 boxes ahead of me. I only knew what the next stage required. Learn the task in front of me. Buy the next tool when I genuinely needed it. Ask when I was unsure. Keep developing.

Most long-term change is built in that way. The next useful action is usually smaller and less exciting than the final ambition.

Giving Yourself Enough Time

We place a great deal of pressure on ourselves to progress quickly. We decide that something should take three months, a year or five years, then treat the timeline as proof of whether we are succeeding.

But people do not begin from the same place or move under the same circumstances. Somebody may have financial support, useful contacts or experience that gives them a head start. Somebody else may be learning while caring for a family, managing their mental health or working long hours to keep the bills paid.

The pace will be different, and that is okay.

Consistency becomes far more sustainable when it is built around your actual life rather than an imaginary version of you who never gets tired, distracted or worried. Choose a pace you can return to. Make the action small enough that it does not depend on perfect conditions. Notice when your approach is harming you and be willing to change it.

There is no prize for reaching a goal quickly if you are too exhausted to recognise yourself when you arrive.

Progress Is Often Quiet

The small toolkit I carried in 2011 did not look like the beginning of anything remarkable. It was simply what I had at the time.

By 2014, I had added a drill, a stronger bag and more knowledge. By 2020, the tools were taking over half of my living room. By 2024, they filled 12 toolboxes and bags. Each stage made sense only because of the one before it.

That is the lesson I continue to carry with me, even though the tools themselves have gone.

You do not need to have everything at the beginning. You do not need to move at somebody else’s pace, and you do not need every day to look productive. You need enough honesty to know what matters, enough patience to give it time and enough self-compassion to return after the difficult days.

Consistency is not proof that you never struggle. It is the decision to keep a relationship with the thing that matters to you, even when that relationship has to change.

If you currently feel behind, take a moment before judging yourself. Look at what you started with. Look at what you have learned. Then think about the next tool you genuinely need, whether that is knowledge, support, time, confidence or an actual drill.

You do not have to build the whole collection today.

You only have to begin with what you have and allow the next step to be enough.

If you are trying to make a change but feel stuck, overwhelmed or unsure where to begin, Onward Shift’s support for people brings together coaching, counselling, events and free resources designed to help you find the next step without judgement.