Consistency is a necessary component to success. Yet many do not realize how powerful being consistent can be. When the initial steam for a new project wears off, it is difficult to continue forward. If you discipline yourself to be consistent then it will help you follow through with your projects.

My goal for this post is to show you how consistency can benefit your career as a software developer.

Consistency Makes You Credible

By consistently delivering quality work, you establish a reputation. You are known as someone who delivers understandable and scalable code. By providing consistent value, you build up your reputation and reach to others. When others know you, you are recognized as an authority and a credible source.

In software development teams there is almost always a preferred person because they are consistent with their attitude and their actions. By being consistent, you can make yourself be in the position of the preferred person in any development team you are a part of in the future.

Consistency Builds Trust

When you commit to something and follow through, you learn to trust yourself. This, in turn, gives you a boost to your inner confidence.

When your main source of motivation is your trust in yourself, it is reliable and consistent. If your source of motivation is external, then it is unreliable and inconsistent.

When you apply a coding pattern and remain consistent with it in the code you deliver, it will help others understand your approach. This translates into respect from your peers in addition to the trust they have towards you.

Consistency Helps You Reach Your Goal

It takes some time to learn something new; it does not just happen overnight. In software development, it might take a few months to get up to speed on a specific framework. By consistently dedicating a bit of time to learning the new framework each day, it will have a compound effect later on.

Maybe you had experience one of those moments when the compound effect starts to happen. You consistently work on learning a subject for weeks or months and it is still not clear to you. Things just do not connect together and it is still hard to understand. Then the next day, things “magically” makes sense and your understanding increases dramatically. From that point on your skill increase exponentially until you hit a peak, which is limited by how much you know.

When you are going for a long-term goal, something to keep in mind is that the process of trying to reach your goal is more important. This means what you do every day matters more than what you plan to accomplish. For example, you can aim to be a famous developer in Android apps. That does not matter

For example, you can aim to be a famous developer in Android apps. It does not matter that much in comparison to you working on developing Android apps for an hour each day. By consistently developing Android apps a little each day, it will help you reach your goal.

Consistency Maintains Your Message

Being consistent helps you get your message across. For example, you want to give a message that you are organized. To do that you would consistently be on time and prepared. In addition, you consistently deliver code that is readable, easy to follow, and as bug-free as possible.

Keep in Mind Consistency Is Not Perfection

Consistency is repetition and not perfection. For example, you want to write high-quality code that is bug-free and works perfectly. Unfortunately, that is not the case most of the time. There will at least be some minor bugs.

However, if you consistently deliver code that has only minor bugs, you know you are improving each time. This is because delivering code that functions well is a skill you acquire as you grow as a software developer.

Dealing with Failures

Consistency will run into failures at some point. This is actually a good thing. It provides you with feedback and helps lead to better results.

As software developers, we should learn to embrace failures. It is not easy, but it is also inescapable in software development. Therefore, it is best to accept that you will encounter failures and take it as a learning opportunity to find out what works and what does not.

For more on why software developers should learn to embrace failures, you can visit here.

All-Or-Nothing Mindset

Believing that one mistake is a sign to call it quits is bad. Surprisingly, many people enforce this mindset towards their lives regularly. This type of thinking is the root to why some people fail to do what they want to achieve.

Here are some examples:

Diet

A person decides to go on a diet. They kept eating healthy for a while and then they missed one day by eating junk food. Because they missed one day, they gave up on their diet altogether.

Instead, if the person looks at the situation from a consistency point-of-view, they would recognize that it is just a minor setback. Missing one day will not have a significant impact on their long-term goal.

Exercising

A person decides to get into shape by hitting the gym. They managed to go to the gym for a while and then they missed a day. By missing a day, it was easier to miss another day and then another. Eventually, the person stops going to the gym.

From a consistency point-of-view, the person would recognize that they are making good progress and that missing one day of exercise would not really matter. If the person continues going to the gym despite missing one day, they could have reached their goal.

I hope this post was helpful to you in giving you a jump in your career. If you found this post helpful, share it with others.

If you have any questions or would like to share your experiences with being consistent, leave a comment, send me a tweet, or send me an email at steven@brightdevelopers.com. I will be glad to hear about your experiences with consistency.

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