How to achieve consistency in spiritual ascension?

This is going to sound simplistic and it's only my take but here goes.

The problem is the habits of mind under the influence of a lifetime of experience. It's been conditioned when and how to act and react. This being the case it's conditioned to derive the lion's share of its emotional state from what's occurring without and then reacting based on the conditioning of that lifetime of accumulated experience. In this state it can't help but being in the throws of external stimuli, both positive and negative and our true nature, our spiritual nature, is its prisoner.

As I see it one approach is tame the habits of mind through contemplative practice, whichever form suites the individual and there are many. The one common aspect is they all involve training the mind by looking within, not without. It could be prayer, chanting, meditation, etc... and they all focus the mind on a single-pointed task, not allowing the mind to freely go where habit dictates. That's the training and over time that state of mind begins to manifest outside of practice.

A good analogy is that of a candle. The untrained mind is like a flickering candle, the flame influenced by the slightest breeze. A trained mind is the unflickering candle, undisturbed by the strongest gust.

The more still one's mind becomes, the more one becomes aware of one's true nature and the more one becomes aware the more one lives their true nature instead of living the life dictated by habits of mind.

It liberates one's free will. It provides a realization our contentment isn't dictated by what happens around us, but how we react to what happens around us.

It all comes down to who or what one understands themselves to be and from which one of those perspectives they experience and live life from. The surface level of body-mind or the deeper level of awareness.

That deeper level has a truer and purer connection to the spiritual. The surface level not so much. The surface level thinks and believes. The deeper level knows and directly experiences.

I'm sure there are other paths but this is the path I can speak to.