Consistency is the key to growing on Hive and this was highlighted in my own case when I was less active due to being hospitalized recently. I have hardly missed a day over the last 56 months besides the odd hard fork forcing a no posting day. There is no reason why everyone who is active on Hive should not succeed as it is all up to the individual.
My account growth has taken a slight knock which is all down to not being able to spend time on the blockchain. Earning is relevant to the time spent online and why it is important to remain consistent. The less time online will result in less rewards and will affect your growth.
If you think about it this is rather obvious as publishing a post daily should guarantee you some type of reward over and above the curation and APR being earned on your stake. Having a continuous conveyor belt of rewards coming in daily does guarantee you consistent growth even if it is minimal. The conveyor of regular rewards flowing into your account is in many ways the secret to growing.
Like with anything in life the more active you are the more successful you will become as this is rather obvious. Thankfully I have some auto voting as there were days where I had limited time to stay online. I am not a fan of the auto vote as being able to manual vote is still the best way to operate as reading all the posts you vote on should still be the top priority. Engaging within the community via commenting and replies is how one grows organically.
Over the years I would hate to place a number of how much time has been spent on growing the account as this is all relevant to the success achieved. In the beginning to gain traction 8 hours per day was the norm and over the years a minimum of 4 hours daily has been maintained throughout.
There is no blockchain that is comparable to what Hive offers you and why so many of us take it to the next level. Success is never guaranteed and having stake behind your name guarantees you some type of consistent earnings daily no matter what. I do think at some point in the future the Hive token will become very hard to earn due to the reward pool staying the same size with the community numbers forever expanding and on the rise. We will look back on these days fondly and always wish we had done more.