[couchand]

The stereotypical buy-a-gym-membership-use-it-once resolution doesn't encompass the whole of the thing.

Another line of thinking that goes into things like New Years' resolutions is the idea that significant change can only be intentionally and effectively made in a long series of tiny steps. The OP discusses the dual of this idea but misses the main thing:

> The reality is that if you are going to do something that's really difficult, like changing your whole approach to eating, you are likely to either fail, or to accumulate the kind of micro-failures over time that erode your motivation, death by a thousand cuts.

The flip side here is that overall progress is composed of micro-successes over time that build your motivation.

[poulsbohemian]

>buy-a-gym-membership-use-it-once resolution d

I've kinda got a hypothesis on this... see in the cold of winter, going to the gym is a great idea. But as spring comes around, you want to be outside - maybe even hiking, biking, etc, IE: being physically active. Then the kids are home all summer and you get distracted with family activities. Then the kids go back to school but you are out of routine going to the gym and it takes a while to get back into the pattern.

My point is, I think we all jump to this idea that the person who stops going to the gym is being lazy, whereas I think a lot of it has to do with patterns of behavior and "externalities."