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.
