> A few times, particularly today, I felt lazy and run down, but I got out of bed anyway and told myself that I'll at least walk

This is also used with people who suffer from some kind of limb paralysis. You first start to tell them to wiggle the extremity of their finger (or toe). Then part of the of the finger. Then the whole finger. And so on.

Basically the concept is the make every single effort leading to the end result as effortless and frictionless as possible.