"Instead of thinking about getting better, I think it's more helpful to frame progress as things becoming easier." That's a huge insight when you actually become able to stick to habits over the long haul.

Doing all those things I mentioned in the article aren't just possible now, they're easier and in fact feel better than my routine before. I wish someone had told me this years ago... for some reason I thought that routines just continued to be hard forever, because I usually gave up before the point where they became easy.