It’s often been said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. However, this is almost exclusively applied to negative behavioral patterns: laziness, foolish money management, drug abuse, and generally not taking good care of oneself.
However, I believe it’s crucial to recognize that this can also be said of healthy habits. Make no mistake, if you dedicate yourself to taking the necessary steps to improve your life—getting good, regular sleep, exercising, living within your means, devoting time to a hobby, etc—you will start to see positive results. Your life will (not might, will) get better. Things that once seemed out of reach will begin to manifest themselves in your daily life.
Once this happens, it may be tempting to think that these benefits will not last, or that they will plateau. If you’ve been living with harmful habits, in a world where nothing good seems to last and everything painful seems to stick around, it’s understandable that you might have trust issues once you start to turn a corner. But don’t despair. If you stick to your positive changes, if you continue to exhibit the same behaviors that have been making your life more fulfilling, it isn’t logical to think that a continuation of these behaviors will suddenly start to yield negative results.
So this is your admonition for the day: the hardest part of good habits is getting into them; once you’ve started, stick with it, and don’t ever doubt that your life will keep getting better. It won’t be free of setbacks and troubles, but it will be worth it.
To think otherwise would be insane.