He mentions building habits in part 2 of the article, using the boiling the frog analogy (imploring the reader to use it for good instead).
My question, though, is how does a good habit expand into a great habit, without motivation? For your tooth example, once you start flossing you might as well floss all your teeth. The upfront cost of getting started with the floss is the worst part of it, but once you're there it's easy. This isn't true for all habits though. For many it's easy to just bail out fast. If I started doing 5 push-ups a day will I eventually do 100 and then 1000? Or would I settle somewhere on a mediocre range because it's easy to stop? Is there some sort of recursion or positive feedback loop that kicks in that rescues me from mediocrity if all I have is discipline and not motivation?
If you start with 5 push-ups a day, you'll hit your limits fast just increasing push-ups by one a day, so spread out your improvements by increasing in several exercises, adding more if necessary. Not to do all of them at once every day, but ones to switch between daily. I started something like this years ago, and I'm still keeping up on it. If life happens and I have to take a break from it, I restart it later and reduce my goals so that it doesn't seem so bad trying to jump back into a routine I was maximizing earlier.
The key was to make it a habit I do every day, like brushing my teeth. If I've had a bad day and miss doing my "workout routine" (such that it is, I'm no Arnold), it feels weird to miss one and I look forward to doing it the next day. So in that way once you've made it to a certain point it's self-fulfilling.
My question, though, is how does a good habit expand into a great habit, without motivation? For your tooth example, once you start flossing you might as well floss all your teeth. The upfront cost of getting started with the floss is the worst part of it, but once you're there it's easy. This isn't true for all habits though. For many it's easy to just bail out fast. If I started doing 5 push-ups a day will I eventually do 100 and then 1000? Or would I settle somewhere on a mediocre range because it's easy to stop? Is there some sort of recursion or positive feedback loop that kicks in that rescues me from mediocrity if all I have is discipline and not motivation?