Keep a promise for ten years and it stops being a promise. It turns into who you are.

Repetition converts effort into identity. In the first year, holding to something costs you an argument with yourself every single time, because it is still a decision being made. Somewhere along the way the arguing stops and it becomes a plain fact about you that other people plan around. The willpower part is temporary, which is the encouraging news buried in there.

Choose one small commitment you are confident you can hold, then make it deliberately easy to keep. Calling your grandmother on Sundays, never trashing people who are not in the room, always paying somebody back the same week. Small and permanent beats large and abandoned.