Anyone can be excited on day one. Mastery belongs to the people still being careful on day four hundred.

Enthusiasm is cheap at the beginning because everything is new and nothing has gone wrong yet. What is rare is care on the four hundredth day, when the task is familiar, the excitement has drained out, and the only thing holding your attention is a decision to keep paying it. Skill is mostly accumulated attention after the novelty ends.

Expect the flat stretch instead of treating it as evidence you chose wrong. Build a version of the routine that works on unmotivated days, shorter and plainer. Then judge yourself by whether you returned, not by how you felt about returning.