Rowing at 5 a.m. in fog isn’t heroic. It’s just what the schedule says. Most toughness is that boring.

Most of what gets called toughness is really just attendance. There is no feeling of courage involved in getting up early for the hundredth time; it is what the schedule says, and the decision was made weeks ago. People picture something dramatic because the dull version is impossible to build a story around. The dull version is the one that produces results.

Set the schedule once this week and then stop renegotiating it every morning. The decision happens at the point of writing it down, not at the point of the alarm. If you are deciding daily, that is the thing to fix rather than your willpower.