I agree with your comment above by the way. In fact, i read few years ago that roughly speaking, we all have about the same amount of self-discipline, which is somewhere near zero. Instead, all we have is routine and ritual. So this guy goes on to say that success in something like fitness is a matter of using your small amount of self-discipline just long enough to imprint a ritual, and at that point doing the activity (running in the am, etc.) becomes a matter of inertia, both psychologically and physically (your body and your mind are both accustomed to it).

I can quite easily believe we really all do have 0 self-discipline and that the key is routines and rituals.

I seem to remember reading somewhere that if you do something for 21 days in a row, it becomes a habit and you’ll keep doing it. That’s why, I think, the “try something tough for just a month” approach is quite smart. If you approach something as short term (aim for 30 days of getting up at 5am for example), then after you’ve done 30 days it’s usually almost easier to continue than not.