Watch Out For (Per)mission Creep
It gets you before you know it
Any self improvement project boils down to three R’s:
Research — React — Repeat
Research — do your homework and choose your course of action
React — turn your theory into action, you start doing instead of thinking
Repeat — persist with the action, and keep up the research (observing and tweaking). Time does the work for you, change happens
Mission creep is a military term. Initial success in a campaign leads to an irresistible but not necessarily helpful/legal/wise expansion of ambition. It can happen slow enough to not be noticeable day-to-day but causes problems in the long run.
Permission creep happens when you allow tiny little behaviours from your “old ways” to slowly creep back in, and over time, they de-rail you self-improvement project.
Noticing it is a crucial first step to countering it.