It seems to me that the author is missing the core problem here. The problem isn't trying to improve oneself, but tying your self-worth to the success (or failure) of these improvement efforts, or hoping for magic habits like IF or polyphasic sleeping or a specific schedule to fix your life.
I don't stress about not achieving personal goals immediately, as long as I'm making progress, or at least learning. My diet, for example, is pretty much a model of what many people would ideally like to eat. I didn't do this by going cold turkey, but rather by a decade of trying without judging myself for each failure.
By contrast, I've failed pretty hard at trying to wake up earlier over the last decade: instead of forcing myself to do so, I've made sure that my time commitments allow for it. It turns out this was a pretty great way to handle it, as I just found out I've had a sleep disorder for pretty much my entire life. Now that I've addressed it, waking up earlier has become a lot more feasible. If I had pushed myself and judged myself for failing the way the author does, I feel like I would've failed at both those endeavors.
I don't stress about not achieving personal goals immediately, as long as I'm making progress, or at least learning. My diet, for example, is pretty much a model of what many people would ideally like to eat. I didn't do this by going cold turkey, but rather by a decade of trying without judging myself for each failure.
By contrast, I've failed pretty hard at trying to wake up earlier over the last decade: instead of forcing myself to do so, I've made sure that my time commitments allow for it. It turns out this was a pretty great way to handle it, as I just found out I've had a sleep disorder for pretty much my entire life. Now that I've addressed it, waking up earlier has become a lot more feasible. If I had pushed myself and judged myself for failing the way the author does, I feel like I would've failed at both those endeavors.