Getting where we want to involves diligent application. It is hard work, but quite doable. Our motivation to get to the finish line keeps us going.

But there is no finish line. 

Once we get there, it gets an order of magnitude harder to continue to stay there. 

In getting there, we had the motivation of the reward or achievement to drive us.

But once we are there, that feeling is something we get accustomed to, and now all that effort goes into just remaining there. 

And it is harder to muster up the same level of motivation to maintain the status quo than it is to get somewhere that we're not.

And so, the decline begins. 

Until we find that motivation to get somewhere else.

The way out of this cycle is to take what it takes to get somewhere, and make it our way of life. To not do it in search of that outcome, but to become the person that lives this way.

Then, there is no getting there or staying there. 

We just are who we are.