To continue with your example, here's how I think the article's author may respond. You set out aiming to go to the gym with an aim of gaining X pounds of muscl

To continue with your example, here's how I think the article's author may respond. You set out aiming to go to the gym with an aim of gaining X pounds of muscle mass. But after the easy gains, you still haven't yet reached your target, and you realize that bringing it to the next level would require more intensity. You've noticed that gym time is taking away from precious family time, and any more would be unacceptable. At this point, your "self" has changed. You have a new perspective and gains compared to when you embarked on your journey. You have a clearer picture of the sacrifices you require to continue making progress to your original goal. If you knew then what you know now, you would not have set such a terrible goal, though you would perhaps have targeted this halfway-point where you are now. At this point, it is time to > Just KonMari[4] that shit: have a moment of gratitude and appreciation for the experience and the things you learned and the ways in which you benefited from it. Thank it with conviction for having served its purpose, and then let it go and dismiss it. There. Done. In this case, and in the situations the article wants to address, this is perhaps the calculus at play, where it is not about willpower, but that with a change in environment, continuing would entail an unacceptable sacrifice for a goal that no longer has the same meaning it used to hold. Although I find it too absolute and unbalanced in it's opinion, as is yours.