From an email correspondence a couple months back last year:

There’s a whole philosophy of “change theory” about what actually helps people cultivate change in their lives and what doesn’t that I think we (especially in Puritan New England!) sometimes forget about.  Deep change is slow, involves lots of false starts and short retreats alongside the exciting times of progress.  In order to sustain commitment to deep change, there must be a sense of joy simply in one’s commitment to the goal of deep change.  This joy inspires us to take risks, and it keeps us from being too harsh on ourselves when we face setbacks. 

I’m not predisposed to joy, which makes that challenging for me, but I believe he’s absolutely correct.