Effortless Wealth and Abundance
First, it's not a case of 'all or nothing.' You can improve not at all, a huge amount or anything in between. Being unrealistic in one's goals is the reason some people fail - they don't see that a small step in the right direction is still an achievement, still an improvement.
Second, the trick is persistence. The dripping tap soon fills the bucket. Again, many people think that improvement has to be BIG SCALE. I think you need to keep asking 'What has improved?' And when you look, you'll find something, even if it isn't much and even if it took a long time. So long as you keep on keeping on, you're already way ahead of the game. Most people take some action, don't see immediate results and then give up.
Third, we need to remember that we are not improving ourselves, only the way we think. When we try to improve ourselves and then 'fail,' that just validates our belief that there's something wrong with us in the first place. we need to challenge and change the way we think about things.