I think it is easy to stick to it knowing that you can lose some battles and not lose the war. I talk to a lot of people about how to stay in shape, what they should do, how I got started, etc. All of these questions and the single biggest factor in my success is time. I've been in the gym as a regular part of my life for over 16 years now. For whatever low spots there have been, I have crawled back out. I've worked jobs where I could not get access to anything more than a few dumbells for months on end. Did I lose strength? Sure, but I did what I could. I've had periods where my diet was crappy, but I ate the best I could. Fried veggies are better than fried potato, right?

The truth is that if you put enough consistent work together, it doesn't have to be 16 years of success to end up better than most and better than you started. Just remember, there are people on this earth (far too many I would think) that have never stuck to anything for a whole year, let alone a couple, or five or ten... know what I'm saying? Success is often a matter of time and lessons learned, not perfection and never making mistakes.