Starts but will not sustain

A good habit or flywheel begins but fades because its rewards arrive too weakly or too late to fuel the next turn.

The guitar in the corner. You played daily for two weeks in the spring, loved it, then travel broke the streak and it never restarted. This has happened with watercolors, the running club, the sourdough starter. Each hobby launches with real enthusiasm and dies before it can feed itself.

This cue marks a flywheel that begins but fades because its rewards arrive too weakly or too late to fuel the next turn: effort produces thin or delayed feedback, and leakage or a skill threshold keeps the circle from closing. Diagnose it in three moves. Locate the payoff that was supposed to sustain the habit (sounding good, feeling fit) and measure its lag against your patience. Find the leak: what erased progress between sessions? Then check the rival: some activities have no self-reinforcing mechanism at all, or you started with too little time or money, and no loop repair will save them. When the cue fits, the question shifts from "why am I lazy" to "how do I get returns landing before the next session." Don't use it on activities you have simply discovered you don't enjoy.