Monks, these two extremes ought not to be practiced by one who has gone forth from the household life. What are the two? There is addiction to indulgence of sense-pleasures, which is low, coarse, the way of ordinary people, unworthy, and unprofitable; and there is addiction to self-mortification, which is painful, unworthy, and unprofitable. Avoiding both these extremes, the Tathagata has realized the Middle Path; it gives vision, gives knowledge, and leads to calm, to insight, to enlightenment and to Nibbana.

Gautama Buddha

When you set firm resolutions to improve yourself, you might be tempted to push your limits well outside of what you’re capable of doing. Ambitiousness is a virtue, but there’s danger involved in going from one extreme to another.
If you’re currently struggling to be productive, don’t force yourself to work sixteen hours a day. If you’re struggling to control your appetite, don’t impose a week-long fast. If you can’t find it in you to choose the stairs over the elevator, don’t expect that you’ll maintain a workout plan that requires you to work out every single day.
Find the middle path, stick to it for at least several weeks, and then, based on the results you get, decide whether you can further stretch your limits or require more time before advancing.
As much as I believe in pushing your boundaries and exploring the extremes, you don’t need to put yourself through mortification to achieve good results. Subjecting yourself to extreme hardships has some merits, but over the long term it’s unsustainable, if not downright dangerous.
Remember that there should be moderation in all things, including moderation itself. Sometimes a more extreme approach is needed for a short period of time, and sometimes it’s beneficial to set your goals lower. In whatever you do, seek to not spend too much time loafing around, but also make sure that your life hasn’t turned into the life of a self-flagellating ascetic.

What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly.

Thomas Pain

Easy successes may be pleasant, but if they’re the only successes you achieve, you’ll come to expect quick, effortless results. Then, when life hits you hard with a difficult challenge, you’ll lack the mental toughness to overcome it.
Moreover, you’ll never appreciate the easy successes as much as the ones that required blood, sweat, and tears.
Does it mean that you should reject easy successes and seek the most difficult ways to accomplish your goals? Of course not.
However, you should make sure that you don’t deliberately avoid hardships. Resist the temptation to set your aims low. Scoring exclusively easy wins might feel good, but you’re limiting your potential that way.
Over the long term, make sure that you always have at least one big, ambitious and demanding goal in life, as that’s where the power of self- discipline shines, where most personal growth happens, and which delivers the greatest feeling of having accomplished something worth doing.