Expecting and planning for failure is definitely a good system to use for losing weight and exercise. Tim Ferris's famous slow carb diet (which has me down 50lbs this year) is based on one day a week breaking the habit and allowing yourself to not feel guilty about it. That was a big factor for me being consistent on the diet plan. I knew if I eat bad today, guilt, but if I eat bad in 3 days, pleasure.
Exercise is a great habit building tool because when you start off, you can really only get better. 30 minutes working out can turn into an hour can turn into 2 hours. And you start to enjoy it more as you go along and learn new things.
Reading is also a good habit to build on. I had an english teacher in high school that would assign 5-10 pages of reading every night. It made the class discussions meaningful because instead of expecting people to be in the habit of reading 50 pages of a book/night he knew he had to build the habit to read. The rest of my teachers expected us to be readers, and didn't focus at all on the habit building side of it.
Exercise is a great habit building tool because when you start off, you can really only get better. 30 minutes working out can turn into an hour can turn into 2 hours. And you start to enjoy it more as you go along and learn new things.
Reading is also a good habit to build on. I had an english teacher in high school that would assign 5-10 pages of reading every night. It made the class discussions meaningful because instead of expecting people to be in the habit of reading 50 pages of a book/night he knew he had to build the habit to read. The rest of my teachers expected us to be readers, and didn't focus at all on the habit building side of it.