How Good Habits Can Turn into Bad Habits

A good habit left unwatched can cross a line into a bad one, and the crossing is not a mystery — it is a slow dose increase past the point where the behavior is useful, until it runs on its own momentum. The piece traces the three-stage mechanism (reasonable start, extension, projection) through four concrete crossings: perfectionism, neatness into hoarding, savings into stinginess, and care into relentless questioning.

You get a three-stage check for the good habit in your life that worries you most, and the calibration skill that repairs the overgrown habit without removing it. Sell it as your own guide to the good-to-bad crossing.