Very thought-provoking post. I know that I have lots of 'aversions'...I seem to develop them easily to anything that's 'unknown' and thus scary, and attempts to make a habit of 'doing something scary every day' help at the time but not permanently...once I no longer try to maintain the habit, I go back to avoiding leaving my comfort zone.

On the other hand, a lot of my 'small-gain' habits are deliberate, and benefit me a LOT in the long run. My habit of hardly ever eating out and always packing food from home saves me hundreds or thousands of dollars a year over my friends, not to mention improving my health. And this isn't why I have the habit...I can rationalize it now, but the truth is that I have it because my parents have it.