The type of person who always believes they're just turning a corner

I'm trying to think of the word, if one even exists, for the type of person who always believes they're just on the cusp of getting their life goals in order/accomplished/whatever.

Every week of their life (in this particular instance), they say "Well, I know I made a lot of mistakes up until this week, but this week I've really buckled down and I'm on the road to success!", and never acknowledge that they said the same thing last week...and the week before, etc.

I'm assuming it's a noun, but I'll accept an adjective. (Exclamations and adverbs seem unlikely)

So you'd use this in the following exchange;

X: I'm sorry that I failed to pick you up after school last week, I was distracted by intern...
Y: You're always distracted, and always saying that.
X: Yeah, but I was trying to tell you, I'm not like that anymore; on Monday I had an awakening and I realised I need to get my life in order and be more reliable.
Y: Yeah, but you've said that every week for almost a year now, having a new "awakening" that you think will really change you - even though you're still literally stuck in the same rut you were in a year ago, you are the textbook example of a [THIS-THING]

There's an XKCD I'll have to dig up that touches on the idea...

https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/resolution.png

Edit: If you enjoy this word-problem, you'll also get Wikied-away reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect which is not unrelated.

Solution 1:

Might I suggest the adjective...

"Micawberish" (or "Micawberesque")

...based on the Dickens character Wilkins Micawber in David Copperfield (1850):

"one who is poor but lives in optimistic expectation of better fortune"

-Merrriam-Webster Dictionary

You may recall that Micawber, perpetually sunny in his expectations for the future, was continually getting himself into worse debt through his bad business decisions and borrowing.

A typical quote from Chapter One:

"I have no doubt I shall, please Heaven, begin to be more beforehand with the world, and to live in a perfectly new manner, if -if, in short, anything turns up."

While originally used to describe a person peculiarly optimistic in spite of crushing poverty, I have heard it used to describe anyone who is self-delusional about the future--"the type of person who always believes they're just on the cusp of getting their life goals in order." (from your original definition)

"...imply that western policy has been based on a Micawberish view ..."

-Afghanistan by Tim Bird

"With the Micawberish optimism of the comparatively young they knew for a fact that..."

-The Unkindest Cut by Gerald Hammond

"One of the nicest, and most Micawberish, things about A London Child is the relationship between Molly's parents. "Never mind, Mary," Molly's father says after a particularly hard reversal in the City. "Whatever happens you and I are in the same boat - so nothing matters."

-The Guardian book review (Adam Gopnik)

I know this may not be a perfect fit for the idea of "back-sliding", but it could work in certain contexts.

Solution 2:

I'm a bit surprised that there isn't a true dictionary entry, but there are several Google entries for a term that defines this kind of person as a resolutionary person. This might be a recently coined term, but the gist of it is that the person is always seeking a new resolution, or possibly, always resolving to pursue the same goal, time and time again, despite previous attempts or voicings of the same.

Urban Dictionary, however, has the following entry:

resolutionary

People who join a gym after the New Year, only to quit going within 3 months.

I suppose it could come to be a new bona fide term in time.