Until what point is a person required to repent?
From one perspective, the answer is: always, and at every level.
But there is a minimum amount of teshuva, and that is when a person decides, “No more!”
From this point, a person is able to rise higher endlessly.
This is also true regarding commandments.
There is a beginning point, a minimum amount of relationship, which is always “the matter is very near to you,” and this is “what the Lord your God asks of you.”
This point, which in itself is a “small thing” (Berakhot 33b), generates the contact, changing the nature of the action and giving it “wings,” whether small or large.
From that moment, it is a different essence, possessing wings that give it the ability to fly.
It can fly high or low but in either case, it can ascend from the ground to float at least somewhat above its starting point.
Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz