I have a very specific relationship with self-improvement.

I notice one thing I want to change and, within approximately seven minutes, I have somehow decided to reorganize my entire life.

Better food, more movement, less phone, more reading, earlier mornings, better sleep, more water, perfect finances, perfect routines and perhaps a completely new personality while we're here.

Obviously all starting Monday.

I love a fresh start. Apparently I love them so much that I keep creating situations where I need another one.

There is something very satisfying about making a beautiful plan for a completely transformed life. Living it on an ordinary Wednesday is a slightly different experience.

And I'm beginning to think that might be one of the reasons some of my habits have taken much longer to change than they needed to.

The fantasy version is always very organized

The version of me making the plan has incredible energy.

She has no unexpected phone calls, no work emergencies, no children asking something at exactly the moment she sits down, no bad nights, no moods and apparently no desire to ever sit on the sofa and do absolutely nothing.

She can handle twelve new habits simultaneously.

I like her.

I just don't know where she lives.

My actual life is considerably less cooperative.

And yet I've spent years creating routines for the imaginary woman and then being annoyed with the real one when she couldn't maintain them.

That seems slightly unfair when I put it like that.

I'm learning to make habits embarrassingly realistic

This is probably the least exciting discovery I've made so far.

The things I can actually repeat are usually much smaller than the things that inspire me.

"Completely change the way I eat" feels important.

"Make one better choice today" does not.

"Become incredibly disciplined" sounds like a transformation.

"Do the thing I said I would do before I start negotiating with myself" sounds annoyingly ordinary.

But the ordinary version has a much better chance of happening again tomorrow.

That became one of the ideas behind the Build Better Habits part of Becoming 366. The chapter starts by looking at the habits already shaping your days, then trying small actions that fit your actual life and are simple enough to repeat.

I wish this were more glamorous.

It isn't.

The habits I ignore are often the boring ones

I've noticed I'm naturally attracted to the big change.

A new project? Absolutely.

Learn an entirely new skill? Give me three tabs and a coffee.

Build a whole website when I technically don't know how to build websites? Apparently yes.

Do the same small useful thing every day for three months?

Excuse me, that sounds repetitive. 😂

Unfortunately, repetition appears to be rather important.

Reading or learning something small, writing down one thing I'm grateful for, taking an intentional break from my phone, keeping one promise I made to myself, making room for something enjoyable, doing one thing that supports my body — none of these will produce a dramatic before-and-after photograph tomorrow morning.

They're also the kind of small daily actions I built into the planner precisely because I want to practice them myself.

The funny thing is that I already know these things matter.

Knowing has never really been my problem.

Doing them often enough is where things get interesting.

I negotiate with myself far too well

This deserves recognition as a skill.

I can make a perfectly reasonable promise to myself and later present an extremely convincing argument for why today is a special circumstance.

I'll do it tomorrow.

Today was unusually busy.

I'll start properly next week.

One day won't matter.

Technically all true.

Also very useful if your goal is to remain exactly where you are.

The Discipline & Confidence chapter of Becoming 366 starts with something almost embarrassingly simple: make one realistic promise to yourself and keep it. The idea is that self-trust grows when your actions begin matching the promises you make.

That landed differently for me.

Because I've always thought about discipline as forcing myself to do things.

I'm starting to experience it more as becoming someone whose own word means something to her.

That's a much more personal problem.

Missing once is not the dramatic event I sometimes make it

Another habit of mine: if I'm going to be inconsistent, I may as well be theatrical about it.

Miss one day and suddenly the routine is "ruined."

Apparently Tuesday has the power to cancel everything I did on Monday.

Very impressive Tuesday.

I'm trying to stop treating habits like streaks I'm either winning or losing.

If I miss something, I return to it.

That's also why the planner is undated and why I explicitly wrote that if you miss a day, a week or longer, you simply continue where you left off. There's nothing waiting to punish you and nothing to catch up on.

I needed that rule for myself as much as anyone else.

Probably more.

Because life will interrupt me. I will interrupt me. There will be weeks when I'm excellent at something and others when I apparently forget I ever cared about it.

The useful part is learning to come back without turning the interruption into an identity.

I'm paying more attention to what I can repeat

This is where I am now.

When I decide I want to change something, I'm trying not to immediately design the final version.

I'm asking a less exciting question: what would I actually repeat?

Not during my most motivated week.

During a normal one.

If I want to move more, what can I realistically do?

If I want to read more, when does reading actually fit into my day?

If I want less phone time, where do I naturally reach for it without even thinking?

If I want to take better care of myself, what is one thing I can make normal before adding five more?

This feels slower.

I'm not convinced it actually is.

Starting twelve things and abandoning eleven of them creates a lot of activity, but I'm not sure it qualifies as speed.

There will probably always be another Monday

I still love plans.

I'm still going to get excited and occasionally decide that tomorrow morning is the beginning of a completely new era.

I know myself. 😂

But I'm getting better at noticing when I'm using the excitement of planning as a substitute for the boredom of repeating.

The life I want probably isn't going to be built during one spectacular week when I do everything perfectly.

It's much more likely to come from the things I make ordinary enough that I stop having to think about them so much.

And currently, making things ordinary might be the most ambitious habit I can build.