You have to stop being disappointed in yourself.

I’m not talking about the conscious effort to deny the specific feeling. No, you have to stop actually disappointing yourself. And it’s not as difficult as you might think.

If you constantly try to clean more but never do, I’m not talking about stopping the disappointment you feel about your inability to do so. If you always say you’re gonna work out more but never actually follow through, I don’t care much about having more grace for yourself, although that might also be a thing.

What I’m talking about is to stop expecting certain things from yourself.

That might seem like a gloomy outlook to have for the rest of your life. But here’s the thing: I don’t know how many times I’ve thought “tomorrow I’m gonna get up early and be productive” and then failed to do so. Probably a hundred times. Several hundred. And that might seem stupid. It makes me feel stupid, that’s for sure. But what’s actually stupid is not that I’m constantly failing, but the fact that I keep thinking I’ll succeed.

Why do I do that to myself? When I know what works for me, why do I keep expecting myself to tomorrow be able to get up early and be super productive and happy and full of magical will power? Extending grace is good, truly, it’s unnecessary to feel shame over your inability. But if you want to take it one step further, you can also stop putting yourself in situations where you constantly need to dig yourself out of disappointment.

You’re allowed to be unable. I see it kind of like this: Have you ever played the sims? Sims 4 is my favorite, great game, you design your little character, and their house, and let them live their life. Or rather, you control their life.

If your sims character is unhappy, there are certain things you can do about it. You can put a nice painting on the wall, for example. When they walk past it a couple of green pluses will appear above their head, and their mood will rise (unless their character actually hates art or something like that, it is a little bit unpredictable). There are other actions you can take as well, but the point is that none of them is to tell your sim to be happy. There’s no command like that.

I like to think of my life a little bit the same way. As if I’m a video game character, that I have to put certain things around to affect a certain way. It’s like putting up walls to make a corridor, so the character will head towards the right things.

How do you build the corridor?

To make myself act productively in the morning, I need to leave the house. I need to work somewhere else, preferably a cafe. It’s nice if I meet someone there, but I’ve realized it’s actually not necessary. What I need is a specific bus or train to catch. I’ll probably get up as late as possible to still make it. But that’s okay. I’m not one for long, slow morning routines anyway. I usually can’t enjoy them even if I perform them. They’re aesthetically tempting, but I don’t like being in them. I just need to get out.

Now, gun to my head, could I get up early without that? Of course, I’m physically able to get up at any point. But I won’t. And what you can do in life really doesn’t matter half as much as what you will do.

When it comes to working out, apparently I need some kind of carrot. I skied a well know Swedish skiing race last year, and suddenly found myself training like never before. I continued, but only because I want to improve my time this year. I always thought that was toxic, to measure pace when you run or move. But I’m a competitive person. I love the measuring, apparently.

When you feel the heavy weight of something that you could, and probably should do, it’s good to ask yourself, but will I? And if you actually know you won’t, either accept that you’re not going to. And that’s fine. Or mercifully design the world around you to make sure you will. Whether that’s by seeking accountability or lowering the difficulty level or preparing and rewarding better. Find a way around the obstacle rather than constantly thinking your tomorrow self will have the will power to jump over it.

You don’t always have to grow and change. This is not about things that are inherently, morally wrong, but it’s about things that you can accept, and then adapt to instead of trying to prove some point, to no one. It’s like alcoholism, you don’t always reach a point where you can go back to something. These kinds of boundaries are not support for the weak, that should be taken away as quickly as possible, but part of what it is to build a life. And it is character, as much as willpower is, to see yourself clearly.