Getting Better at Being Just Okay

Most self-improvement content assumes you want to become a high-performance machine: wake up earlier, do more, optimize everything. Personally, I’m more interested in becoming someone who is calmly “okay” most days. Not perfect, not impressive—just stable enough to handle whatever shows up.

I stopped chasing the perfect routine because it kept breaking every time life changed a little. Instead, I started collecting small, restartable habits. A five-minute daily review, a short to-do list with only three items, a quick tidy-up at the end of the day. These habits are so small that they survive interruptions. When I drop them, they are easy to pick up without guilt.

Self-improvement, for me, is maintenance. It’s like cleaning a desk that will always get messy again. You don’t clean it because you believe it will stay perfect forever; you clean it because working on a completely chaotic surface makes everything harder than it needs to be.

Tip:
Choose one habit that takes less than five minutes and attach it to something you already do. After closing your laptop, write down tomorrow’s most important task. After brushing your teeth, note one thing you handled well today. Make it small enough that “no time” is not a realistic excuse.