Don’t just raise your ceiling. Raise your floor too: the worst day you’ll accept from yourself.

Most attention goes to the best day you are capable of, and almost none to the worst one you will tolerate. The ceiling is exciting and rare. The floor happens constantly, and over a year it determines far more of how your life actually goes than any peak performance does.

Define the minimum version of a day that still counts. The shortest walk, the fewest pages, the one message answered. Then hold that line even when everything else falls over. Raising the floor changes the average more than chasing the ceiling.