Hard times show you which habits you can lean on. Build the ones that hold your weight.

Under strain, some routines carry you and others fall over at the first push. Which is which is not obvious in a good month, when everything appears to be working, and becomes extremely clear in a bad one. The habits that survive a hard week are the ones built simply enough to run without much input from you. Those are the ones worth having more of.

Look back at the last bad stretch and note which habits held. Sleep, training, a walk, one person you call. Then make one of them more durable by simplifying it, because the version that survives pressure always has fewer steps.