Some rehab days, standing on one foot for thirty seconds is the hardest thing you’ll do. Respect the small battles.

The size of a task has little to do with how hard it is on a given day. Thirty seconds on one leg can take everything you have when that leg has been out of use, and how trivial it looks from across the room is beside the point. Measuring yourself against your old self makes those days read as failure.

Set the bar at what today requires rather than at what you used to do easily. Count the small battle as a real session, the way you would count a hard practice. Tell whoever is helping you what it cost, since they can only pace you if they know.