Small wins aren’t small when you’re climbing out of a hole. Count every one.

Scale depends on where you are standing. Getting out of bed, eating properly, answering one message: in a normal week those are nothing, and in a bad stretch each one is genuine work. Judging them by normal-week standards is how somebody in a hole concludes they are doing nothing while they are actually climbing.

Keep a short list this week of things you did that would be invisible in a better month. Read it on the days when it feels like you achieved nothing. Count what cost you something rather than what looks impressive.