No matter how fantastic it feels to be nearing the end of another semester, there is always this other feeling present during the last few weeks. It is a feeling all students are familiar with: the great squeeze.

Improvement, in the end, is a game of nanometres.

When something goes wrong, it’s easy to to point to reasons why you did not perform to your expectation. In fact, the tendency I’ve seen is that the more you look for reasons, the more you will find them. This is one of our classic mental weaknesses. We search for the data that confirms our suspicions, while dismissing the rest as inconsequential or “noise”. What we’ve done, in essence, is create a situation in which we believe we already know the answer, before we’ve objectively found it.

It’s a slow, painful beginning. At first, every day is just a struggle to finish. The number of pieces you’re creating is small, and not particularly good. Essentially, this stage is all about building the habit.