This should be easy (so why can't I do it?)

A closer look at the paradox we don’t talk about enough

Every year, I write a list of things I want to get better at or do more of. Travel. Learn something new. Say yes to the stuff that scares me. Write regularly. All the usual suspects.

And for the most part, I do okay. I stretch a little. I grow. I tick things off. I become, bit by bit, a slightly more interesting version of whoever I was the year before.

But three things always come back, like they’re circling the block, waiting for me to open the door.

Read more.
Learn to cook.
Moderate.

None of these should be hard. They don’t require talent or even much time. Just care. Intention. A little follow-through. But I never quite manage them.

Take reading. I like words. I love stories. I buy the books. I imagine myself curled up in the corner of a coffee shop with a paperback and a flat white, looking quietly mysterious. But the reality is, I read the back cover, get distracted by my phone, and three months later it’s part of an ever-expanding coffee table installation designed to suggest I’m the kind of person who reads.

Cooking’s another one. Sometimes it feels like everyone else took a class I accidentally skipped. Something between survival skills and smug domesticity. I can toast. I can boil. I can follow a Gousto recipe if it doesn’t involve too many steps or anything fiddly. But that instinctive, internal nudge to potter, to experiment, to enjoy it, never really turns up. The pan stays in the cupboard. The recipe tab gets closed. The ambition dissolves by dinner.

It’s not that I don’t care about food, I do. I love to eat well. I just prefer to do it with people. Food, for me, is about company, atmosphere and connection. A shared table. A story that goes somewhere unexpected. When it’s just me, the spark’s not there. Cooking feels like admin with extra washing up.

And then there’s moderation. I admire it in other people. I envy those with restraint. The ones who can eat two squares of chocolate and save the rest for another day, who leave crisps in the cupboard untouched. I am not that person. Last week, I bought a bar of 85% dark chocolate thinking it might teach me a lesson in self-control. It tasted like burnt soil. I ate the whole thing anyway. Ten minutes, start to finish. Just because it was there.

It’s strange how these things trip me up, when tougher stuff hasn’t.

It’s not that I don’t care. I do. I write these things down every year for a reason. But wanting something doesn’t always make it happen.

You don’t stick with something just because you want to. You stick with it when you’re ready to want it consistently. And that’s the difference I keep coming back to. Readiness. Not in the motivational sense, but in the emotional one.

We think readiness is about discipline. But it’s really about alignment. It’s about timing. Mood. Headspace. The invisible stuff. The things that don’t show up on to-do lists but quietly run the show anyway.

There’s a paradox we don’t talk about enough.

We think the big challenges will be the hardest. But it’s often the smallest ones, the daily ones, that require the most self-trust. I’m not sure we give that enough credit.

Because it’s easy to feel like you’re failing. Like if something matters to you, it should be easy to do. But I wonder if it’s less about failing and more about not being ready yet.

We love the idea of slow, sustainable growth, but most people don’t change gradually. They change when something shifts. That might look sudden from the outside, but it’s usually the result of quiet, invisible buildup.

Sometimes you don’t stick with something because it’s not the right time. Not because you’re not trying hard enough, but because it hasn’t clicked yet. You’re not quite there. You haven’t found the version of it that fits you. The version that doesn’t feel like punishment or perfectionism, but something gentler than both.

You don’t become someone who reads just by buying a book. It happens slowly. You find the right one. You sit still long enough. Something lands. And suddenly you want to read again. Not because you’re supposed to. Because you want to.

You don’t become someone who cooks by watching recipe reels on Instagram. It starts with one meal. Something easy. Something you actually enjoy. And then you make it again. And again. And it becomes less about being a “cook” and more about looking after yourself in a way that feels sustainable.

And moderation, maybe that comes when you stop trying to outsmart your own cravings and start listening to what they’re actually trying to tell you.

None of this is a neat story. There’s no shiny ending with a bow. I still don’t read as much as I’d like to. I still can’t cook. I still inhale snacks like they might run away from me. But I don’t feel ashamed about it anymore. Because I’ve realised it’s not always about willpower or laziness or ambition.

Sometimes, you’re just not ready. And readiness has its own rhythm.

We talk so much about habits as if they can be built on command. Stack them, track them, reward them. But the truth is, we don’t always get to choose when things take root. Some habits need a little more space. Some parts of us need to be ready in ways we can’t always name.

And I think that’s okay.

Because growth doesn’t always look like progress. Sometimes it looks like patience. Sometimes it looks like not forcing something. Sometimes it looks like carrying the same goal forward again and again, until one day, finally, it sticks.