What to Do When You're Sick of Yourself

Being sick of yourself is a peculiar kind of exhaustion. It’s not the tiredness you feel after a long day of productive work. It’s a heavy, circular feeling. A feeling of being trapped in a loop with someone you no longer want to be around. Yourself.

This feeling often gets misinterpreted. We think it means we are fundamentally broken. That we are a failure. But this is almost always wrong. This feeling is not a verdict. It is a signal. It’s a sign that the way you are currently operating is no longer working. Your system needs an update.

The state is often powered by a simple feedback loop. You feel bad about your inaction, and this feeling makes you less likely to act. This new inaction then confirms your initial feeling. And so the cycle continues, growing stronger with each rotation.

The Enemy is Inaction

The real enemy here is not you. It is the inertia. It is the state of not doing. When you are stuck in this loop, your mind fixates on your perceived flaws. You think about all the things you are not. You are not disciplined. You are not motivated. You are not good enough.

But these are just stories you tell yourself to explain the inaction. The truth is much simpler. You are just not moving. The solution, then, is not to magically become a different person. It is simply to move.

Aim Absurdly Low

When we feel like a failure, our standards for what counts as a success become impossibly high. We imagine we need a grand, heroic gesture to pull ourselves out of the slump. We need to write the whole book, run a marathon, or transform our lives overnight.

This kind of thinking is a trap. It’s paralyzing. The sheer scale of the task ensures we will not even start.

The way out is to lower the bar. Not just a little bit. Lower it until it is almost touching the floor. Lower it so much that it feels ridiculous.

Don’t try to clean your entire messy apartment. Just take one cup to the kitchen.

Don’t try to write a chapter of your novel. Just open the document and write one sentence.

Don’t try to start a new workout routine. Just put on your running shoes.

The point of these tiny actions is not to accomplish the larger task. The point is to break the spell of inaction. It is to provide your brain with a small, undeniable piece of evidence that you are capable of doing something. Anything.

This single action is a crack in the dam. It proves the loop can be broken.

You Are Not a Noun

Another problem is how we think about the self. We treat “myself” as a single, solid thing. A noun. And when we are sick of it, we feel we have to replace the whole thing. This is impossible, so we despair.

But you are not a monolith. You are a collection of habits and patterns. You are not sick of your entire being. You are sick of a specific set of patterns that have become dominant. The pattern of snoozing the alarm. The pattern of choosing distraction over work. The pattern of negative self talk.

This is great news. Because while you cannot replace “yourself,” you can absolutely change a pattern. You can replace one habit with another. The goal is not to become a new person, but to run a new set of programs.

Get It Out of Your Head

Thoughts that stay inside your head are not to be trusted. They loop, magnify, and distort reality. When you think “I am a failure,” that thought echoes in the chamber of your mind, becoming louder and more convincing each time.

To break this, you must externalize the thought. You have to get it out. Say it out loud. The simple act of speaking changes its nature. It forces a vague, powerful feeling into a specific, linear set of words. Once it is outside, you can look at it more objectively.

Speaking about your inaction is, itself, an action. It is a step. You hear the words and you can begin to question them. Is it really true that I am a total failure? Or is it that I failed to do one thing I planned to do today?

The second statement is workable. You can do something about that. The first is a mental prison.

So the feeling of being sick of yourself is an opportunity. It is a powerful signal that it is time to do something different. Not a big thing. A small thing. A ridiculously small thing.

Start there. The goal is not to fix everything at once. The goal is simply to make the next move. Then the one after that. Movement creates momentum. And momentum is the opposite of being stuck.

Why not start now. Click on the prompt and try it for yourself.