The Little book of Contentment by Leo Babauta

Build Trust When we fail at habits repeatedly, we lose trust in ourselves, don’t believe in our ability to stick to something, and feel guilty and sometimes disgusted with ourselves.

This is a bad state of affairs for our future habits. It’s also a cause of our discontent with ourselves.

When we start a new habit, if we don’t really believe in our ability to stick to it, we’re less likely to succeed. We’ll doubt ourselves when things get a little harder. When we feel like quitting, part of our minds will say, “Ah, I knew this would happen. This just confirms what I thought about you, you loser.” And then we quit, instead of sticking it out and beating the quitting feeling.

The reasons we lose trust are rooted in self-judgment and negative beliefs about ourselves. When we happen to fail at sticking to something — which I will tell you without a doubt is inevitable, even for the most disciplined of people — we then use that as a way to judge ourselves.