It’s 1:00 AM and I’m still scrolling Instagram...

My son’s asleep upstairs. That’s good for me now, and bad for me in about four hours when he (probably) wakes up at 5am. 🫩

I’m home alone with him tonight, so at best I’m getting 5 hours of sleep.

How did I get here?

The "Cardiac" Chicago Bears just beat the Green Lame Packers in the greatest come-from-behind victory in Bears playoff history.

The Bears scored 25 points in the final quarter to win 31–27. Absolute insanity.

The game ended ~10:30pm, and it took an hour just to calm down enough to get into bed.

Not terrible.

But then my bad habit kicked in, and "the algorithm" knew my weakness. It knew how to keep me scrolling.

🐻 Bears post-game reactions.
🧀 Memes about grating cheese.
📣 Ben Johnson screaming Good, Better, Best!

And videos of Da Pope saying, "God bless Da Bears."

Ninety minutes later, I finally looked at the clock: it read 1am. 😳

FML. I've got to get to sleep.

It took my son waking up and making noise for me to snap out of it, break the pattern, and actually put my phone down.

Here’s the scary part...

For me, this happens occasionally. For many people reading this, it’s a nightly occurrence.

Today, I'm going to teach you how to make positive habits like exercise or eating healthy as automatic as Caleb Williams in the 4th quarter...

...and how to break bad habits like scrolling Instagram at 1am as decisively as the Bears broke the Packers.

Let’s dive in. 🚀

📉 Why Your New Year's Resolution Already Failed

It's January 17th.

Yesterday was the second Friday of January, a day that's been dubbed "Quitter's Day" by researchers.

Why? Because it's the day when most people give up on their New Year's resolutions.

Here are the stats that should wake you up:

• 23% of people quit their resolution by the end of the first week
• 43% quit by the end of January
• Only 9% of people actually keep their resolutions

That means if you set a goal on January 1st, there's a 91% chance you're going to fail. Not because you lack willpower or discipline...

But because you don't understand how habits actually work.

You're trying to change your behavior without understanding the system that created it in the first place.

If you want to build better habits or break bad ones, you need to understand the habit loop.

Let me show you.

🧠 The Habit Loop: How Your Brain Creates Automatic Behaviors

James Clear breaks down habit formation into four stages in his perennial best-selling book Atomic Habits:

Cue → Craving → Response → Reward

Here’s what each one means:

Cue: The trigger that initiates the behavior. It’s the piece of information that tells your brain a reward might be nearby.

Craving: The motivational force behind every habit. It’s the desire for something about your internal state to be changed. Your mind interprets the cue and transforms it into a problem to be solved.

Response: The actual habit you perform, which can take the form of a thought or an action.

Reward: The end goal of every habit. The thing you hoped to achieve by performing the behavior in the first place.

This is why habits are so powerful. And why they’re so difficult to break.

🔍 Real Examples From My Life

Let me show you how this works with one good and one bad habit from my own life.

Bad Habit #1: Scrolling Instagram Before Bed

Cue: Lying in bed with my phone in my hand.

Craving: Mental decompression, mindless entertainment, dopamine hit, curiosity, and honestly... it's the first time all day I can scroll guilt-free.

Response: Open Instagram, start scrolling.

Reward: Mental relief, cognitive shutdown, stress release, guilt-free entertainment.

My brain has learned: When I'm in bed with my phone, Instagram gives me that instant dopamine hit without the guilt.

And sometimes, like when the Bears have their first playoff win in 16 years, 90 minutes disappear.

Good Habit #1: Working Out

Cue: Multiple triggers (low energy, feeling stuck, bored, stressed, anxious, schedule says it's time, or even procrastinating on other work).

Craving: Here's the key... I've stacked multiple rewards onto this one habit.

Response: Lift weights, ruck, run, or even walk outside.

Reward: Clarity, pride, contentment, self-respect, confidence, strength, energy, mental clarity.

This is the power of stacking multiple rewards onto one behavior.

You know that scene in Wolf of Wall Street where Jordan Belfort yells, "I want you to deal with your problems by getting rich!"

Well, I deal with my problems by getting jacked. And tan. Okay, mostly just jacked since I don't want skin cancer and I'm not from Jersey.

The more reasons you have to do something, the stronger the habit becomes. I workout when I'm:

• Sad
• Tired
• Anxious
• Stressed
• Depressed
• Procrastinating

Look, I'm not saying I'm some zen master like Mr Miyagi who's figured it all out.

But I've built this habit so bulletproof that my brain doesn't even question it anymore.

It's not "Should I work out today?"
It's "When am I working out today?"

It's on autopilot now. Ingrained into my identity.

I think about working out with my dad when I was a kid. Being a role model for my son. The fact that I'm 43 and I'll be 51 when he gets to Little League...

Keeping up with my wife who's five years younger. Leading by example for my clients who I'm asking to do the same.

Working out makes all of that possible.

Most men joke that alcohol is the cause of and solution to all life's problems.

For me, it's working out.

Except it's not a problem. Just a solution.

✅ How to Use This to Build Better Habits (or Break Bad Ones)

This isn’t just theory...

This is a framework you can use right now. James Clear calls them the Four Laws of Behavior Change.

To Build Good Habits:

1. Make the cue obvious

• Sleep in your workout clothes
• Put a book on your nightstand
• Put your running shoes where you’ll trip over them
• Mount a $5K Tonal where you walk past it every day
• Keep fruit and veggies at eye level; hide snacks and soda out of sight
• Prep overnight oats with whey the night before and put them front and center in the fridge

2. Make it attractive

The Netflix & Cardio Method: I only watch certain shows while doing Zone 2 cardio. Want the next episode of House of Guinness? Get on the Peloton. No bike, no show. I did this with The Last Kingdom for 46 episodes.

It works because I’m pairing something I should do (cardio) with something I want to do (find out what happens next).

Temptation bundling: I blast country bangers like Luke Bryan’s Country Girl (Shake It For Me) while programming workouts. Programming is boring at this stage of my career, pairing it with music I want to sing makes it enjoyable.

Pair meal prep with your favorite podcast or get some fancy coffee like a mocha chocha vanilla cinnamon whipped skinny latte after the gym.

Stack rewards: If lifting doesn’t feel good in the moment, stack meaning onto it:

• Live longer
• Be a role model for your kids
• Earn respect from your spouse
• Build professional credibility

Stack enough reasons and your brain starts craving the barbell and burpees. Okay, maybe just the barbell. Burpees still suck.

3. Make it easy

Reduce friction everywhere: I use a meal prep service so healthy eating is the default. No shopping. No cooking. Just heat-and-eat meals that fit my macros.

Many clients bought a Tonal and walk past it 20 times a day. Hard to say “the gym is too far” when it’s staring at you.

The 5 Min Rule: I failed at 20-minute meditation. Failed at 10. Finally, dropped it to just 5 minutes and it stuck. Then I was able to increase the time.

Now I’ve done over 800 sessions and I’m officially “someone who meditates.”

Start absurdly small:

• 5-minute workout
• Just the warm-up
• One side salad

Starting is the hard part, not finishing.

Shortcut the process: Don’t roast vegetables like Gordon Ramsay. Microwave broccoli for 90 seconds and hit it with Flavor God.

Pack your gym bag the night before. Prep meals on Sunday. Fill your water bottle before bed. Every bit of friction you remove makes the habit easier to keep.

4. Make it satisfying

Immediate reinforcement: The problem with good habits is the payoff comes later. Workouts take weeks. Meditation doesn’t work on day one. Healthy eating doesn’t show up on the scale immediately.

The fix: add an immediate reward.

After every workout, I relish my pump in the mirror, and log my workout with Whoop watching my streak grow.

After leg day, I eat protein pancakes which is something I get excited about.

Charles Duhigg in The Power of Habit suggests the same idea: if you hate exercising, have a small piece of dark chocolate afterward. Give your brain something to latch onto.

The habit needs to feel good now, not just eventually.

The Seinfeld Strategy: Get a calendar. Put an X on every day you complete the habit. Your only rule: don’t break the chain.

I’ve done over 800 meditation sessions this way (longest streak: 30 days). Watching the chain grow becomes the reward. Breaking it feels terrible. Use that.

Make it visible: Join a community that celebrates wins. Track your progress and share regularly. When your identity is public, your ego wants to stay consistent. That pressure works in your favor.

Just don’t claim the win before you’ve earned it. Research shows that celebrating success too early actually reduces follow-through, not increases it.

To Break Bad Habits:

1. Make the cue invisible

If you don’t see it, you don’t think about it...

And if you don’t think about it, you’re far less likely to do it.

• Hide junk food… or don’t buy it at all.
• Use website blockers during work hours.
• Leave your phone in another room at night.
• Delete social media apps from your phone (browser access stays, but the friction helps).

​
When I wanted to stop eating Sprinkles Cupcakes, I deleted the app from my phone and unsubscribed from their newsletter. I also made sure I didn't "accidentally" drive by.

2. Make it unattractive

Bad habits stick when the consequences feel distant or abstract. Make them immediate and vivid.

Remind yourself what the habit actually costs:

• Five hours of sleep plus a 7 month old awake at 5 AM.
• Or do the math... 90 min of scrolling a night adds up to 547 hours a year or 23 full days.

For food, I make it visceral.

When I think about Sprinkles cupcakes, I don’t think about the taste. I think about inflamed nasal passages, instant bloating, extra water weight, shallow breathing, and the occasional stomachache from all that sugar.

Once the downside is clear, the habit loses its appeal.

3. Make it difficult

Sometimes you'll still think about the habit even when the cue is gone. Your brain remembers. That's when friction saves you.

The goal: make acting on the urge so annoying that you give up before you follow through.

Willpower is unreliable. Friction is undefeated.

Delete the app: You can still access Instagram through the browser, but it's clunky.

No notifications. No quick tap. You have to type the URL, log in, navigate... by the time you're in, the urge has usually passed.

Don't keep junk food in the house: You could drive to the store for snacks. But once you factor in getting dressed, traffic, parking, and lines, it’s suddenly not worth the effort.

Put your phone in another room: While writing this email, my phone is in the bedroom. If I want to check it, I have to get up, walk down the hall, and physically go get it. Most of the time, I don't bother.

Turn on Screen Time limits: You’ll get a prompt when you hit your limit, which creates friction. Even better, have your spouse set the override passcode. Nobody wants to ask for more Instagram at 11pm.

When a habit requires effort, you default to doing nothing. And doing nothing beats doing the wrong thing.

4. Make it unsatisfying

Some bad habits feel good in the moment no matter how much you understand the consequences. Eating a Sprinkles Cupcake still feels great.

That’s when you need external consequences, not more willpower.

When someone reviews your food logs, workout stats, or habits, they stop feeling private. Logging three cookies to the tune of 600 calories suddenly makes you think twice.

You can also put real stakes on the line.

Tools like StickK let you commit money to an anti-charity you hate if you break your rule. Suddenly that cupcake isn’t just a cupcake. It’s a donation you don’t want to make.

The goal isn’t punishment. It’s changing the cost-benefit equation in the moment.

When bad habits stop being consequence-free, they stop being automatic.

💪 YOUR NEXT STEP

It’s January 17th.

You still have 348 days left this year.

The people who quit their resolutions didn’t fail because they lacked discipline. They failed because they never changed the system.

You don’t need more willpower. You need to understand how your brain actually works.

Habits are automatic solutions your brain creates to solve problems. Once you understand the habit loop, you can design better solutions on purpose.

Here’s what to do this week:

🎯 Pick ONE habit to change. Not five. Not ten. One.

📝 Map the habit loop. Write down the cue, craving, response, and reward. Be specific.

🛠️ Apply the Four Laws. Make good habits obvious, attractive, easy, and satisfying. Make bad habits invisible, unattractive, difficult, and unsatisfying.

That’s it.

Do this once, and you won’t just fix one habit...

You’ll learn a skill you can reuse for the rest of your life.