The Spiraling Nature of Small Decisions

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In America, the second Friday in January is known as “Quitter’s Day”—or Fail Friday—because it’s the day most of our goals for the year come off the tracks.

I somehow manage to hang on for a few more weeks after Fail Friday, but eventually, the same fate awaits. I narrowly avoid January’s Fail Friday only to have Miss-the-Mark Monday hit me between the eyes by the first week of March.

And yet, taken in totality, my last three years have had a positive trend line because I’ve been able to reestablish many of my habits and goals shortly after letting them go. Though they’re usually a shell of their optimistic, original selves, I nonetheless carry them to the year’s end.

My modest success in this particular area is the subject of today’s newsletter. A few year ago, I stumbled upon a framework that has repeatedly proven useful.

I call it The Habit Cycle Theory.

The Habit Cycle Theory posits that, at any given moment, our habits are operating inside of one of two self-reinforcing loops: a good habit cycle or a bad habit cycle.

They are opposing forces. You can think of one as an upward spiral and the other as a downward spiral.

A good habit cycle looks like this:

The fresh calendar of a new year provides a burst of energy which creates a strong level of initial motivation. We start making better choices.

And because many of our new year’s resolutions are habits of discipline—habits that impact ourselves, distinct from habits of character, which are habits that impact others—we reap some early benefits.

If you start eating better, exercising, spend more time outside, or watching less Netflix, your body will start to trend in a healthy direction and you’ll experience a higher level of energy.

That renewed energy quickly converts into more motivation for making good decisions, and the cycle continues.  

But of course, this isn’t our permanent state. 

As some point along the way, an equal and opposite cycle takes over.

A single bad decision starts a chain reaction.

Diminishing energy reserves are damning for any ambitions of discipline, and when we’re eating junk food, glued to our phones, ignoring sleep quality, and skipping every work out, our energy bottoms out.

The Habit Cycle Theory:
You are continually operating inside either a) an upward-spiraling good habit cycle, or b) a downward-spiraling, bad habit cycle.

Stagnation is impossible. We’re either moving forward or backward, capitalizing on a good habit cycle or trapped in a bad one.

Following the logic, a natural next question emerges.

What causes a good habit cycle to morph into a bad habit cycle?

This question led me to a revelation: our habit cycles tend to switch gears after a trigger event.

For example, we often start making better decisions because of a positive trigger event:

Each of these can set a good habit cycle into motion because they kickstart our motivation.

Bad decisions are also tied to trigger events, but negative ones:

Negative trigger events wipe out our motivation, switching us from a good habit cycle to a bad one:

Perusing through old journals, I noticed that my goals always began to crumble on the heels of a negative trigger event. I would get sick, stressed, sad, or out of my normal environment, and then I would start undoing whatever recent progress I had made.

So I made a change. I decided to actively search for these negative trigger events, becoming hyper-aware of when one was coming, when I was in the middle of one, and when one had just passed.

This bit of mental gymnastics created an unexpected realization: most negative trigger events draw their efficacy from a lack of awareness that they are happening.

I like how Oliver Burkeman articulates this dynamic:

This is exactly what happened. Once I began to see it, I suddenly had more agency:

Thus, in the middle of having three children in 2.5 years, moving to a new house, going through a minor health crisis, experiencing loss, and navigating a job transition, I’ve done a halfway decent job of continuing to move in the right direction.

I used to think the habit-gear-switching-mechanism was automatic: external trigger events dictated if I was in a good or bad habit cycle.

Now I understand how this shift can be manual: internal awareness of these trigger events obstructs their power.

This deliberate act of recognition becomes a cognitive sleight of hand whereby you avoid the downward spiral that kills your confidence and you recapture the momentum that propels you forward.

There’s no ducking the ebbs and flows of life. Negative trigger events are inescapable.

When they come, you’ll be faced with a choice: Do you let the bad habit cycle takeover? Or do you see the trigger event for what it is—an opportunity to lean in and get back on track?

If Fail Friday already came for you, don’t let that be the end of the story.

There’s still a tailwind waiting to push you forward—you might just need to look for it.

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See you next week.

PW