The Cadence journal
Notes on the practice.
Field notes, guides, and the thinking behind Cadence.
Latest · 6 min read
When to Quit a Goal: The Science of Goal Disengagement (and Why Half-Quitting Is the Real Failure)
Wondering when to quit a goal? Research on goal disengagement shows the real damage comes from half-quitting: still committed, no longer trying. Here's how to decide.
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More from the journal
- 02
Process Goals vs. Outcome Goals: Why Chasing the Number Keeps You From Reaching It
Process goals vs outcome goals: why chasing a number quietly erodes motivation, what sport psychology found instead, and how to set a goal you control today.
2026-10-26
6 min read
- 03
Why Don't I Do What I Say I'm Going To Do? The Intention-Behavior Gap and the Decision You Never Actually Made
Why don't you do what you say you'll do? The intention-behavior gap explains it: often you never really decided. Here's how to cross from wanting into doing.
2026-10-25
7 min read
- 04
Why Do I Procrastinate on Things I Actually Want to Do? Procrastination Is Mood Repair, Not Laziness
Why do I procrastinate on things I want to do? Because procrastination is mood repair, not a time problem. The psychology of avoidance, and what to do about it today.
2026-10-25
7 min read
- 05
How to Stop Comparing Your Progress to Others: Social Comparison and Why Some Benchmarks Crush Your Habits
How to stop comparing your progress to others when building habits: why some comparisons inspire you, others crush you, and the one benchmark that actually works.
2026-10-25
7 min read
- 06
Why Do I Keep Starting Over With Habits? The False Hope Syndrome and the Cycle of Fresh Starts
Why do I keep starting over with habits? The False Hope Syndrome shows how the rush of deciding to change sets you up to fail, and how to finally get out of the cycle.
2026-10-24
7 min read
- 07
The Zeigarnik Effect and Habits: Why Stopping Before You're Done Makes You Want to Come Back
The Zeigarnik effect in habits: why finishing every session can quietly kill your momentum, and how stopping mid-stride creates a pull that brings you back tomorrow.
2026-10-24
7 min read
- 08
Why Do I Self-Sabotage My Habits? Self-Handicapping and the Fear of Really Trying
Why do you self-sabotage your habits right when they start working? Self-handicapping explains it: not trying protects your self-worth, but it costs you the change.
2026-10-23
7 min read
- 09
Approach vs. Avoidance Goals: Why 'Stop Doing' Habits Leave You Drained (and How to Reframe Them)
Approach vs. avoidance goals explain why 'stop scrolling' and 'quit snacking' feel so draining, even on good days. Here is the psychology, and how to turn a don't into a do.
2026-10-23
6 min read
- 10
Why Starting a Habit From Zero Is the Hardest Part: The Endowed Progress Effect
The endowed progress effect explains why new habits feel hardest at the very start — and how giving yourself a small head start makes you far more likely to finish what you begin.
2026-10-22
6 min read
- 11
Should You Tell People About Your Goals? Why Announcing a Habit Can Quietly Replace Doing It
Should you tell people about your goals? Research on symbolic self-completion shows that announcing can feel like progress. Here's what to share instead.
2026-10-22
7 min read
- 12
Why You Overestimate What You Can Do in a Day: The Planning Fallacy and Your Habits
The planning fallacy is why you overestimate what you can do in a day — and why perfect weeks collapse by Wednesday. Learn to plan for the day you'll actually have.
2026-07-13
6 min read
- 13
The Region-Beta Paradox: Why 'Good Enough' Habits Are Harder to Change Than Terrible Ones
The region-beta paradox explains why 'good enough' habits outlast terrible ones — and how to escape a routine that's too comfortable to fix.
2026-07-13
6 min read
- 14
Why New Habits Get Boring After Two Weeks: Hedonic Adaptation and the Novelty Gap
Why new habits get boring isn't a motivation problem — it's hedonic adaptation. The science of the novelty gap, and why boredom means it's working.
2026-07-12
7 min read
- 15
How to Stay Motivated in the Middle of a Goal: The Science of the Vanishing Middle
Goals rarely die at the start or the finish line — they die quietly in between. Here's how to stay motivated in the middle of a goal, according to behavioral science.
2026-07-12
6 min read
- 16
The Peak-End Rule: Why the Last Two Minutes of a Habit Decide Whether You'll Ever Do It Again
The peak-end rule shapes habits more than willpower does: your memory of the final minutes decides if you return. Learn to end routines so your brain wants more.
2026-07-11
7 min read
- 17
Should You Do a Habit at the Same Time Every Day? The Hidden Fragility of Rigid Routines
Should you do a habit at the same time every day? Research on rigid vs. flexible routines reveals why your most disciplined habits are often the first to collapse.
2026-07-11
6 min read
- 18
Why You Can't Stick to Habits You Chose for Someone Else: The Science of Want-To vs. Have-To Goals
Sticking to habits you actually want is easier than forcing ones you don't. Self-determination research explains why guilt-driven goals quietly collapse — and how to fix yours.
2026-07-10
7 min read
- 19
Why Stress Makes You Fall Back on Old Habits: The Goal-Directed and Habitual Brain
Why stress makes you fall back on old habits isn't weakness — it's neuroscience. Under pressure your brain hands the wheel to autopilot. Here's how to make autopilot yours.
2026-07-10
7 min read
- 20
How Many Habits Should You Start at Once? The Science of Goal Competition
How many habits should you start at once? Research on goal competition suggests the answer is humbling — and that your last failed reset wasn't a willpower problem.
2026-07-10
7 min read
- 21
Why Life Changes Break Your Habits — and How to Use the Disruption Window
Moving, new job, new baby: life changes break your habits. Here's the science of habit discontinuity — and how to use that fragile window to rebuild on purpose.
2026-07-09
7 min read
- 22
How to Remember to Do a New Habit: The Prospective Memory Problem Nobody Talks About
Most habits don't die from weak willpower — they die from forgetting. Learn how to remember to do a new habit using prospective memory science and cues your brain can't ignore.
2026-07-09
7 min read
- 23
Why Habits Get Easier the More You Repeat Them: The Science of Behavioral Chunking
Ever wonder why habits get easier the more you repeat them? Your brain chunks whole routines into a single unit. Here's the neuroscience—and how to use it.
2026-07-08
6 min read
- 24
Why Future Rewards Don't Motivate You: Present Bias and the Habits You Keep Putting Off
Why future rewards don't motivate you: how present bias and delay discounting quietly sabotage good habits, and the small moves that make tomorrow's payoff feel real today.
2026-07-08
6 min read
- 25
How to Get Back on Track After Breaking a Habit: Why Self-Compassion Beats Self-Criticism
How to get back on track after breaking a habit: the abstinence violation effect explains why one slip snowballs, and why self-compassion — not guilt — gets you moving again.
2026-07-08
7 min read
- 26
Why Rewarding Yourself for a Habit Can Backfire: The Overjustification Effect
Wondering whether rewarding yourself helps build habits? The overjustification effect shows how external rewards can quietly kill the motivation that made you start.
2026-07-07
6 min read
- 27
Self-Efficacy and Habit Formation: Why Believing You Can Change Is Half the Battle
Self-efficacy and habit formation are deeply linked: the belief that you can follow through is built from small completed actions, not pep talks. Here's how to earn it.
2026-07-07
6 min read
- 28
Dopamine and Habit Formation: Why Anticipation, Not the Reward, Is What Actually Drives You
How dopamine and habit formation really work: the reward prediction error that shifts your brain's excitement from the reward to the cue, and how to use it to make habits stick.
2026-07-06
6 min read
- 29
Why Habits Are Contagious: The Science of How the People Around You Shape Your Behavior
Why habits are contagious: network science shows behaviors spread through friendships like weather. Here's how to choose the social currents that carry you.
2026-07-05
7 min read
- 30
The Moral Licensing Effect: Why One Good Habit Makes You Feel Entitled to a Bad One
The moral licensing effect explains why doing well makes you feel entitled to slip — and how reframing progress as commitment closes the loophole.
2026-07-05
6 min read
- 31
Mental Contrasting: The Science of Why Visualizing Success Backfires
Positive visualization can quietly sap your drive. The mental contrasting technique — built on decades of psychology research — turns wishes into action instead.
2026-07-04
6 min read
- 32
Commitment Devices: How to Bind Your Future Self to the Habits You Keep Abandoning
Commitment devices for habits work because your future self keeps breaking your promises. Here's the science of binding yourself, gently, to what you meant to do.
2026-07-04
6 min read
- 33
Why Willpower Doesn't Work for Habits: The Science of Effortless Self-Control
Why willpower doesn't work for habits: research shows highly disciplined people actually resist temptation less. Here's what they do instead, and how to copy it.
2026-07-03
7 min read
- 34
How to Break a Bad Habit: Why Your Brain Never Deletes Old Routines (and What to Do Instead)
Breaking a bad habit isn't about deleting it — your brain archives old routines instead. Learn how to break a bad habit by replacing it, backed by real science.
2026-07-03
6 min read
- 35
The Hot-Cold Empathy Gap: Why You Overcommit to Habits Your Future Self Can't Keep
The hot-cold empathy gap explains why habit plans made in a motivated moment collapse on ordinary days — and how to design routines your tired self will actually keep.
2026-07-02
7 min read
- 36
Why Motivation Follows Action: The Science of Doing the Thing Before You Feel Like It
Why motivation follows action, not the other way around. The behavioral-activation science behind why doing the thing first creates the feeling you were waiting for.
2026-06-27
7 min read
- 37
Keystone Habits: How One Small Habit Can Trigger a Chain of Better Behaviors
Keystone habits are the single small routines that quietly reshape the rest of your life. Here's the science of why one habit can pull a dozen others into place.
2026-06-27
7 min read
- 38
Why Habits Are Tied to Your Environment: How Context Cues Make Behavior Automatic
Why habits are tied to your environment: the science of context cues, automaticity, and how a stable place and time quietly do the work willpower can't.
2026-06-26
6 min read
- 39
Why Celebrating Small Wins Helps Habits Stick: The Science of Emotion and Habit Formation
Why celebrating small wins helps habits stick: the brain wires behaviors through emotion, not repetition. Learn how a moment of feeling good after a tiny action makes habits automatic.
2026-06-26
6 min read
- 40
The Two-Minute Rule for Habits: Why Shrinking a Habit Until It's Almost Too Easy Makes It Stick
The two-minute rule for habits says to shrink any new behavior until it takes under two minutes. Here's the behavioral science behind why starting tiny is what makes habits last.
2026-06-26
7 min read
- 41
The Goal-Gradient Effect: Why You Try Harder the Closer You Get to a Goal
The goal-gradient effect explains why effort surges near the finish line. Learn how to give yourself a head start so habits feel closer—and easier to finish.
2026-06-24
7 min read
- 42
The Fresh Start Effect: Why New Beginnings Make Habits Easier to Start (and How to Stop Waiting for Monday)
The fresh start effect explains why you feel ready to change every Monday. Here's the science of temporal landmarks—and how to use new beginnings without waiting for one.
2026-06-24
7 min read
- 43
Why Tracking a Habit Changes It: The Science of Self-Monitoring
Why tracking habits works: the simple act of self-monitoring shifts behavior before willpower even shows up. Here's the science of measurement reactivity.
2026-06-23
6 min read
- 44
Identity-Based Habits: How to Build Habits That Stick by Changing Who You Believe You Are
Identity-based habits explain why willpower fades but self-image lasts. Learn how to change who you believe you are so good habits finally stick for good.
2026-06-23
7 min read
- 45
Implementation Intentions: The If-Then Plan That Turns Good Intentions Into Action
Implementation intentions—simple if-then plans—close the gap between wanting to change and actually doing it. Here's the psychology of why they work and how to write one.
2026-06-22
7 min read
- 46
How to Reduce Friction to Build Habits: The Science of Making Good Behaviors Easier
Learn how to reduce friction to build habits using real behavioral science. Why redesigning the space around a behavior beats willpower every time.
2026-06-22
6 min read
- 47
Temptation Bundling: How to Make Yourself Want to Do the Habit You Keep Avoiding
Temptation bundling pairs a habit you avoid with something you love, so motivation stops being the bottleneck. Here's the science and how to use it.
2026-06-21
7 min read
- 48
Why You Quit Habits After Missing One Day (and the 'Never Miss Twice' Rule That Fixes It)
Missing a habit once rarely ends it — missing twice does. Learn the 'never miss twice' rule and the what-the-hell effect, so one skipped day stops becoming ten.
2026-06-18
7 min read
- 49
How to Use Habit Stacking: Anchor New Habits to Routines You Already Have
Learn how to use habit stacking to make new habits stick by anchoring them to routines you never skip — the behavioral science of cues, if-then plans, and why willpower isn't the point.
2026-06-16
7 min read
- 50
How Long It Really Takes to Form a Habit (and Why the 21-Day Rule Is a Myth)
How long does it take to form a habit? The real research says far longer than 21 days — and missing a day matters less than you think. Here's the science.
2026-06-15
6 min read