Your Life is Running Spaghetti Code

I've restarted my fitness journey 28+ times.

Every January, every Monday, every "tomorrow I'll get my life together" moment.

Sound familiar?

One day I was sitting at my laptop writing a unit test for a piece of legacy code and I had an epiphany.

The same problems that crash software systems are crashing our personal lives.

There are 3 patterns that guarantee you'll keep starting over:

The All-Or-Nothing

You go from 0 to 100 overnight.

Join a CrossFit gym, work out 6 days a week, meal prep everything, wake up at 5 AM. It works for 8 weeks. Then nothing…

You reset. This time it’s running. You hire a coach, buy a watch, get new shoes, run everyday for a few months. You even finish the half marathon. Then nothing…

You reset again. This time it’s jiujitsu. You buy a Gi, binge Chewjitsu on YouTube, and go every day for a year until you get your blue belt. Then nothing…

You keep losing progress and resetting every few months.

This is like running your computer at 100% CPU until it overheats and crashes.

The Slow Fade

You start strong but gradually let things slip. Skip the gym "just once." Order takeout "just tonight." Hit snooze "just today." But once turns into twice. Tonight turns into tomorrow. And just today turns into just this week.

Six months later, you're back where you started and can't even remember when it went wrong.

This is like a memory leak. Slow degradation until the system quietly fails.

The Professional

You focus on systems so simple they're hard to break. Twenty pushups every morning. Save $100 every Friday. Write one sentence in your journal.

When life gets crazy, there’s no down time. You just return to your baseline.

This is like enterprise software: built to handle failures and keep running.

The difference?

Most people design their habits like a startup — move fast and break things.

Winners design their habits like enterprise software—built to last and handle errors.

The secret: Make your habits so small and automatic that you'd feel stupid NOT doing them.

Not perfect. Just consistent.

Which pattern sounds like you right now?

— Jake

P.S. Reply and tell me your biggest "restart" frustration. I read every email and often respond with specific advice.