Building Habits that Last Longer than Resolutions

January 2, 2025·31 min·5 clips

Scott and Meg open with New Year jokes and the yearly mess of writing the wrong date. The conversation circles around a simple idea: money can feel complicated, but it does not have to stay that way. From there, they move away from resolutions and toward habits. Scott brings up a friend who decided to do 30 pushups every morning. Meg does the math with him and lands on 10,950 pushups over a year. That number makes the case. A small action, repeated often enough, can change the shape of a whole year. The discussion keeps that same logic tied to personal finance. When someone says they want to be more present with their kids during the week, the next question is what they can actually do. The hosts keep steering away from vague promises and toward a concrete routine. One example is putting the phone down in a specific place when coming home. Another is not touching it until bedtime for the kids. The tactic matters because it gives the goal a place to live in the day. Scott and Meg keep returning to the same planning frame: what, how, and when. That frame turns a wish into something you can test in real life. The tone stays loose and friendly, with a few jokes and side comments along the way. The focus stays on what you can do now, not on perfect certainty. It is less about grand motivation and more about making the next step simple enough to repeat. Near the end, they remind listeners that if taking action is the goal, getting expert help is a good move. The episode works as a practical reset for anyone trying to make change last beyond the first week of January.

As heard by us

Small habits beat grand resolutions when the goal is a year that actually changes.

Scott Frank and Meg Bartelt spend the hour on the difference between wanting change and doing one small thing every day. After the New Year banter, they use a friend's 30-pushup routine to make the math plain: 10,950 pushups in a year from a habit that takes only about 30 to 45…

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Why you'd press play

Build a New Year habit that survives the first week.

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