Afford Anything | Make Smart Choices About Your Money, Time And Productivity

#638: Fifty dollars. That's how much this couple transferred to their "Trip to Europe" savings account each time they cooked dinner instead of going to a restaurant. By year's end, they had funded their dream vacation — not through budgeting or willpower, but by hacking their habit loop. This story illustrates how James Clear approaches habit change. Clear joins us to explain the four-stage cycle that drives every behavior: cue, craving, response, and reward. You see a restaurant (cue), predict it will be convenient and tasty (craving), eat out (response), and satisfy your hunger (reward). Repeat this loop enough times and the behavior becomes automatic. Clear translates these four stages into four laws for building good habits: make it obvious, make it attractive, make it easy, and make it satisfying. Want to break a bad habit? Flip the script — make it invisible, unattractive, difficult, and unsatisfying. We explore practical strategies like habit stacking, where you attach a new behavior to an