Build What Compounds
Feedback loops, the mental model for compounding progress, with 3 copy-paste AI prompts.
TL;DR
If you have tried New Year goals and bounced by week 3, this is for you. This is not motivation. It is a system that survives low-energy days.Your life already runs on loops. This year gets easier when you build loops that compound and install guardrails that catch drift early.
Reinforcing loops amplify what is happening.
Helpful: 10-minute walk → more energy → you walk again.
Harmful: scroll late → worse sleep → you scroll more.
Balancing loops stabilize what is happening and pull you back toward a default.
Helpful: “If I want to buy it, I wait 24 hours” → impulse drops → spending stabilizes.
Harmful: feel discomfort → avoid the task → relief → avoidance becomes the default.
Delays are why change feels fake at first. Most people quit in the “nothing yet” window.
New Year framing: build a year that helps itself
The real upgrade is a setup where tomorrow becomes easier than today.
Here is what that looks like in normal life.
You start walking for ten minutes after lunch. Nothing heroic. After a few days you notice you sleep a bit better, your mood lifts, and the next walk costs less effort to start. It stops being a decision and starts being “what you do.”
That is the shape of a good year. Small effort creates a small benefit, and that benefit makes the next repetition more likely.
This mental model is just a way to spot those loops on purpose, then edit them.
Feedback loops in plain language (with tiny examples)
A feedback loop is simple:
What happens today changes the odds of what happens tomorrow.
You will sometimes hear the terms “positive feedback” and “negative feedback.” Ignore the vibe of those words. They mean “amplifying” and “stabilizing,” not “good” and “bad.” In this guide, we will call them reinforcing and balancing, and we will label them separately as helpful or harmful.
Reinforcing loops (they amplify)
These loops make the next step more likely. They compound in one direction.
Helpful reinforcing loop:
10-minute walk → more energy → you walk again → fitness improves → walking feels easier.
Harmful reinforcing loop:
scroll late → worse sleep → lower energy → you reach for the easiest reward → you scroll more.
Balancing loops (they stabilize)
These loops pull you back toward a default. Think of a default as the level you drift back to.
Helpful balancing loop:
“If I want to buy it, I wait 24 hours” → impulse drops → spending stabilizes.
Harmful balancing loop:
feel discomfort starting a task → avoid it → instant relief → avoidance becomes the default.
Delays (why change feels fake at first)
Many loops have a delay between action and result. You do the walk today and you do not feel fitter tomorrow. You eat better for a week and the scale barely moves. You practice a hobby and still feel clumsy.
Decide a minimum evaluation window upfront (7, 14, or 30 days) and track one leading indicator you can notice sooner (sleep quality, morning energy, cravings, consistency). Otherwise you quit in the delay window.
It is 11:48pm, you tell yourself “one more video,” and tomorrow already feels heavier. Put the charger outside the bedroom and replace the last five minutes with something boring on purpose, and the loop starts to break.
Next, we will use AI to do the practical part: map your loop, install one compounding loop, and break one draining loop by changing a single link.
Prompts: use AI as a loop designer (see it → build it → break it)
One warning: a loop map is a hypothesis, not proof. AI can confidently invent clean stories, so you treat its output as a starting point and validate it with small tests.
Diagnostic prompt: “What loop am I in?”
Use this when you feel stuck in a pattern and you cannot tell what is driving it.
Map my situation as feedback loops.
Identify (1) the reinforcing loop that is helping, (2) the reinforcing loop that is hurting, and (3) one balancing loop I could add as a guardrail.
Keep it simple and name the links in plain language.
For each link, list the assumption you are making and what evidence would confirm or deny it.Situation: [sleep, fitness, diet, hobby, work, mood + what has been happening]
The goal is one clear sentence you can test, like: “Late scrolling hurts sleep, and bad sleep makes me reach for late scrolling.”
3.2 Build prompt: “Install a tiny reinforcing loop that compounds”
Use this when you want progress that does not require willpower every day.
I want a minimal-effort habit that compounds over 12 months.
Propose a 5-minute daily version, an immediate reward, and one change that makes tomorrow easier than today (environment, prep, identity).
Also give me a bad day version (2 minutes) so the loop never breaks.
Define a 14-day evaluation window and one leading indicator I can notice early.Goal: [walking, learning, hobby, health]
This prompt forces the most important design rule: the loop has to survive bad days.
3.3 Break prompt: “Cut one link, do not rely on willpower”
Use this when a pattern keeps repeating and you are tired of trying to “want it more.”
Help me break this draining loop by changing just one link.
Restate the loop in one sentence.
Show 3 places to intervene:
add friction (make the bad input harder)
replace with a smaller action (a 2-minute alternative)
add a guardrail rule (a balancing loop)
Pick the best intervention for minimum effort and maximum impact, and tell me exactly how to implement it this week.
Tell me what real-life constraints might get in the way, and how to adjust without giving up.
Loop: [describe the pattern]”
You are not trying to fix your personality. You are editing one link in the chain.
Principles and traps
Principles
Make the next rep easier than the last
Shoes by the door. Guitar on a stand. Healthy food visible. Phone out of the bedroom.
Use guardrails, not punishment
Calm defaults beat drama: a 24-hour buying rule, a screen cutoff, a two-minute version on tired days.
Respect delays
Pick an evaluation window and track one leading indicator, not just the final outcome.
Change one link at a time
One tweak per week gives you signal.
Scale down before you quit
If it creates strain faster than capacity, reduce the dose until it is sustainable.
Traps
Reinforcing does not mean helpful
Doomscrolling compounds too. Always label loops as helpful or harmful.
All or nothing resets
Perfect plans create rebounds. Small corrections win.
Treating AI as truth
Use AI to generate hypotheses. Validate with your lived data.
Mapping forever
A loop map is only useful if it produces one small experiment this week.
The weekly practice that keeps the year moving
A small weekly check-in keeps you steering.
Once a week, take ten minutes and ask:
What loop helped me this week?
What loop hurt me this week?
What is one link I will change next week?
What is my bad day version so the loop survives?
What evaluation window am I using, and what is my leading indicator?
If you want to use AI for the review:
Here is how my week went: [short bullets].
Identify one helpful loop and one harmful loop.
Suggest one link to change next week.
Keep it small enough that I will do it even on a bad day.
That is the whole model.
This week: pick one arena (sleep, diet, fitness, hobby). Map the loop once. Make one change for seven days. Let the loop do the heavy lifting.