Bite-sized chunks.

Here’s something I’ve learned the hard way: most “big goals” don’t fail because they’re big. They fail because we try to swallow them whole. We look at the size of the task and our brain just… taps out. Like opening a cupboard, watching everything tumble out, and quietly closing the door again like you weren’t involved.

This is exactly what behaviour scientists talk about. Charles Duhigg, in The Power of Habit, explains that our brains hate ambiguity and size — but respond brilliantly to small, structured actions. It’s not a motivational thing. It’s a neurological thing.

And that’s where the bite-sized chunk method comes in. It isn’t glamorous. It won’t make you feel like you’re levelling up in a video game. But it will get you to the finish line. It’s the heart of what Discipline Rewired is all about: teaching your brain to move through resistance using small, repeatable wins.

We’ve all been sold the myth of “the big push.” The heroic all-nighter. The “one day everything changes” moment. But real life does not give a shit about your montage fantasies. Life is messy. Interruptions, fatigue, kids, work, and general chaos all come standard.

Psychologist BJ Fogg, from Stanford, built an entire behaviour model around this reality. In Tiny Habits, he proves that discipline sticks when tasks are so small that your brain doesn’t resist them. Not when you’re feeling hyped or riding some motivational high. Tiny steps win because tiny steps don’t trigger overwhelm.

And overwhelm is the real killer.
Not laziness.
Not lack of ambition.
Just that sinking, suffocating sense of “I can’t do all of this.”

But shrink the task?
Your brain relaxes.
Resistance drops.
Movement starts.

James Clear echoes this in Atomic Habits: small wins don’t just create progress; they rebuild your identity. Every tiny action becomes evidence you can trust yourself. That evidence compounds. Quietly. Relentlessly. Until one day you look back and realise you’re not the same person you were when you started.

I’ve lived this more than once. When training for endurance running, it wasn’t some heroic miracle of willpower. It was bite-sized chunks. People see the accomplishment and think “discipline.” They don’t see me at 40km in bargaining with myself:

“Just run to that weird looking tree, then you can walk.”
“No.”
“Ok, just run to that closer, thinner looking tree.”
“…fine.”

Same with building this website. It didn’t appear out of a surge of motivation. It came from one idea a day. One tiny tweak here, a different fix there. Nothing Instagram-worthy. Just slow, stubborn consistency — exactly what the research says works.

What makes bite-sized chunks powerful is that it survives real life.
You don’t need a perfect day.
You don’t need a clean desk.
You don’t need three hours of uninterrupted silence.

You need two minutes.
Sometimes even thirty seconds.

That’s enough to build momentum.
That’s enough to chip away at the mountain.
That’s enough to remove the guilt-and-delay cycle that traps most people.

Duhigg calls these “small wins.”
Fogg calls them “tiny actions.”
Clear calls them “1% improvements.”
I call them rewiring your discipline — because suddenly, big tasks stop intimidating you. You look at a huge project, break it into something embarrassingly small… and you start.

Not tomorrow.
Not next Monday when you’re “ready.”
Now.

Shrink the task.
Strip away the drama.
Do the smallest possible version.
And then repeat it.

Day after day, those tiny wins stack into something heavy and real. Something you can stand on. Something you can be proud of.

That’s Discipline Rewired in action. Not a mindset. Not a slogan. A process. A way of approaching anything substantial.

And it works - not because it’s motivational, but because it’s scientifically sound and neurologically aligned with how humans actually function.

So think of that big task you’ve been avoiding.
Shrink it until it feels stupid.
Then do it - today. Even if it’s just thirty seconds.

Because big accomplishments don’t come from big actions.
They come from tiny, stubborn ones repeated until they become impossible to ignore.

That’s the quiet power of small steps.
That’s the philosophy behind bite-sized chunks.
And that’s exactly what it means to live with your Discipline Rewired.