Making changes can be difficult. It’s hard to get motivated to do something over and over again — even if you know that it’s good for you. But what if I told you there was a different option? Something that didn’t require an ounce of motivation.
How Your Environment Impacts Your Behavior
The researchers summarized the impact of the environment design by saying, “In most cases, the majority of people choose the default option to which they were assigned.” In other words, most of us respond the same way to the cues that surround us. If you are sent a form that asks you to make a tough decision, you will probably go with the default option. If you see a cookie on the counter, you will probably eat it. If you hear music, you will probably start tapping your feet.
You may think that you control most of your choices, but the truth is that a large portion of your actions every day are simply a response to the environment design around you. The forms you are mailed, the food on your kitchen counter, the items on your desk at work — they all impact your behavior in one way or another. Bringing it back to the researcher’s quote, we could say that your environment is the “default option to which you are assigned.” The environment you surround yourself with determines the default actions that you take on a day–to–day basis.
How to Design Your Environment for Success
By changing your surroundings, you can place a hurdle in the way of bad behaviors and remove the barriers to good ones. I like to refer to this strategy as environment design.
Here’s an easy way to apply environment design to your own life: think about your environment in relation to the number of steps it takes to perform a habit. To make good habits easier, reduce the number of steps to do them. To make bad habits harder, increase the number of steps between you and the habit.