Designing Your Environment for Success

We tend to think bringing an idea to life is driven by determination alone, but what largely influences its success is the environment surrounding it. When authors write a book, they create spaces for writing. Athletes structure their routines around training, and builders prepare land before laying a foundation. Our surroundings determine our behavior every day. 

By designing our environment, we create conditions that support what we want to build. Here are some ways you can build an environment that helps you achieve a vision or goal.  

1. Physical environment. Remove what inhibits your goals, and add what contributes to them. For example, you can lay out your gym clothes the night before you go to the gym, and remove the foods that might tempt you from your kitchen. Out of sight out of mind. This makes it easier for you to make the right choice, and harder to make the wrong choice. Remove distractions from workspaces, and reduce clutter to lessen overstimulation and increase focus. Ask yourself, does my environment encourage the behaviors I want or the behaviors I’m trying to avoid?

2. Digital environment. Follow those who educate or inspire you, and unfollow accounts that create negativity or comparison. Set up auto-payments for bills, organize your files or apps, and set reminders and alarms as needed. Your phone is your environment, and so is your computer. The information you consume and the systems you set in place have a huge impact on your goals.

3. Social environment. Spend more time around people who embody the qualities that you admire. Join communities related to your interests and aspirations. Limit your exposure to gossip, negativity, or ill intentions. Build relationships with people who encourage growth and accountability, but distance yourself from those who have a negative impact on your life. You don’t have to abandon anyone, just be intentional about who is influencing your thinking. 

4. Time environment. Put important tasks on your calendar, and color code them to help distinguish what task is for what category. Create time blocks for deep work, protect your mornings if that’s when you’re able to think best, and reduce commitments that don’t support what you’re trying to achieve. Also, leave room in your schedule for flexibility. Treat time like an asset. 

We can’t achieve our goals through willpower alone. We achieve them by designing an environment that supports those goals. My mom loves to garden. She cannot force her plants to grow. What she does is improve the soil, provide water, remove weeds, and create good conditions for the plant to grow. 

The outcome may not exist yet, but your environment will reveal what your results will look like long before anyone can see it.