Changing your environment will change your habits

If you were living in a place and on this place you were addicted to certain food or certain substance. Suddenly, you were force to move abroad. On this new place, the food or substance you were addicted doesn’t exit or you just can’t find it since they don’t sell it.

The end result will be that you will change your habit to adapt to the new environment without that type of food or substances.

Human have two amazing ability.

Human has the ability to change their environment to their liking. Also, human have the ability to adapt to their new environment.

Therefore, if you can’t change your environment to your liking then you’ll adapt to the new environment if it’s within human capability.

This bring us changing habits.

rearrange your environment to change your habits

If you want to change your habits, you need make the process as smooth as possible. So, you need to do two things.

Rearrange your environment to make your desired behavior as simple and easy as possible.

Rearrange your environment to make your undesired behavior as complex and hard as possible.

Examples of desired behavior:

If you want to drink more water then buy a gallon of water and put it in save place where if it does accidentally spill, it doesn’t cause any damage. However, must be a place where you are force to see the gallon of water.

If you use the computer a lot, you can put the water in a seal container next to the monitor. So, you are force to see it. If you have a day job, they will allow water bottles, since the container is seal. If you use the computer a lot at home then you can do the same thing.

You see, not only do you know that water is good for you and that you should be drinking more water. But, there will come at time where you feeling thirsty. And because it’s easier to just reach your hand and grab the water, you just going to do it.

So, with the water, you rearranged your environment to make your desired behavior as simple and easy as possible.

Example of undesired behavior:

This one is going to be tough, let’s give it a try.

Have you even notice that at work most dining halls are full of crappy food. There are one or more vending matching that sells crappy food. And let’s not forget the beverage vending machine as well, full of crappy bottles of beverages.

If you are trying to eat healthy, and you are unable to resist the temptation of the food in the dining halls, the best cause of action might be to just not go there.

by not going to the dining hall you are completely changing your environment.

You can either cook your own delicious food, healthy food course.

Or you can order food, and have it deliver to your job. You can find a healthy place that does delivery and call certain amount of time before your lunch and you can eat this food in a nice area away from the dining hall.

Now, the changes does not have to be dramatic, sometime we have people in our live that we have to live with and they might not be on the same program. So, it could be as simple as putting the unhealthy food on the back of the refrigerator and putting the healthy food on the front.

Therefore, try to rearrange the environment to support the desired behavior, to make it simple and easy. and to try to rearrange the environment to un-support the undesired behavior, to make it complex and hard.

That’s it.

Take a calculated risk.

Now, start and adjust as you go.