How to Change Your Environment Drastically and Succeed

This week I've been slowly getting into moving mode with yesterday being sorting through all of my stuff and figuring out what I'm bringing. It's been five years roughly since I've moved and I'm quite excited about this new step in my life I'm finally taking.

But above all, I'm excited about the change in the environment. Not only will I have a great roommate (my cousin and best friend) but I'll have an entirely new office and space I'll be working in.

For the first time in five years, my office isn't going to be a portion of my room.

Deep down I knew this was a great thing mainly because I'm aware of environments. What we do in various rooms creates atmospheres and they can create mental drama. For example, my office is in my room right now and my room is where I like to work out, eat, sleep, read, and more. I do literally everything in my room.

This creates a problem though as I often get too wrapped up in work to exercise properly let alone read any of my growing collection of books.

I understand that sectioning off rooms to certain activities gives yourself a sense of balance and progress. You go to those particular places to do specific things. So it pays to change environments or to repurpose them for your own goals and success.

But how exactly are you supposed to do that?

It's not as easy to separate environments and to immediately fall in line. I know already I may be tempted to bring my laptop back into my room when I'm at my new apartment.

From my understanding, here are some suggestions to consider when changing your environment drastically.

First, make a big change in life.

This is an obvious one but it's still worth bringing up because each persons version of change is different. Not to mention each person's definition of a big change is different. For me, it's not only making a big step in life like I'm doing but making a big deal about other shifts in your life. Deciding on starting a new habit? That sparks a big change.

How is it possible? Because I believe the mere thought of making a change releases a burst of dopamine. And for some people, like myself, can use that as motivation to make other active changes to their environments.

Second, get others involved.

My cousin is a close friend of mine and knows generally the sort of issues I've been dealing with. One of the biggest problems I've had has been on a mental level. I don't need him specifically to troubleshoot my own issues, but it's important for me to have other people involved in the journey to an extent.

Why? Because having other people involved at a distance creates accountability.

It's why when I move to my new apartment, I proposed he brings his computer out with mine since my office has been in my bedroom for so long.

But this also works in another way. For one, my cousin gets to see the habits that I have and they can rub off on him. I've been setting goals and working hard and that might incentivize him to do the same.

It's the same concept with couples. If one of them does exercises, there is a high likelihood of them participating eventually.

Having other people around you doing similar things encourages you to continue doing that same behaviour as well.

Third, prime the environment.

It follows the idea of having set up the activities that you typically do in that area. Do you work out in your room or in the living room? Either way, have a workout mat and weights ready so you can immediately fall into that habit.

It's a similar idea to using part of the living room as my cousin and my offices. It's where we work and get stuff done so we can make it a purely work-oriented place.

Finally, stick to the habits and only build on them as necessary. While this will be the first time I've ever done something like this, I know the importance of building habits and how you don't want to deviate from them. When changing environments you want to commit to those habits and to not tamper with the place. Only do so if you're adding appropriate habits to that area. Habits that complement everything else.

The last thing that I'll mention is all of this requires a strong mindset. It's easy to fall into little mental traps that trip you up. One thing that I've been finding myself doing is thinking about all the exciting things that I will be doing. Not to mention visualizing myself doing those activities. It's gotten to the point where I see this move as a much larger leap in my life than what it was initially. At first, the move was a move to a new place. Now it's a move to a new place and an entirely different way of living my life.

And I'm pumped for it.

To your growth!

Eric S Burdon