Your Environment Invites Action & Influences Habits

 “Being intentional about our surroundings is essential to eliciting our best performance.” Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. From his book ‘The Evolving Self: A Psychology for the Third Millennium’.

You are tired after a long day’s work. When you sign off from work, you have intentions to exercise, but that nice comfy couch is calling your name. You can’t resist the pull of sitting down, turning on the TV or just eating and relaxing thereby skipping your exercise. 

There is a battle between the goal (e.g. exercising) and your body’s natural pull towards the path of least resistance. Sitting is a lot easier than stepping out and burning calories or picking up the weights at home (since you can’t hit the gym in these times). Our bodies are made to conserve energy, especially when we feel drained.

Your brain has tied that piece of furniture (couch/bed) to relaxation and areas in your brain related to taking that action begin to light up. This occurs well before you’ve made the actual decision to go sit down. 

This experience occurs with just about anything in your environment. The human brain predicts the course of action before we actually take it. If it were purely reactive, we’d be too slow. Think of a batter in baseball. The brain predicts whether he should hit or not before the ball has even left the pitcher’s hand.

We’re partially in control of the bond between our environment and action. Put your running shoes and clothes in the car or take it out of the cupboard and put it on the chair the night before and you are more likely to go for a run the following morning. Have a designated space or computer for reading or working, and you’re more likely to be drawn to reading and working in that area. Similarly, if you leave your office laptop on even after you have finished work, you will keep checking email. If you have your phone next to you when you wake up, you’re more likely to pick it up first thing in the morning.

Just like how physical things around you can influence your action, social constructs too have an impact on you. Your social circle has profound implications on your own behavior. Just like diseases easily spread through tight-knit groups, so does motivation. Surround yourself wisely and make sure you are spreading good vibes.

“When we create a space in which to practice our craft, it is beneficial to surround ourselves with objects that invite desired actions and eliminate ones that do not”. Brad Stulberg, author of Peak Performance.

Our environment invites action and influences habits. We can rig our environment towards the action we want to take. We can form stronger bonds between healthy actions and weaken the bonds between the environment and actions we don’t want to take.

So, what is your environment inviting you to do :)?