How can you change your environment to make desired actions easier?
Design your surroundings to favor the behaviors you want.
When you struggle to act the way you want, your surroundings often make desired actions hard and unwanted ones easy. So ask yourself:
🤔 How can I change my environment to make desired actions easier?
Or, of course,
🤔 How can I change it to make unwanted actions harder?
Your surroundings shape your behavior more than you realize. Candy that’s easy to grab in the supermarket, an elevator that removes the effort of taking the stairs, and a gym that’s far away all make actions easier or harder without you noticing. You can make actions easier by removing friction from your environment and harder by adding it. Small shifts can make good habits stick and bad ones fade without relying on willpower. Note that friction is not about reminders or triggers.
Reducing friction is like oiling an engine, while increasing friction is like walking a muddy path.
Start by choosing a specific, achievable goal you can track, like going for a 30-minute run three times a week, drinking eight glasses of water a day, or saving a set amount each month. Then identify the friction points you can remove or add:
👉 Remove friction: keep your workout clothes ready by the door, choose a gym closer to home, put healthy snacks within easy reach, place your water bottle on your desk, set up automatic transfers to your savings account, schedule automatic bill payments
👉 Add friction: don’t keep junk food in your house, keep your phone in another room while working, place unhealthy snacks on a high shelf or in a hard-to-reach cabinet, pay with cash instead of a debit card
Small, intentional changes make following through easier or harder. Remember, difficulty isn’t always about willpower; it’s often just environmental friction. Be prepared to experiment, as changes may need tweaking to work for you. Track your progress in measurable ways to keep momentum going and celebrate each win immediately to reinforce the behavior. Immediate reinforcement helps the mind link effort to reward, making the behavior more likely to repeat.
Take one small step today: pick a behavior and adjust your environment to make it easier or harder.
