My 4-year-old daughter and I have been enjoying a nature show on Netflix named Night on Earth where it shows incredible footage of wildlife at night in their natural habitats. Last night we watched the episode titled “Sleepless Cities,” which showcased wildlife who have adapted to living in urban environments as their habitats have evolved to include humans living amongst them. I found it fascinating to learn how the animals have made incredible adaptations to urban living and it illustrated the power of one’s environment and how one’s surroundings shape how you live.

The power of one’s surroundings is not just true for animals. Human beings are dramatically affected by their environments as well. That is because one’s environment is often the nature trigger for cueing automatic habits in ourselves, whether they are positive habits or negative habits. For instance, seeing a bowl of candy on the kitchen counter at home or at the office is a trigger to eat the candy, whether you’ve been craving sugar or not. The cue in your environment is there to trigger the automatic behavior of reaching for the candy jar and receiving the reward of a sweet taste in your mouth.

Therefore, it’s important to take the time to reflect on your surroundings and professional and personal environment to ensure that it is maximizing the cues for positive habits in your life and minimizing the cues for negative habits in your life. I will now provide 5 easy tips to help you craft your environment in a way that it helps you reach your goals.

1. Make positive habit cues obvious. There may be positive habits that you want to make stick and have them stay in your life. One of the best ways to help good habits continue is to make the cue for the habit obvious and easy to see. For instance, last summer I learned about how important hydration was to stay healthy and I decided to work on drinking more water. I decided to buy a 100oz water bottle and fill it every night and place it on my kitchen counter so it was easy to see and would be an obvious cue to pour some of the water into a glass so I would drink more water throughout the day. This strategy works well for me, and I continue to do this today. Another simple one if you’re trying to eat more healthy foods is to prewash fruit and have a fruit bowl on your kitchen counter or kitchen island. I also have my mindset journal in an easy-to-see location so I am always reminded to use it in the mornings. Maybe you want to put your workout shoes and workout clothes in an easy-to-see location so you’re reminded to workout. Whatever good habits you want in your life, think of ways to make the visual cue to do the habit obvious and easy to see.

2. Remove bad habit cues from your environment. Given that visual cues in your environment are such powerful triggers to do the automatic habit in your life, an excellent way to break bad habits is to remove the bad habit’s visual cue in your environment. For instance, I have a bad habit of reaching for my phone and looking at social media or news articles when I have a little down time. To stop this bad habit I now hide my phone on a chair or table away from me so I can’t see it when I’m working at my desk or spending time with my family. The trigger of seeing the phone makes we want to grab it and look at it, so I now just place the phone out of sight when I don’t need to use it. I do the same thing for chocolate. I love chocolate and if chocolate was sitting out on the kitchen counter I know I would probably eat a lot more chocolate. Therefore, I store my chocolate in an upper shelf in the kitchen so I don’t notice it during my day-to-day activities in the kitchen. Whatever the bad habit is for you, think about the trigger for that habit and remove the cue from your environment.

3. Make your phone work for you, not against you. If you’re like me and probably about any other person that owns a smart phone, you probably use your phone a lot on a day-to-day basis and find that it can be distracting you from tasks at hand. A notification on your phone can instantly take you away from the work you were focusing on and make completing the task at hand much more difficult. Over time, I’ve realized how distracting my phone has become for me and I’ve done a lot to dramatically limit the number of distractions on my phone. No app sends me notifications, social media apps and news apps are hidden in a folder on my phone so I don’t see them, and Whatsapp chats that have a lot of activity are muted. Likewise, apps that help me be productive and are ones that I find helpful in reaching my goals, such as my Calendar app, my Way of Life app (habit tracking app), and Google Keep app which keeps track of my lists and notes, are all on my home screen so I see them easily and use them when I need them. Your phone is a tool that can either help you or distract you, so design your smart phone in a way that supports you reaching your goals.

4. Create a distraction free work station so you can concentrate at work. Just like how your phone’s pings, dings, and rings can distract you and take away from your focused attention on the task at hand, so can many other parts of your work station. Maybe it’s a cluttered desk, maybe it’s too many documents and screens up on your computer, maybe it’s an open email inbox so you read every email as soon as it comes in. Whatever the distractions are for you, take the time to eliminate them or at least minimize them as much as possible. Also, think about cues in your environment that help you focus more. For me, when I’m really wanting to “get in the zone,” I play classical music and light a candle. The music and the soft flickering light of the candle are triggers for me to relax and focus on the task at hand. Whatever the distractions are for you and the focusing elements are for you, remove them and add them accordingly.

5. Track your habits in a visible way. One way to help your habits stick and to instantly reward yourself for doing a habit (something that’s very important in the process of habit creation) is to track your habits and track them in a way that’s very visible to you. The goal of tracking your habits helps you monitor them as you work on making them automatic thoughts and actions and it’s a wonderful way to try to get a “streak” going so you are motivated to do the habit on a daily basis. I recommend tracking your habits in a very visible way. I have used a calendar hung on my fridge to track my workout habit and walking habit. Every day I worked out, I wrote my workout on the calendar, and every day I walked, I wrote that I walked on the calendar. I also track a lot more habits using the Way of Life app on my phone. I have that app on my home screen so I always see it when I open my phone and am reminded to use it often. Tracking your habits in a visual way, whether by writing them down on a calendar or an app, will help you stay consistent with doing the habit and consequently help the habit stick.

I hope you found these tips helpful as you seek to make your environment work for you and help you reach your goals. I’m always here as your life coach to provide you completely customized support, guidance, and the accountability you need to make progress in your life and reach your goals. Contact me by emailing me directly at liz@lizbapasola.com to set up a discovery call and get all your questions answered about coaching.