Modifying Your Environment
Reaching your goals hard work, and it's much harder for some than others. This isn't necessarily because some people are more motivated than others, but rather, some people have more environmental factors preventing them from reaching their goals or, at the very least, slowing down progress. So, it's in our interest to make our environment more conducive to our goals.
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Here are a few examples of how I've improved my own environment.
Let's start with training
Once we moved to our last house, I found the Pure gym I was going to was now inconveniently far away, and the closer gym just wasn't very good. This resulted in me hitting the gym less and less. So I needed to do something about it and started investing in home gym equipment; it started with crappy cast iron dumbbells and a cheap bench. It's now evolved into a pretty impressive home gym. I appreciate not everyone is able to have their own home gym, but most can acquire some adjustable dumbbells and a bench to make things more convenient. If not, then podcast it up or bang on your favourite playlist, and make the most of the trip to the gym.
Next is multivitamins
Not everyone needs to take a multivitamin, but I do – my diet often lacks variety. So I use a multivitamin as a safety net. The issue I had was I kept forgetting to take them. Like most people, I had mine in the kitchen, but I just kept walking past them when getting my morning coffee – my environment wasn't ideal. I've now taken these bad boys into my office and never forget to take them – they're literally in front of my monitor.
Next is eating habits
I'm a habitual snacker – aren't we all? So, in the wrong environment, I'll eat a lot of crap without even thinking about it, but I now have a few things in place to avoid this and improve my environment. The main and obvious one is to keep all treats out of sight and out of mind. If you don't have kids, you can take this one step further and have zero goodies in the house, but I don't think my kids would be too impressed if I removed all the Freddo's from the house. The other thing I did was ensure I had better snacks nearby and in sight. This is why I have protein bars in my office and fruits visible in my kitchen – when I go into my kitchen, the first thing I see is fruit.
Finally, my step count
When I went from in-person personal training to online coaching, my step count took a huge dive.I never altered my intake to account for the drop in activity levels, so the scales just continued to creep up. I now have a dog, so it's much easier to keep active; I'm not saying you should get a dog to become more active but rather illustrating how much our environment can dictate our activity levels.
Summary
Do what you can to improve your environment! Keep healthy foods close by and convenient to eat or cook and keep unhealthy food out of sight and out of mind. Make it easier to be active – park further away at the car park, take the stairs instead of the escalator and walk the hell out of your dog. If you don't have a dog, start listening to podcasts and audiobooks. If you're in the middle of a gripping audiobook, a walk can be all you need to finish that chapter – is fifty shades of grey all it's cracked up to be, well, get your walking shoes on and find out. Or get a dog, not to help with your step count, but because they're awesome, and it'll help with your step count. And make training as convenient as possible – giving you the best chance to solidify a routine.
Parting shot
There will always be speed bumps and friction between you and your goals, but the fewer, the better. Don't rely on motivation to power over these bumps in the road; instead, simply remove them and make the ride as smooth as possible.