How to influence your thoughts by changing your direct environment now for a fulfilling life
The people that you connect with
“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”
This quote from Jim Rohn has probably passed your screen at one time in the past few years. Quite the eye-opener for a lot of people, including myself, to read or hear these words for the first time in your life.
This is related to the fact that the people you surround yourself with influence your thinking.
The people you get along with are often the ones that you understand and that are in a certain way similar to you. These relationships (that we can choose) have a great influence in our lives. That does not mean that you must find 5 identical copies of you that support you in every way possible throughout your life. It can be very helpful to also have a critical person in your midst who can push you in a different way. A counterpart person.
The dream in your heart may be bigger than the environment in which you find yourself. Sometimes you have to get out of that environment to see that dream fulfilled.
But this is only one of the many ways that our environment influences our behavior. Being aware of these ways has helped me in just as many ways. I can make more conscious decisions, free from distractions, and oversee my own life, surrounding myself with people that I care about who I believe are a great contribution to my life.
The area that you live in
This thought, about how environment drives your behavior, kept popping up in my head when walking in a small village close by. From big city life to small towns in the nature with nothing to worry about. What a change. — Some space and time for reflection and pondering which is sometimes hard to find in a big city. And nature all around is a big plus too of course…
But this change in environment (in this case my short holiday) has not only had an effect on my behavior. It seemed like the people we ran into had a different mindset and were more open towards a simple conversation. It is as if people have travelled back in time a bit and are more susceptible to other people’s lives and not just their own. Small changes to my environment during this holiday allowed me to enjoy the time I spent even more when discovering new places and trying out different experiences.
That is also why I believe a drastic change in your environment can be beneficial for a lot of people. You can expose yourself to that which is unknown to you so that can result in a paradigm shift in your thinking. A healthy beneficial break from your roaming through life on the automatic pilot. A new and different path which allows you to change your perspective and become more aware of yourself and your surroundings. A time and place where you can make decisions with intent and be in control.
The directs surroundings of your workplace
The ‘small village and big city’ comparison is one of many things that can have a big impact on your thinking patterns. But what else? When we zoom in on the area you live in you will see that your environment on a much smaller scale do influence your thinking as well. Your home, your workplace, and your near daily commute between these two.
Your decor in your home and the items that you might collect often trigger a certain feeling whilst reminding you of a memory. Your day is full of visual triggers that make you do certain things and feel various ways. The alarm on my phone triggers in the morning as I once again try not to snooze. It is a reminder of another day, and your brain starts working on rebooting your entire body. I walk to the bathroom, drink water, see my toothbrush and automatically grab my toothbrush. Your brain does work and through stimuli your automatic pilot is reminded to fulfil tasks or the perhaps the exact opposite, ponder away.
By improving my environment in small ways, I have raised my mental state in in a matter of seconds. Cycling to work instead of using the public transport, an organized desk and not one full of clutter, or a visual reminder (could be a sticky note) of my goals/challenges or an interesting perspective on life by an interesting leader.
I keep discovering that there are more and more things that affect your thinking in subtle ways that you are not even aware of. Your subconscious brain doing its thing in the background, processing the information that it receives in overloads. This is also essential in habit building as James Clear mentions in his book ‘Atomic Habits’. The main trigger in the habit loop is also called the cue. These cues are often visual and having these visual triggers in plain view can help significantly in building your new habits. On the other side of the spectrum, making a visual cue invisible can help you break bad habits.
Zoom x3
Lets zoom in a bit more and ponder the biological aspects of this topic, beginning with the eyes. Our visual system does not only register the shapes, forms, and shades in your everyday life. The eyes are connected and part of the central nervous system. As part of this important network, one of the roles of your eyes is to communicate to your brain what is going on outside.
If you are in the comfort of your own house, your eyes can be more at ease and this signal will be received by the brain. Driving in a car on a busy road? Your eyes will register that and tell your brain to be more alert. Your eyesight has a direct impact on how your mind reacts and influences your body in various ways. They influence your state of mind. The time of the day is a prime example. Lack of daylight? It must be nighttime! This is communicated throughout your body: the circadian clock.
Your direct visual eyesight is also connected to your emotions and experiences. When you are stressed or energized, your peripheral vision reduces, and your eyesight is focused and narrow. Relaxed? You will have a more panoramic view of the outside world.
Now this is where it gets interesting as the process can also be reversed in a way. By consciously trying to dilate your view, relaxing your eyes and trying to see yourself in the environment that you’re in, you’re turning off your internal stress mechanisms. Knowing this, your vision can also drive changes in state of mind and perspective.
Who knew that it is not just breathing that can have a direct influence on your mental state? On top of that, have a go at reflecting on your environment and see where that takes you.
