Designing your Environment for Success

If you are new to working with an advisor you may not be familiar with the value that they can add to your life. One of the things a good advisor will do is try to identify those opportunities you are missing or identify the things that are sabotaging your success. While I don’t propose to come live at your house or follow you around like a puppy, I have spent considerable time studying my habits to see what I can do to help me achieve success and what I am doing that holds me back.

What is success? It may be as simple as getting out of the grocery store without buying cookies and candy. It may be as complicated as becoming CEO of your company. You define what is success for you.

One of the most overlooked items in your toolbox is the environment in which you place yourself. Take your bedroom, is it clean? Is it cluttered? Is the light bulb burnt out and dust everywhere with a pile of stuff on your chest of drawers and nightstand? Take the time to put everything in its place and if it doesn’t have a place find a place for it. Give it a thorough cleaning afterwords and take the time to make the bed. At this point you are probably wondering what this has to do with success. It has several benefits many of which don’t make your conscious awareness but do mess with your subconscious. If you aren’t searching for that shoe under the bed or the clean undershirt or where the wrinkle free dress shirt is then your brain can be focused on that successful pitch you are making in a few hours. You know where they are because they have a home. You should also consider making your bed everyday just like your Mom told you to do when you were growing up. Why you ask? I will let Admiral McRaven share his bit of wisdom

Every morning in basic SEAL training, my instructors, who at the time were all Vietnam veterans, would show up in my barracks room and the first thing they would inspect was your bed.

If you did it right, the corners would be square, the covers pulled tight, the pillow centered just under the headboard and the extra blanket folded neatly at the foot of the rack—rack—that’s Navy talk for bed.

It was a simple task—mundane at best. But every morning we were required to make our bed to perfection.  It seemed a little ridiculous at the time, particularly in light of the fact that were aspiring to be real warriors, tough battle hardened SEALs—but the wisdom of this simple act has been proven to me many times over.

If you make your bed every morning you will have accomplished the first task of the day.  It will give you a small sense of pride and it will encourage you to do another task and another and another.

By the end of the day, that one task completed will have turned into many tasks completed. Making your bed will also reinforce the fact that little things in life matter.

If you can’t do the little things right, you will never do the big things right.

You are designing your environment for success. Have a set of habits before bed and a set of habits upon waking that reinforce what you want to do to succeed.

At work is your door always open and inviting people in to interrupt you? Is your email always on waiting to interrupt you? Are you always available to take a phone call whether it is the office phone or your smartphone?  Make the effort to close the door, turn off the electronic distractions and take the time to focus on your most important projects. Talk with your colleagues about your new work habits so their feelings don’t get hurt or they just don’t open the door while you are deep in your work.

Study your environment, your distractions at work and home and take the time to eliminate them. You won’t be able to eliminate them all or even get it all done in a day. You will find yourself falling back into old habits which is fine. it is often a process of two steps forward one step back. My evening routine is to check the weather and the calendar for the next day and based on that set out my clothes for the next day. I make sure I everything I need and the shoes are polished. It sets me up for success because I know what my priorities are the next day, my brain isn’t making the decision about what to wear when it isn’t at peak performance. I can iron the shirt if it needs it that night and I don’t feel rushed in the morning trying to get it done. I can be showered and dressed and out the door if necessary in 20 minutes because I got everything ready the night before. Because I have designed my environment for success in the morning. I have time to make the bed. As the Admiral said it is the little things in life that matter.

I only barely touched on the benefits of getting everything ready the night before and having a clean room. I hope to get back to this aspect soon but I hope I gave you something to think about regarding your environment and setting yourself up for success.