Your environment shapes your outcomes.
But what is a “good” environment?
It depends what you want to achieve.
James Clear has some principles for building and breaking good habits:
To build good habits:
To break bad habits:
These can be applied broadly, and we can simplify:
A good environment
Where does this apply?
If you’re trying to eat better, remove all the bad food from the house. Replace your normal snack food with something healthy and put it out in obvious view.
If you want to watch less TV, remove the streaming services from wherever you’d normally watch. You won’t be tempted by their icon everywhere, and when you do want to watch something, you’ll be more deliberate about it.
So in short, what makes a good environment?
It makes good behaviours easy, and it makes bad behaviour hard.