Change your environment! It’s shortcut to change

Four weeks ago, on a dull Saturday morning, all I wanted to do was to grab as much rest as I could before another busy week. My strategy was simple: lock myself in our room and not give in to the children’s unrelenting knocking on the door. I did not anticipate what was about to happen.

My wife, looking worried, broke the news: “We urgently need a dog.” I have been married to my wife for five years, and from our dating days, we agreed that dogs were not our thing, especially house dogs.

House dogs are the kind that run away from thieves instead of running towards them. Our logic was simple: these are expensive creatures, and we would rather spend that money adopting or sponsoring a child in the village. So where was this sudden love for dogs coming from? I was curious to know, and I undertook a systematic inquiry. It turned out my wife had started hanging out with dog lovers. American entrepreneur and author Jim Rohn famously said, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” As an illustration, if you told me the average monthly earnings of your five closest friends, I could guess your monthly earnings.

When we hear these statements, our instinct is to become better so that we improve our “gang”. But you are more likely to gravitate towards the average of the group than the group is to gravitate towards your average. To put it bluntly, if you want to become a millionaire, the shortcut is to ensure your five closest friends are millionaires.

The principle of short-cutting change by changing one’s environment applies to so many aspects of our life. As a rule, it is easier to improve your environment than it is to improve yourself. Conor Neill, one of the advocates of this great thought, mentions that if you want to improve a habit, rewire the environment so that there are minimal obstacles between the idea of doing something and the act of doing something. And if you want to stop a habit, rewire the environment so that there are more obstacles between the idea of doing something and the act of doing it.

As an example, if you want to increase the number of books you read in a year, always carry a book in your bag so that when you are waiting for a meeting to start, you can take it out and read a couple of pages.

If you want to save, get a standing order to your bank that 10 percent of any income is wired to another savings account. This savings account should not have an ATM or mobile/e-commerce option. If you want to exercise, keep your exercise clothes and shoes near the door so that when you feel like running, the gear is easy to find. 

At the university where I studied, they wanted people to spend more time with their families, so, at a set time, about 8pm, all the lights in the building would automatically go off. Do you want your family to spend more time talking to one another instead of sending funny videos to one another on WhatsApp? Switch off the home wifi and create wifi-free hours to encourage family intimacy.

If you want to stop calling an ex, delete her number from your phone. That way, if you must call her, you must look for her number painfully. And if your uncooperative brain stored the number, put the number of phone barring.

Another habit people are struggling with is TV. You could throw away the remote so that you must manually switch it on and manually change channels. If you have more resolve, the easiest way to change the environment is by throwing out the TV. So that if you want to watch TV; you must travel out of the house.

As I speak, I am recruiting new non-dog enthusiast friends for my wife, and I am certain that this will be more effective than talking her out of her newly discovered love for “Tobby”.

The writer, Dr David Mukunya is a medical doctor and associate professor at Busitema University.
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