Shape your space, shape your habits
Be the architect of your environment, not its product
When it comes to building helpful habits, the key isn't mustering up more willpower or self-control. It’s about designing an environment to set you up for success. Research shows that people who appear to have tremendous self-control are not better at resisting temptation, but their lives are structured in a way where they spend less time in tempting situations.
People tend to choose the most obvious choice.
People usually choose what is most visible! A study on “choice architecture”¹ (how the layout of options influences decisions) in a hospital cafeteria found that when bottled water was added next to soda in fridges and placed in baskets near food stations, soda sales dropped by 11.4% and water sales rose by 25.8% in just three months. A small change in the environment led to a big shift in behavior.
How to design your environment to build better habits
To change your environment to align with your goals, start with habits you want to build. Then ask yourself:
- How can I make this habit more visible and convenient
- How can I make the less helpful habit less obvious or accessible?
For example:
Habit: Read before bed instead of scrolling on the phone.
- Make the new habit easy and visible: Put a book on your pillow each morning.
- Make the old habit harder: Charge your phone across the room.
Habit: Eat fruit as an evening snack instead of baked goods. For most of us apple pie is always a tastier option than an apple, so rather than relying on motivation:
- Make the desired habit more obvious: Store pre-cut fruits at the front of your fridge so they are easily accessible and visible.
- Make the undesired habit invisible: Store baked goods out of sight in the freezer, in an opaque container.
You're the architect of your environment:
Remember, building habits isn’t about having more willpower - it’s about setting yourself up for success by shaping your environment in simple, strategic ways. Small changes, like making the helpful choice more visible and the less helpful one invisible, can make a big difference over time. If you’d like to apply this in your own life, reach out to your Constant Health dietitian to experiment with designing an environment that supports your goals!
¹ Anne N. Thorndike et al., “A 2-Phase Labeling and Choice Architecture Intervention to Improve Healthy Food and Beverage Choices,” American Journal of Public Health 102, no. 3 (2012), doi:10.2105/ajph.2011.300391.