Design Your Environment
For anyone who keeps blaming their willpower when the real problem is their surroundings.
To design your environment for discipline, make good habits obvious and easy, make bad habits invisible and inconvenient, set up your space the night before, change who and what you surround yourself with, and remove the things that keep pulling you off track. Most behavior is shaped by your surroundings more than your willpower. Change the environment and the right choice starts to feel like the easy one.
During one of the hardest seasons of my career, I made a decision that, at the time, felt small but ended up meaning a lot: I stopped drinking.
Many of the moments I regretted most, things I had said, decisions I had made, or ways I had shown up, involved alcohol.
I started realizing that becoming the person I wanted to be wasn’t just about what I was adding to my life.
Sometimes, it was about what I was willing to remove from it.
Researcher Wendy Wood, who has studied habits for decades, found in diary studies that roughly 43 percent of people’s daily actions are performed out of habit, often in the same places at the same times. That means much of what you do is triggered by your surroundings, not decided in the moment.
Sometimes the most disciplined move is removing the option.
Six ways to design an environment that makes discipline easier
Make good habits obvious
Leave the book on your pillow, the water bottle on your desk and the gym bag by the door.
Make good habits easy
Lay out workout clothes, prep meals ahead and keep your tools ready. Every step you remove makes starting easier.
Make bad habits invisible
Move the phone out of the bedroom, put the snacks out of view and close the tabs you do not need.
Make bad habits inconvenient
Log out of apps, delete shortcuts and keep tempting things in hard-to-reach places.
Change your surroundings
Spend more time with people who have the habits you want. Their normal becomes your normal.
Remove what keeps pulling you back
Ask what one thing, if removed, would make the biggest difference. Then remove it.
Sometimes, it was about what I was willing
to remove from it.
Simple environment changes that work
- 1. Charge your phone outside the bedroom
- 2. Keep a water bottle on your desk at all times
- 3. Put fruit on the counter and snacks in the cupboard
- 4. Sleep in your workout clothes for early sessions
- 5. Keep your goal written where you will see it every morning
- 6. Unsubscribe from what pulls you off track
Related reading: Habit Stacking, Keystone Habits and How to Build Good Habits (and Break Bad Ones).
Common questions
How does your environment affect discipline?
Much of daily behavior is triggered by your surroundings. Research by Wendy Wood found about 43 percent of daily actions are habits, often cued by place and time.
What is an example of designing your environment?
Charging your phone outside the bedroom so you are not tempted to scroll, or leaving workout clothes out so starting is easy.
Is willpower or environment more important?
Environment usually matters more over time. People who appear disciplined often rely less on willpower because their surroundings support their goals.
How do I change my environment if I cannot move?
Small changes count: rearrange one room, change what is visible, adjust your phone settings and change who you spend time with.
Make good habits obvious and easy, make bad habits invisible and inconvenient, change your surroundings and remove what keeps pulling you back.
You Are Capable
of More.
Ten principles for becoming the person you know you are capable of being, built from real stories of people who doubted themselves and did it anyway. Winner of the How-To category at the 2026 Paris Book Festival.
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