Behavior #5: Control your environment

Health

Jan 2

Willpower is not worth building; you will crack.

Presented with cake every night, eventually you will eat cake. Offered alcohol at 100 successive happy hours, you’ll have a drink.

It is better to eliminate the temptation, controlling your environment to keep sweets out of the house and yourself out of the happy hour. Underexposed, you’ll have ample reserves of willpower to say “no” on the rare occasion when the need arises.

Obversely, surround yourself with the healthy. Fill your refrigerator with vegetables and unprocessed foods, and you’ll eat them regularly. Make friends at the gym, and you’ll exercise. Make your weekend haunt the Farmers’ Market instead of the ice cream parlor, the trail instead of the bar, the library stacks instead of your phone — and your diet will improve, your exercise will become automatic, and your knowledge will grow, a product both who and what you decided to put in your environment.

Controlling your environment, both where you spend your time and which things and people you keep around, will do more for your health than any other behavior, save for the decision to pursue health in the first place.