The last two weeks have been about the gradual construction of intelligent environments where healthy and productive actions happen naturally and self-destructive actions become much harder. 

Without such intelligent environments, your primitive emotions will always get the better of you. You can try as you might with willpower, but it will be a losing battle. 

However, when you tilt the scales so that healthy and productive actions become automatic, life becomes much more interesting. 

Let’s take a look at the summarized guidelines to getting this done. 

The checklist

Here is the 1-2-3 for intelligent environment design:

• Shape your environment to attract the Great Five and repel the Big Five. The following links contain more detail:
  • Craving and Inspiration
  • Ego and Altruism
  • Sloth and Flow
  • Frustration and Tolerance
  • Worry and Excitement
• Take time to plan for building an environment that is right just for you.
  • Take the 16 Personalities test to learn more about your personal strengths and weaknesses.
  • Your unique environment should maximize your exposure to positive emotions and remove triggers for negative emotions.
• Tame your primitive emotions.
  • Once you’ve set out on this path, you can use a fun visualization exercise to really take control in key moments. 

Building intelligent environments takes time and patience. But you should start seeing some benefits already early on in the process. 

The process itself can also be very interesting. So just get started and watch what happens 🙂

See you tomorrow for this month’s edition of Practice What You Preach.