Change Your Environment to Change Yourself

If I gave two people a seed, an apple seed, and one of them took that seed and they planted it in the ground. They gave it enough water, enough sunlight, and the soil was soft and had all the right nutrients. And then the other person took their seed and they put it on the windowsill, and they gave it sunlight. And both of them came back to me after a good few days and one of them said, "I am seeing my beautiful seed sprout into something new. I'm seeing some shoots." And the other said to me, "I'm not seeing anything." I think a few of us wouldn't be confused around what the reason was, that those two people were seeing different results. And the answer very frankly is that the environment they provided for their seeds was different. One person created an environment that stimulated the seed to grow, that reacted with what was inside the seed, so that the seed could give birth, could give rise to what it had within it. But the one, because of the environment, even though the seed had the potential to be an apple tree, that seed will not be an apple tree because the environment that it was put in didn't stimulate what is inside of that seed, to then come out, to then flourish, to then become. And that unlearness is the power of an environment, because when we are on a journey of change, of transformation, of learning, changing, and growing, one of the biggest things we can do for ourselves. Really one of the biggest catalysts, but also deterrence to the success or lack they are of a change journey, is the environment. The environment we have around us, the environment we are in, that we then expect to have stimulators in order for what's in us to come to fruition. Let's have a conversation today about how you, as an unlearner, on a change journey, can really think about how to shift your environment, how to improve your environment, how to change your environment, or how to even audit your environment to make sure it's supporting your and learning journey. Welcome to the Anlearners podcast. The Anlearners. This is one of my favourite subjects to talk about, environment. It is one of those subjects that when it comes to the change journey, and this is why we are wrapping up the season with this episode, because I really would love to remind you today, as we wrap up the season, that one of the most powerful things that you can do for yourself on your journey of unlearning, on your journey of becoming, on your journey of unfolding, is to create an environment, or be in an environment, exist in an environment that will really call what's in you to step out, that will stimulate you in such a way that you will bring all of your beautiful stuff out into the world. Because very much like the seed, at the beginning of the episode in the intro, that we spoke about, you can have all of this beautiful potential in you, you can have all of these beautiful dreams and this vision, and so to speak a destiny that you think is there. But if your environment doesn't call it fourth, if your environment cannot speak directly to what's in you and stimulated to come out, oh goodness, I'm so sorry, but you cannot. You have got very little hope if any, that what is inside you will really come to fruition. And I want to start, I want to start the episode with that big insights, and one of my favorite pieces of research is work that was done by Ellen J. Langer, and she's a psychologist, and she did the popular work that's now called the Counterclockwise Study, and the Counterclockwise Study is really a part of a range of different studies that Ellen Langer has done, and she did a lot of fantastic work with aged individuals, and that's how you, this particular one that was with a group of older, elderly individuals. But she did a lot of studies and still continues to do some exciting work around challenging motivation, challenging how people think, challenging also the views we hold around motivation, around memory, and all such things. So she's done a lot of studies definitely highly recommend that you have a look at her work if this is something that interests you. But one of my favorite studies that she's done was a study that she did in 1981, one of a range of different studies, like I said, but the purpose of this one was to really understand the role that environment plays in how individuals show up in the world, in how we do insert an assessment, how we think, how we remember, how we engage, how we look, our health, our physical health, our mental health. And so what she did is she gathered a group of elderly men that were in their 70s in the year 1981. But here's the thing, what she had done is that she had dressed up the environment or designed their environment to resemble 1959. So the year was 1981, but she dressed the environment up to represent 1959. And now before these elderly individuals came into the setup that she'd created, they had been run through a few different tests. So everything from how they looked, their eyesight, how sharp different senses were, to their memory, to their response in terms of their speed, agility, and things such as those. And now when they came into this environment, they were then told, and this for me is the exciting part, they were then told to act as if it was the year 1959. So imagine getting to this beautiful environment that was dressed up like a good few years ago, and you were told, just pretend you were the person that you were back in 1959. And so even the shows that were playing on radio were speaking about some of the things that were happening in 1959 when they were much younger. The shows that they saw or everything, excuse me, what they read in the newspaper was all headlines and stories and highlights from the year 1959. And they were told to act, to walk, to talk, to engage the way they would as if it was that year. Now you can probably guess the results that Ellen Lenger and her team found from this study, what they found was after taking these individuals, these elderly individuals, through the exact same test that they taken right at the beginning before they went into this environment, they had improved on almost all of those metrics. So things like looking younger even, they were able to remember better, they walked apparently one of the insights was that they walked a little bit taller. They seemed to be more confident, they had a bounce in their step, their mental agility or mental alertness was peaked or saw a hike at the time. And so it was so interesting and I definitely strongly recommend that you read into this one and a few of the other studies that she's done is specially with groups of elderly individuals. But what she found and the conclusion of the study and many of her other studies as well was that our environment, how we are stimulated by our environment, how we are motivated by our environment, has a deep and profound impact on how we change, how we learn, how we learn, how we learn. How we grow, how we respond and how we engage. So from now on I really want you to understand and to take seriously the kind of environment you have around you, think about that seed we spoke about earlier on. If you are sitting on a windowsill, even though you have the greatest amount of potential you cannot expect yourself to fruit and to bear fruit, so to speak, to bear those apples that you have the potential of doing so. And so the environment that you hold can sometimes be the physical things around you, the people you surround yourself with, the kind of environment that you create around you also stimulates your mental capacity. If you're speaking about the same things, engaging with the same topics each and every single day, you can't really expect yourself to be agile because you haven't designed an environment that stimulates agility. And most of us will hold and this is the thing about transformation and change. We will hold these big beautiful visions for ourselves, but we find that we are still holding or we are still existing in an environment that calls us to be that outdated version of ourselves. Even though in our heads we think no, no, no, this is who I want to be. This is where I want to go into. This is now the industry. This is now the space. This is the vision that the organization holds dear. But if the environment that we exist in, the day to day running, the whirlwind as soon as we can, we will be able to see the world. some experts call it, calls something different from you. That transformation, that change is going to stall, and you're actually going to move further backwards rather than even staying in the exact same place. So what do we do? What do we do when we understand that our environments can be the strongest catalyst or even the biggest deterrence to our change and transformation journeys? So three things that I want to share with you as you think about how to really, really ramp up your environment, how to reorganize your environment, how to move to a different environment as you wish to support your change and transformation journey. First thing that you're going to do is you're going to run an environment audit. This can look like whatever works for you, but the purpose of an environment auditors for you to go, what are the things on a day to day that are stimulating me and how are they stimulating me? What result are they stirring up within me or are they triggering within me? So for example, if I've got, and this is not the case, but just an example, if I've got a spouse who is consistently speaking in a non-incaraging way or demotivating way towards me. And I receive this constant talk every single day and because I'm around my spouse, let's say for example, almost all day maybe because I work from home, and this is the conversation or the kind of speak or language that is being used around me consistently. I'm going to be an environment in a position where I'm being stimulated in the opposite direction of my dreams and of my goals. Maybe my dreams and my goals are to see myself as someone of a subject expert who to grow in this particular industry, grow in the space, leap into the next level of my career. But if I've got a voice in my direct environment that is telling me otherwise, then this is something I will pick up in my environment audit. Is there anything else from the conversations that you are having with people to the actual environments, the places because an environment can also cause something from you. When you live in a particular area, there is an energy there, whether it's because of the size of the place, how the place is arranged and decorated, what is around in the space itself in terms of the furniture in terms of some of the maybe plants, whatever it is, who is in that space, who occupies it, how big is it, what is it called from you, what's the kind of like. All of those types of things can stimulate a certain response from you. So when you run an environment audit, you're really looking at what is in your environment, but also what is it calling forth from you, how does it make you feel, how does it make you think. And I don't believe that anything makes you think anything or makes you feel anything, all of that, I believe is a choice that you make to feel something, but what is being stimulated from you, what becomes a default as a result of that environment. Now you can choose to have something make you upset, you can choose to feel joyful in the moment, but when something is constantly poking at some of your triggers, it does make it a little bit trickier as well. So step number one, run your environment audit, sit down with a piece of paper or sit down with your note pad on your laptop or even on your tablet, your phone, whatever device you choose to use, and really think about what is my environment calling forth from me, what are the different parts of my environment and what are they calling from me. People, media, I consume consistently, the kind of environments or spaces that I occupy and what is in those spaces, what those spaces look like, what those spaces feel like. Number one, run your environment audit. Second step then, once you have done your environment audit, is you're going to think about a phased approach to removing or distancing yourself from some of the things that are not necessarily calling a positive response from you. So for example, if I've done my audit and I realized that oh goodness, the walls in my bedroom, for example, are a deep dark blue. And for me, when I look at that color or when I feel that color out, it always makes me feel cramped in the space where it always contributes to me feeling like I am, like I'm stressed or maybe like I feel hyposimulated in the space because of the color of the environment. Then you think about something like that. How do you possibly start to phase out the things in your environment that are not necessarily positively stimulating you? How do you move away from some of them? You might find with something like this, after you've done your environment audit, maybe it's a person. Because as much as we care about some of the people that are around us and we might care about everyone, which is lovely, at times you do find that there are individuals that may stimulate the outdated version of yourself from you. So every time you try to move ahead, you notice that this individual, whether it's during a conversation with them, whether it's just seeing them and what they call forth from or call forth from you, is possibly not so positive or doesn't direct you towards what you want to build. Now just a side note on this, you really want to focus in on doing some healing work because you can't run forever from people that you feel are stimulating you or are triggering you. So I really look into doing some healing work for yourself so that you can be in any environment without finding yourself triggered all the time. But for the sake of today's conversation, which is really thinking about how to protect your energy as well. So when you are doing your phase approach, you think about, okay, what are the items? How do I start to phase them out of my environment so that my environment stimulates me more towards what I'm building? If it is an individual, maybe spend a little less time with them or maybe think about having a conversation with them about who you're trying to become and how they can possibly support you. So a phase approach, this part of the phase approach, which is a second item after your environment audit, is all about moving away, distancing yourself from whatever it is that is possibly stimulating you towards the updated version of yourself or who you no longer want to be. So think about how you can phase out those things, repain to those dark blue walls that make you feel a little bit cremped or overstimulated or trigger some kind of a stress response from you. Third part then, so first was your environment audit, second was your phasing out approach and then lastly is to acclimatize or to create. Now that you thought about how to phase out some of those things, spend a little less time, maybe have conversations with those individuals if it is a person that you may need to be phasing out here. Now you want to think about how do I bring more things into my environment that will call something different from me or will remind me, or will stimulate me to step into the person that I'm becoming. And this might look anything like Denise Duffield Thomas who someone I follow quite closely strongly recommend her work. One of the things that she did when she was manifesting her beach house, for example, is she had a beach centered candle in her office that she would burn when she started to work. And so every time she would smell something similar to the ocean from this beautiful centered candle and it would stimulate her to maybe work in a more directed way so that she was manifesting or working towards her dream. It can be anything that you can add to your environment that reminds you of the person you are becoming, that stimulates you to move in the direction of your dreams, to move in the direction of your goals, rather than relapsing or moving back into who you no longer want to be. These are things, these are people even at times, that stimulate you to move ahead, to step into the next version of yourself or the next phase of who you are. You can think about this even in a professional sense as well if you're someone who's leading a team and you're really thinking about how to shift your environment. How do you bring in different aspects, different elements, different people into your environment that will constantly remind the team of who we're becoming. Once you've phased out, think about how you can phase in all of these different aspects, different elements, different characteristics, different people that will constantly remind you and reaffirm to your mind, reaffirm to your brain that you are changing, that there is change happening here. Even though it's gradual, which is probably the best way to do it anyway, you want to do organic change, rather than injecting yourself with the change steroids, as I like to say, something that just has this fast growth that you don't manage. You want to make sure that you're acclimatizing to this growth, acclimatizing to the next version of yourself with those little pieces of stimulus that you bring into your environment. So really think about what that looks like for you. How do you start to create that environment, bring little pieces of it in? If you see yourself living in a particular environment, like that example that I shared a little bit earlier on, what is something you can bring into the current environment? Who is someone you can start to listen to a little bit more often, content you can start to consume? An individual you can start to follow on social media, books you can start reading. What is something that you can start bringing into your environment? environment that will start to trigger that version of yourself that you intend to become. And that is the final step, step number three. So let's run through those steps once again of how you can start to think about your environment but also supercharge your environment, change your environment, update, refresh your environment so it supports your change journey. Step number one, run an environment audit, ask yourself, what does my environment do and call forth from me? What are the different aspects or parts within my environment? Who are the different people that I spend a lot of time with? But also what do they stimulate from me? What are the responses that they get from me? Remember the example around the seed right at the beginning? If the environment doesn't call forth or react with what's inside the seed, the seed is not going to bear its fruit, it's not going to show up the way it was born or intended to do so. So let's step number one, run your environment audit and you can do one of these every month, every quarter, depending on how you feel. It might be time to do it every quarter really sounds good to me, might be a really good time to sit to get and go, okay, with the version of myself that I now want to be, is my environment still calling that from me? Do I feel like this environment is still inviting me to step forward and be that person? If not, you move on to step number two, which is your phasing out approach. We put down a few steps, five, ten steps, how am I going to phase out the different parts of my environment? There are no longer calling me to be this person that I want to become, but are inviting me to still be the person I no longer want to be, the version of myself that I no longer want to be. How do I phase those out and put a good few steps there, one step, two steps so that you can acclimatise to those things being away. Otherwise when the change happens too rapidly and you have an acclimatise to it, you do tend to find yourself stepping all the way back to the version of yourself that is a default that you do know that does come most naturally. Once you've put down your phased out approach, then you're now going to go into creating and acclimatising. What do you now need to bring in? What are some of the things that you can bring into your environment that will stimulate you, encourage you, invite you to be the person that you are becoming? But also remind you and trigger that version of yourself to come forth. One thing I will say as we close off is that step number two and step number three, which is the phasing out and the bringing in, you can do those in tandem, you can do both of those at the exact same time. Or one after the other, it's very much up to you. There is no cut and paste formula around this, there's no one size fits all. You can really think about those two key things and how they can best happen for you. Environment audit, phased out approach and then creating and acclimatising, so bringing things into your environment that will help stimulate that version of yourself to come out. Because like I said, if you're sitting on the windowsill, you can have all the potential that you want, but it won't come forth unless your environment is calling it from you. Alright. Now, whatever that looks like, I hope you find an environment that is always inviting you to learn to change and to grow because that's why you're here. You're an unlearner, I mean that's why you're listening to this, you're an unlearner and that's what unlearners do all day, every day we are learning, changing and growing and really always giving birth to that next beautiful version of ourselves, a version of ourselves that's more expanded, that's more intentional that is, is consistently evolving and allowing ourselves to move from strength to strength. Thank you very much for listening to this episode of the unlearners podcast. If this is the kind of journey that you are on, if you're on a journey of changing your environment, come over to the unlearners podcast, that's exactly what we do. For three days we will change your entire environment, you will be in a brand new environment with people who will hold space for you, who are on a transformation journey just like you, in a beautiful location that we have curated to make sure that if at home, if at work you don't find that it's an environment that stimulates your growth, the unlearning experience retreat is created so that you've got the exact kind of environment that will encourage you to be the person you want to be, you don't even want to leave, that's how good and how well curated this environment is. So come over and join us, go over to the unlearners.com/retreat, go over to the unlearners.com/retreat, have a look, you can also find all of the details around our retreat on our social media pages, wherever you prefer to be on social media and that's the unlearning experience. It's our annual retreat, happens in November every year, really helps you to wrap up the year that is ending, take stock of some of your biggest wins, your biggest lessons and then set up for the new year, set up to start strong, set up to bring forth that big beautiful version of you that you are transforming into, that you are stepping into. It really is your journey of letting go of who you no longer are and then becoming courageously becoming who you know you have the capacity to be next because who knows, it might be time to change again in two weeks time. Alright, and learn how I hope you enjoyed this episode. Thank you very much for taking the time to listen. It's been myself as Anel and Japa, the unlearning lady and until I see you in the next season, it is by for now. [Music]