It’s hard to overstate the importance of setting up the right environment for yourself, if you want to find focus and do hard shit.

Humans are more influenced by our environment than we’d like to admit to ourselves: if there’s a lot of junk food around, we’ll be likely to eat it. If there are a lot of distractions, we’re likely to lose focus.

On the other side, we can create an environment that makes it more likely that we’ll be focused and stick with something for the long term.

It will take some experimenting, because your environment is best if it’s specific to you. But you can learn and get better at this if you put some conscious effort into it.

Some ideas for a conducive environment:

  • A quiet room with no distractions, the Internet blocked for a couple hours
  • Daily accountability with a few people you respect
  • Surrounding yourself with people who are doing inspiring things
  • Cutting out unnecessary things from your life
  • Public accountability for a 6-month goal — posting updates weekly
  • A coach that you check in with weekly, who will help you stay on track when your faith wavers

Think through what you want to do, and what parts of your environment are likely to distract you from that. What can you change that will make it more likely that you’ll succeed?

What one change can you make today?