The 4 Things Shaping Your Life
“The more we value things outside our control, the less control we have.”
How much of your life is within your control?
The answer is less than you think.
The truth is that you have no influence over the key determinants of your existence.
Who you were born to. Where you grew up. Which talents you were naturally blessed with, and so on.
These are all down to luck.
All you can do is be grateful for the positives and avoid wasting time dwelling on what you lack.
But have you ever thought about the forces shaping your life that you do have control over?
Once you’re aware of them, you can make changes so that they are always acting in your favour.
So what are they?
Let’s take a look at each one now:
1. Your Inputs
“If you are what you eat, you think what you read.”
If you think of your mind and body as a system, it matters what you put into it.
Just as you should avoid junk food, so should you avoid information that harms you.
Take the news, for example.
It’s not designed to keep you up to date with the essential information.
Instead, its goal is to spark fear and provoke anger.
Why? Because these two powerful emotions compel you to consume more news.
This is good for their bottom line, but it’s terrible for your mental state.
There is nothing you can do about most of the stories you read.
So you just feel bad, and you can’t take any action to resolve your emotions.
Over time, this skews your view of the world.
Everything seems threatening and worse than before, making it hard for you to see the good in the world and to trust others.
Unsurprisingly, this makes you reluctant to take risks and seek out opportunities to grow.
Your world shrinks instead of expands, and it becomes difficult to be optimistic about the future.
It doesn’t sound like the recipe for a happy and fulfilling life, does it?
So how can you avoid this scenario?
First, you must be selective about the stories you read and the programmes you watch.
Focus on the ones that are inspiring and educational or make you laugh.
A person can only take so many true crime documentaries before they start thinking they might be some deranged killer’s next victim.
Second, spend time doing things that help you develop new skills or attain deeper levels of self-understanding.
The significance of the latter is not to be dismissed.
Case in point, the Ancient Greek aphorism "know thyself" was the first of three maxims inscribed on the front of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi.
The other two?
"Nothing to excess" and "Certainty brings insanity".
A wise bunch, weren’t they?
Third, consider carefully the sort of social media you let into your life.
Most have little value, and much of it is harmful.
In the end, quality inputs lead to quality outputs.
2. Your Associations
“The key is to keep company only with people who uplift you, whose presence calls forth your best.”
Who do you spend the most time with?
It’s important to consider this question because these people will determine your future.
According to research by Dr David McCleilland of Harvard, the people you habitually associate with determine 95% of your success or failure in life.
That’s quite the stat.
How can this be?
Well, for the simple reason that you become more like those you most often associate with.
It’s human nature to model those around you, whether you’re conscious of it or not.
You hear people say things like, “George was such a nice boy growing up, but then he fell in with a bad crowd and well..we all know what happened next”.
How can you avoid this trap?
Be more selective about the people you surround yourself with.
Seek out upbeat people and those who add value to your life.
Avoid those who are constantly negative or have undesirable lifestyle choices.
Inevitably, they will drag you into their mess.
As the saying goes, “you can’t change the people around you, but you can change the people around you”.
3. Your Environment
“Our environment shapes us, choose wisely your surroundings and the people in it.”
Just as there are toxic people, there are poisonous environments.
You might not realise it, but the places you live and work in play a significant role in your behaviour.
Anybody who has worked at a company with a bad culture will know how it spills over into other areas of life.
Leftover emotions from a confrontation with a difficult colleague earlier in the day can often fuel a fiery argument with your partner on your return home.
So what can you do about it?
Firstly, take stock of your current work environment.
Is it a place helping to build you up or cut you down?
If you have to, change your job. It’s always worth it.
At home, limit any distractions and temptations that hinder your progress.
Swap the crisps and chocolate for a bowl of fruit, keep your gym gear visible and charge your phone outside the bedroom.
The longer-term consequences will more than make up for any short term inconvenience.
To paraphrase Winston Churchill, “we shape our environment and afterwards our environment shapes us”.
4. Your Habits
“Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.”
If you are what you eat, you are what you habitually do.
The more good habits you have, the better your future will be.
This is because good habits, when practised consistently, lead to profound results.
For example, small amounts of money invested consistently over a long period can compound into significant sums.
Bad habits have the opposite effect.
Not exercising might not have any noticeable impact in the short term, but it’s likely to contribute to poor health at some point and a shorter life expectancy.
Given it takes just as much time to form a good habit as it does a bad one, your time is well spent questioning which of your existing habits are making positive contributions to your future and which ones aren’t.
If you’re interested in learning how to break bad habits and build good ones, then Atomic Habits: An Easy and Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones by James Clear and Tiny Habits: Why Starting Small Makes Lasting Change Easy by B.J. Fogg are highly recommended.
Interested in shaping your life for the better? If so, you’ll probably enjoy our Design The Life You Love course from the esteemed Ayse Birsel from the famous NY design agency Birsel-Seck.
