By GUEST COMMENTARY BY JAN V. SOLOMITA
When we refer to our “environment,” we typically think of the color of the walls, or perhaps the weather, or pollution. For some the word, “environment” bring to mind the organizations that protect it, such as “Save the Whales,” “Heal the Bay” or “Green Peace.” For the purpose of this discussion we are going to focus on our personal environments.
Thomas J. Leonard, the father of the modern day “Life Coaching” movement, suggested that we think of everything in our lives as an environment. Leonard referred to, “The seven environments of you,” and he put them into the following categories: self, physical, network, nature, intangible, memes and relationships.
The idea is to form a partnership with our personal environments in order to design more supportive structures within each. By doing so, our environments become places that move us forward with less energy expended, and sometimes in very inspiring ways. Once we take charge to intentionally redesign our environments, we are able to move from succeeding in spite of our environments, to succeeding because of our environments.
Here’s an example from a person’s network environment: Let’s say that you are a parent with two small children under 3 years old, and that you are forever seeking referrals for the needs of yourself and your children. You may already have plenty of friends and professional connections within the community, but because your children have yet to attend a formal child development center, you may lack a natural network to many of the resources that exist out there for parents with young children.
There is a woman who started a Yahoo Group to provide a central place for her family and friends to share information on everything related to families with small children. What do you think would happen if as a parent with very young children you were to join this group? The group consists of more than 500 members, and anything that you can imagine that a person with toddlers and infants might want information on, can be found here. From pediatricians to nannies, from quality crib suggestions to the best pumpkin patches around, all that and a whole lot more, is only a few mouse clicks away. By joining this Internet group, that little tweak to your personal network, would overnight, by design, make this particular environment much more supportive.
Another example comes from my personal environment with nature. Like most of us, I thrive on the chance to surround myself with a natural setting. It calms me, and grounds me like nothing else can. In response, I have scheduled myself to go for a hike in the woods no less than twice a month, no matter what, and to take a camping trip annually. I also have blended part of my exercise routine, with my desire to spend more time by the ocean, by taking walks and runs on the beach. Before committing to these adjustments in my routine, just as surely as I would shop for food or put gas in the car, I mostly just yearned for spending more time with nature. Now, with the redesign firmly in place that I get out to nature regularly, doing so has become an integral part of my schedule and my life.
Lets take a closer look at the seven environments and some of the things that fall under each category.
Self: Your body, height, weight, hair. Your spiritual side, yourself, your connection to the universe, your unique talents and abilities, etc.
Network: The Internet, professional peers, PTA, community groups, social groups, etc.
Nature: Outdoors, the seasons, the aging process, our access to the beaches, the mountains, the woods, the quality of light, etc.
Memetic: Ideas, concepts, cultural beliefs, knowledge and information that influence your thinking, etc.
Physical: Home, furniture, money (anything you can touch), car, toys, equipment, TV, artwork (very important one), our books and magazines, our “things,” etc.
Relationships: Family, friends, coworkers, spouse, lovers, colleagues, children, neighbors, the checker at whole foods, your trainer, your doctors, your pets, etc.
Intangible: feelings, your emotions, your passions, your values, your dreams, your visions, your aspirations, etc.
There are so many improvements and adjustments both small and large, that we are all able to initiate into our personal environments to more effectively support our individual lifestyles. I suggest starting with a three-step process for each environment to kick-start the personal design process. 1) What is working: Identify one thing that you already have in place in your environment that is working to support you. Examine, “How did it get there?” 2) What is not working: Identify one thing that exists in your environment that you are tolerating, that is a hindrance, that could be minimized or eliminated. Examine, “How can I reduce or eliminate it, or it’s impact,?” 3) What can make it better: Come up with one thing that you’d like to add, or upgrade for each category, that you believe will make this particular environment more supportive for you. “What must happen for me to ‘just do it’?”
Why design your environments consciously? Simply put, to make things more supportive for the way you want to live. Change the environment to fit you, rather than changing yourself to fit the environment. It’s a bit of an adjustment for some people to become proactive about the big and small ways that our environments are set up. But my advice is that we never take for granted that we must live at the mercy of the status quo. (Jan Solomita is a life coach and majored in psychology at Antioch College in Yellow Springs Ohio and also studied design at Boston Architectural. He is currently enrolled in the graduate school of coaching, part of the Schools of Coaching founded by Thomas J. Leonard. A detailed description of his professional services can be found on his Web site at www.Jamvsolomita.com).
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on October 19, 2004. Read the original PDF.