If you aim to succeed in life but focus more on your effort than your environment, you are likely missing one of the major factors of success.  A poorly designed environment makes any process of change an uphill battle and the fact is… an environment that is full of obstacles or missing essential support for your success will make it impossible or nearly impossible to sustain a winning effort.  It’s hard to launch a million-dollar business… if you’re struggling to keep the lights on or find a babysitter so you can focus.

Self-help lore LOVES to promote the idea that success takes hard work. In fact, we all love stories of underdogs making good and ultimately succeeding – it gives each of us hope; it helps to imbue our suffering or scarcity with meaning as we imagine that the fact we are in pain means that we are on the path to success.

The idea that success takes sacrifice, struggle and hard work is SO well imbued in our collective conscious – our architypes, stories, and media – that many will actually invest substantial energy in arguing against or attempting to disprove that… success CAN be easy.

They will offer stories about others who succeeded by struggling (“Edison didn’t fail with 10,000 experiments, he ‘actually’ SUCCEEDS in finding 10,000 ways NOT to do something!”  …WTF!? AND that completely disregards that there STILL may have been an easier way to success) or such bull as “well, I wouldn’t want success if it came easy” (really!? So you’ll turn down a lottery winning of $10 million!?).

Success does not REQUIRE struggle or work. And success, even absent struggle or sacrifice, IS absolutely valuable.

If you persist in holding the idea that success or the only success that’s worth having requires hard work… you will 1) working hard to obtain success without questioning whether that hard work in necessary of if there was an easier way; 2) tend to actually prefer hard work, believing it provides meaning, makes success more valuable or substituting hard work’s presence as shorthand “proof” that “this must be a way to success”; and 3) at times actually attract or choose hard work in your belief it is the way to success.

One of the most blatant expressions of this wholly erroneous belief systems is often expressed in our environments. People will actually place incredible value in overcoming their environment, placing more importance on their hard work and overcoming environment… than they do at *changing their environment to support success*.

“So, Mark, you’re saying that hard work should NOT be valued or is never needed!?”

Nope. I’m not saying that at all.

There are absolutely times when hard work is needed. But let’s save the hard work when that is the ONLY way forward. There is a time and a place for it. And a pivotal truth is that your environment often has far more effect on your success… than will your will power, brilliance, or hard work.

Environmental support for success is HUGE. Imagine being the son of a billionaire: your day wouldn’t be filled with worries about how you’ll make a living or meet attractive partners. If you had a business idea you would have access to the world’s best financial, legal and operations experts who could guide you. You’d have nearly unlimited capital – money – to launch your business idea with and a ready market of people watching what you were producing, ready to buy if the product or service were good. …And if the product or service wasn’t good… it wouldn’t really matter: your house, food and fun would be unaffected… while you regrouped to try again.

While you cannot simply be adopted by a billionaire you ABSOLUTELY CAN begin to improve your environment to do much of the heavy lifting of supporting and facilitating you in success.

Fundamental Environmental Design Theory

It is essential to realize that environmental design is the key to sustainable success in your life. Your environment must be re-designed for the life you want – not the life you came from. The first step in doing that is to perform an “Environmental Audit”: an examination of your environments looking to:

• Remove Friction
• Sharpen Tools
• Automate routines
• Consciously Craft Your Environment for sustainable success.

Ways to Design Your Life for Sustainable Success:

Here are some suggestions from our community for you to Design Your Life for Sustainable Success:

• Switching all reoccurring bills (power, gym, cable, etc.) to online (saves on mail and filing) and auto-pay;
• Eliminating physical clutter:  scanning important paperwork for electronic storage, storing all computer records and purchased music online, donating books I’ll never read again, moving current reading to an Kindle, garage sale to get rid of things that still have value… just not for me;
• Subscribed to a weekly menu planner *that also provides a shopping list* – is a BRILLIANT idea. I’ve been feeling stagnated with recipes and meals lately. LOVE that you can set a budget for each meal; adapt the portions for different # of people per meal (e.g. I cook for 2 for breakfast, but only 1 for lunch); can program in cholesterol, fat, sodium… AND it makes my shopping list for me!? I’m in.
• Gradually moving to online shopping and delivery.  Not everyone has access to Amazon groceries and yes, they’re expensive-er… but man… is it sweet saving that much time shopping and having everything delivered to your front door…  Likewise with toiletries (birchbox.com), vegetables (fullcircle.com) and clothes (trunkclub.com)
• Get a housekeeper! It’s the best thing ever.
• Send our dog to daycare once a week so he gets tired.
• “Marie Kondo-ing,” throwing a lot away, getting rid of clothes and painting my rooms. Forces you to move stuff and facilitates cleaning. Makes everything feel cleaner and its mindless and rhythmic.
• I really believe in online shopping. Even the returns are easier. I feel bad not supporting some local businesses, but I need my time.
• Move to a smaller space …. Downsized from 3bd house to 2bd condo. The freedom of not having your ‘stuff/clutter’ run your life is awesome!

There is far, FAR more to the idea of environmentally designing your life for success. If this article turned on a lightbulb for you or if you love the idea, jump into Life Success Engine 2.0 where we do a deep dive into an entire system of perfecting not just your physical environment, but five important other environments, along with specific secrets about building your ultimate success-building environment to PROPELL yourself to your life’s ultimate success!

In the meantime, help me out, guys and gals:  How do YOU simplify YOUR life…!?