Places Have Power

There is an interesting trend I have noticed in the way I write. My style changes with location. When blogging at home I tend to be more long winded, when at school, my posts become shorter. This has led me to think about the unconscious impact of location on the way we behave. We may not see the rules that influence our actions as they happen but this is something we can still use. Think about a place where you behave in a particular way. What is it about this environment that makes you behave that way? Is it social cues? Is it training that occurred in the environment?

The good news is that when we find an environment that influences us to act in a way ithat is in line with our values and goals, we can harness that energy. We can try to reconstruct our mental condition in that place even if we cannot reconstruct the place.

One advantage of this is that we are behaving in a way we know we can achieve. If we can, for instance, refrain from procrastinating while in our office we know we can keep procrastination at bay in other places. The knowledge that something is possible gives us the confidence to not only attempt it, but to make the attempt without allowing failure to be an option.

Understanding how you behave in different environments can also help you learn how to avoid negative behaviors. By understanding what stimulates you to act negatively in certain environments you can either avoid that stimulus or you can learn to recognize it. When we recognize a stimulus in action we can see how our buttons are being pushed and in so doing get better control of our behaviors.

Places have power over us because of the rules imposed there, the social expectations that exist there and the training we have received there. This power can lead to both good and bad behaviors but if we learn to understand those behaviors and what stimulates them we can add one more tool to our tool box.

Editing project: we are back in production week hiatus mode again.