Designing Inspiring Environments
The influence of your personal environments on your health,
creativity, and well-being is often subtle, yet profound. You
can use the environments you live in to support you in feeling
good about yourself, to experience less stress, and to be more
productive.
Personal environments can include your relationships with
family, friends, and colleagues, your work environment,
networks, ideas, learning environments - and your physical
environment - such as your home, the community you live in,
nature, your garden, the technology you use, the information you
absorb - everything that you surround yourself with. It can also
be the foods you keep in our house, the beautiful objects and
colors around you, the books, magazines and newspapers you read,
the movies you watch, and the thoughts you think.
Personal environments can also include your 'internal
surroundings' - your belief systems and thought patterns. As you
work on raising your awareness of your inner thoughts and
eliminating negative or unproductive thoughts, you might notice
increased levels of energy and focus.
It's possible to revitalize your surroundings or environments
and design them so they bring out the very best in you, so that
they evolve you toward a successful, inspiring, struggle-free
life. As you develop your personal environments, you develop
yourself and your capacity to be creative and to receive ongoing
inspiration and support.
The goal is to design supportive environments that will inspire
you to be your best and do great things. Success and personal
development are more sustainable when there are environments and
failsafe structures which support it.
ASSESS YOUR PERSONAL ENVIRONMENTS Being fully alive calls you to
play a much bigger game in life...evolving to your optimal
potential or 'greatness'. Do the environments around you bring
out your best? Do you receive enough creative inspiration? Do
you know what sparks your muse? Is there enough intellectual and
spiritual stimulation in your life? 1. When you are feeling
fully alive, what is going on for you?
2. How do you feel as you walk into your workspace? Into your
home?
3. On a scale from 1-5, with 5 being the most desirable, how
much would you say your environments are supporting you in
living the life you most desire?
4. What is something in your environment that you are tolerating
that could be removed? 5. What is something that is missing from
your personal environments that, if added, would inspire you to
do and be your best?
6. What methods do you use on a daily basis to raise your energy
level?
7. What beliefs most profoundly affect your way of thinking?
TRY THIS If inspiration is an energy that flows through the
spaces we inhabit, it is wise for us to remove any items that
might block its path, and add items that would increase its
presence.
Choose one physical environment in your workspace or home to
concentrate on. If you could change one thing in your
surroundings starting today, what would you change? Each day, do
one task in that environment to establish order, create space,
remove items that block your creativity, add items that you
love, perhaps add color - and design surroundings that will
inspire you to be and do your best.
Creating an environment that truly supports you in being your
best can be a very worthwhile long-term project. Envision what
an inspiring, stimulating environment would be for you, and have
the patience to build that vision a step at a time. It's worth
the work!
FINAL THOUGHT "If you have not used something in the past year,
regardless of how attached to it you are, pass it along. You
have used up its usefulness to you... letting go of attachments
is a rewarding way to feel positive about yourself, and to keep
things flowing back into your own life as well." ~ Dr. Wayne W.
Dyer
~ Copyright