← Home · All writing

How Your Space Can Improve (or Destroy) Your Life

Originally produced as a video documentary for Struthless in November 2022. Directed by Campbell Walker & Aaron McLachlan. Produced by Aaron McLachlan & Billy Guest. 1.35M+ views.

Take a good look around you right now. Just take in your surroundings. Then ask yourself this: How much influence do you think your environment has over your life?

That's one of those questions I never really bothered to ask myself—until I stumbled across something that changed how I think about everything around me.

The Doritos Hack

I was on the self-improvement side of YouTube one day when I came across Tom Bilyeu talking about, of all things, Doritos. The dusty orange triangle chip.

He was talking about how he used to struggle with addictive eating, and how it was one of those habits he found really hard to break. Then out of nowhere he just goes: "I find it really hard to eat one Dorito, and really easy to eat zero."

He explained: "Because if I eat one Dorito, I will eat the rest of the Doritos. I find it really hard to stop, so my solution is to not start. And the way that I do that is I don't bring Doritos into my house."

I was embarrassed because I was really attracted to how lazy this was. Instead of using willpower or discipline, he just outsourced it all to his environment. He just didn't bring Doritos into the house, and then the work was done. Plus the results were there for him—he went from struggling with his weight to transforming his physique entirely.

The Dorito hack got me curious: What am I doing the hard way that my environment could do the easy way? How else can I use the space around me to improve my life?

The Pine Tree Study

Our story starts in 1984. Not that 1984—this 1984. Baby Jazzercise on cocaine time.

Our main character is Roger Ulrich, and he has just published a landmark paper. See, Roger had this theory, and he'd been toying with it for a while. When he was a teenager, he suffered from kidney disease and spent a lot of time in hospitals and recovering in his own bed.

He found that the hospitals would be grim and bland, and he didn't really like them. But in his own bed, he had this window, and he'd just become fixated with this big, beautiful pine tree. In the simplest words ever: this tree made him happy.

He eventually, thankfully, gets healthy, grows up, becomes an adult—but he keeps thinking about this tree. Intuitively he knew that this tree made him feel good. But Roger wanted to prove it.

So he devises an experiment.

Between 1972 and 1981, Roger does a test on 46 patients, all in the same boat. They're all recovering from gallbladder surgery. They're in the same type of hospital beds, getting the same type of care, all healing from the same thing.

But they don't all heal the same.

Why?

Back to the pine trees, Roger.

Their environment.

He put half of the patients staring out at a beautiful view—trees, sunshine, nature. Basically replicating his childhood bedroom. The other half of the patients had a window still, but staring at a brick wall. Almost no natural light. Pretty grim and bland.

Now, as you might have guessed, the patients with the beautiful view were just a lot happier. But what's cooler is it didn't stop there:

Roger argued that this beautiful view made them recover quicker.

So if something as simple as a window or a pine tree can change your body, imagine what changing your environment can do to your entire life.

The Soldier Study

Here's where it gets even more interesting.

There were American soldiers in Afghanistan who had developed pretty gnarly heroin addictions during their service. While they were fighting in the war, no matter what they tried, they just couldn't quit. All of their superiors were understandably really worried—how are we going to reintegrate these guys back into society? They didn't have heroin problems back in the States, now they have heroin problems. This is horrible for these people.

But the weirdest thing happened.

When these soldiers did go to reintegrate back into civilian life, a lot of them found it—not easy, but doable—to kick these very bad heroin addictions. This, as you can imagine, baffled researchers.

What they put it down to was environment.

Different environments make people think and behave in different frames. When they were surrounded by reminders that they were a jaded, heroin-addicted soldier, they thought and acted like a jaded, heroin-addicted soldier. But when they were reminded of the person that they were before, they acted a lot more like that person.

The story really resonated with me because at the time I was living in this sharehouse—and it wasn't nice. The couch had a Dorito-sized hole in it (keeping with the theme), our plates didn't match, our cutlery didn't match. It was a classic 20-something situation.

But here's the thing: we weren't 20-somethings anymore. We were in our 30s, and this space was constantly reminding us that we were still those 20-something ragtag people. It was holding us back from becoming who we wanted to be.

The Identity Shift

The practical part is to basically make your surroundings as close to the "best version of you" surroundings as you can.

What we're doing is using the power of identity to create tangible reminders that we are becoming this person.

This might sound simple, but it's incredibly powerful. When your environment reflects the person you want to become, you naturally start acting like that person.

So I made a change. I moved out, found a nicer place, and started surrounding myself with things that reflected who I wanted to be—not who I used to be.

We got a Dyson (damn it if I didn't want to Dyson). We got matching plates. We made the space nice. And you know what? Instead of being constantly reminded that we were 20-something ratbags, we were now constantly reminded that we wanted to build a nice, lovely, stable life.

It's been awesome. The nicest place to just hang out.

The Framework

Here's how to think about this:

1. The Dorito Principle: Make bad choices hard
Don't bring the Doritos into the house. Don't rely on willpower when you can design your environment to do the work for you.

2. The Pine Tree Effect: Add what heals
Roger's patients healed faster looking at trees. What's the equivalent in your life? Natural light? Plants? Clean spaces? Art that inspires you?

3. The Soldier Reset: Remove identity anchors
Are there things in your space that remind you of who you used to be instead of who you're becoming? The old couch, the mismatched plates, the college poster—these aren't just objects. They're identity anchors pulling you backward.

4. The Best-Self Environment
Ask: What would the environment of the person I want to become look like? Then start building it, piece by piece.

Your Space Is Working Whether You Want It To Or Not

Your environment is never neutral. It's either supporting the life you want or reinforcing the life you're trying to leave behind.

The beauty of this approach is how lazy it is. You're not fighting yourself every day with willpower. You're setting up your space to do the heavy lifting for you.

So take another look around. What's your space telling you about who you are? And more importantly—is that who you want to be?

This article was adapted from the video "How a space can improve (or destroy) your life" (1.35M views). More about me at aaronnev.com