Day 9: Make the Right Choice the Easiest Choice
September Rentrée Series
🍂 Welcome to the September Rentrée! Every weekday this month, you'll get one bold, bite-sized piece to spark reflection, shift your habits, and help you design a life that feels good in real life. 1 month. 20 bold truths. A life-changing September. In France, la rentrée (the return) is a national event. It's about fresh routines, new ideas, and intentional renewal. And that's exactly the energy we're bringing here!
Your environment is working against you.
Every day, you make thousands of decisions.
What to wear. What to eat. Whether to check that notification. Whether to grab your phone or that book.
And every single decision drains your mental battery just a little bit.
Decision fatigue is real. By afternoon, you're running on fumes.
That's when the cookies win. The couch wins. The scroll wins.
Because you're human, and your decision-making muscle is tired.
Here's the game-changer: Stop relying on making good decisions. Start making good decisions automatic.
Your environment is already controlling you
The size of your plate influences how much you eat. The distance to your phone determines how often you check it. What's visible in your fridge is what you'll grab first.
Behavioural economists call this “choice architecture”, the way choices are presented shapes what we choose.
Your phone on your nightstand? You'll check it within minutes of waking. Every. Single. Time.
You think you're making choices. But your environment is making them for you.
So flip the script. Become your own choice architect!
Want to read more? Put a book on your pillow after making your bed.
Want to exercise in the morning? Sleep in your workout clothes. Shoes by the door. Want to eat better? Hide the junk. Display the fruit.
Want to focus? Phone in another room. Not just on silent. Another. Room.
Remove friction from what you want to do. Add friction to what you don't.
The beautiful truth about laziness
We're built to conserve mental energy, not waste it
Our brains evolved to conserve energy, not to make perfect decisions all day long.
Fighting this is exhausting. Working with it? That's genius.
When you design your environment for success, you don't need discipline. You just need to be you, taking the path of least resistance to somewhere better.
Do this today: Pick your biggest habit struggle. Now change ONE thing in your environment. Move it, hide it, or put something better in its place. Make the good choice the convenient choice.
Ask yourself: Where is your environment sabotaging you? What would change if healthy choices were the lazy choices?
The payoff: When you stop fighting your nature and start designing for it, change becomes inevitable.
Your willpower is finite. Your environment is forever.
Design it once. Benefit daily.
With love,
Noemie
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