🫠 You're Doing It in the Wrong Place

Hey Reader,

How conscious are you of the impact that your environments have on your actions?

If you're interested in personal growth, you've heard a version of the following:

"You're the average of the 5 people that you spend the most time with."

– Jim Rohn, author/entrepreneur

But the places you spend the most time in, both digital and physical, are just as influential on your actions. That means you're also the average of:

the 5 rooms you're mostly in
the 5 apps you're mostly on
the 5 visual cues you mostly see

So if you want to boost your habits and productivity, you have to be a conscious designer of your environments.

Over the last 12 years of helping students like you speak English with confidence, the most common excuse I've heard is time. But where you spend that time has proven to be a better indicator of long-term performance.

Saying you have no time is the socially acceptable excuse. But time problems are just habit design problems dressed in business casual.

The first of those problems you need to fix is clarity. That's why I covered the most common mistakes of clarity to avoid in the what and when of your daily practice.

But you can't unlock the power of what and when until you master the where. To do that, there are three places you need to choose and optimize.

Each place is connected to one of the 3 main prepositions of place, which makes them easier to remember:

The space you are in
The device you are on
The location your cue is at

Once you combine and get clarity on all 3 places, you'll have a "sacred space" for your daily English practice. A space where it's easy to take action and access your flow state.

Creating this sacred space is the difference between being a passive passenger and a pilot in command of your journey.

It's like traveling with a premium set of noise-canceling headphones. You can remove all distractions, stay in flow, and focus on your language journey.

Let's break down the 3 places that form your sacred space, and the most common mistakes to avoid:

mistake #1

Choosing the Wrong Space

"It’s a way of placing myself in a match, ordering my surroundings to match the order I seek in my head.”

– Rafael Nadal, 22-time Grand Slam champion 🎾

The people, sounds, and sights around you influence you more than you think. So the first thing you need to figure out is where the best space is to practice your habit.

This is difficult because you already mentally associate certain habits with certain spaces. That's why trying a new workspace or spending a month in Portugal can help you turn off your autopilot and renew yourself.

So do you have to move to Portugal to speak more English? Of course not! But you do need to be conscious of your existing behaviors in your favorite spaces.

"There's a reason monks live in monasteries."

– Brad Stulberg, bestselling author and coach

For example, I rarely see students on the couch in their daily Rocket Fuel replies. Why? Because 99% of the times they're there, they reach for the TV remote instead.

You want to use a space you're in often, but not one that's associated with a counterproductive habit. Even better, find a location in your home or office and use it for language practice only.

If you prefer, try your car and make the most of your daily commute in traffic. Or use third spaces like parks, gyms, coffee shops, beaches, or libraries. Students have completed challenges in all these locations, and many more.

Wherever you decide, make it a space you inhabit daily and make it single-use by eliminating the distractions. If you do, you'll be one step closer to your sacred space.

Speaking of distractions...

mistake #2

Choosing the Wrong Device

"The sceptics, who are many and stubborn, claim that, when it comes to human nature, if it is true that the opportunity does not always make the thief, it is also true that it helps a lot."

– José Saramago, Blindness 📚

Once you've optimized your physical spaces, you have to turn your attention to your digital spaces.

Like their physical equivalents, digital spaces are powerful influencers of our actions. But the degree of difficulty to stay in flow when you're on a digital device is even higher:

Going on your laptop can trigger a 30-minute inbox cleansing during non-work hours
Using your phone is a battle for attention with dozens of apps bombarding you with notifications
Add a tablet to the mix and your work starts to melt them all together as one

The solution is to discriminate your daily tasks by device.

Here's an example from productivity expert Tiago Forte:

Note: This might require a mindset shift. You've been trained to think multitasking is good, but it's the least productive and most exhausting thing you do every day.

Resist the temptation to do everything on one device and assign a unique purpose to each one.

If you don't have a tablet, try a second phone or laptop. The key is to designate different types of activities to different devices. It will it help you focus on your tasks, change mental contexts faster, and stay in flow.

That leaves our final and most fundamental ingredient...

mistake #3

Choosing the Wrong Location for your Cue

"If you want to make a habit a big part of your life, make the cue a big part of your environment."

– James Clear, Atomic Habits 📚

If you don't see your cue, nothing else matters.

Have you ever bought something at the store and forgotten all about it because it wasn't out where you could see it?

By the time you remember what you wanted to do, your window of opportunity will have closed. If you have to ask where your Kindle is when it's time to read in bed, you've already lost.

"No prompt means no action."

– BJ Fogg, Tiny Habits 📚

You need to make sure your device is somewhere obvious and visible in the right space, at the right time.

Of course, when we talk about visual reminders, we're not just talking about the location of your devices.

Visual cues and prompts apply to digital spaces, too.

How will you remember that new app you downloaded if it's not on your home screen?
Why create a calendar event and reminder if you never have your calendar open?
What good is that email in your personal inbox if you never check it and your notifications are off?

Once you optimize the mise en place of your physical and digital environments, you'll remove the final obstacle and unlock your sacred space.

Keep cultivating it and you'll start finding more time to use it. You'll be able to access your flow state more easily, too. And you'll never do the right habit in the wrong place again.

school cafeteria 🍔

Hungry for more? Have some leftovers

"Your job is to collect good ideas. The more good ideas you collect, the more you can choose from to be influenced by."

– Austin Kleon, Steal Like An Artist 📚

📚 Tiny Habits, BJ Fogg (Amazon)

I reference James Clear's habit writing a lot, but BJ Fogg's work on habit design is just as influential. This book is packed with insights, many of them about prompts.

🎧 Where It's At, Beck (Spotify)

It's on the table. 😉

📺 Atomic Habits (animated summary + audio), After Skool, with James Clear (YouTube)

After Skool combines amazing animated art with real audio clips. The result is one of the best education channels on YouTube.

work with me ✈️

How I Can Help

"Whereas the passion mindset focuses on what the world can offer you, the craftsman mindset focuses instead on what you can offer the world." – Cal Newport

If you’re ready to take the next step in your language journey, here's how I can help:

Make Language Pages Simple with Rocket Fuel 🚀

Rocket Fuel was designed to make your language practice simple, playful, and daily. That's why it's the best and most cost-effective way to unblock your English:

Speak your daily pages thanks to 24-hour limit
Rediscover playtime and get creative when you reply
Uncover your main blocks with daily feedback from me
Get comfortable being a beginner again in our 1:1 space

Sign up using this link and get a free 1:1 onboarding call (30 minutes) with me to get to know each other so we can navigate around any failure points together.

Prefer to start now and schedule later? Sign up here

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