Your Environment: A Determining factor to your Success

In his book Blink, Malcolm Gladwell covers a topic on Priming The Subconscious Mind. I feel there is an interesting point being exercised here, and would like to share it with you. He mentions about a very curious test conducted by a psychologist named John Bargh, called the Priming Experiment.



Imagine that you are going to see John Bargh at his office. His office is located at the far end of the hallway, and there is a long corridor leading up to it. Once you are inside you are requested to answer a brief test. In this test, you are handed a sheet of paper with a list of five-word sentences, which are scrambled. You have to reframe the words to make it grammatically correct. The words look something like this…



a) him was worried she always

b) shoes give replace old the

c) be will sweat lonely they



Okay, now to the main part. You might have thought that it’s a simple test. But it’s not. The strange thing is that on your way out of the room, you would have walked down the corridor at a slower pace than when you walked in. It’s surprising, isn’t it? That test actually affected your behavior. Why? Because of the word inserted in there – worried, old, lonely. These words caused your subconscious mind to change your behavior without you even noticing it. That’s the strange thing.



In similar tests, when students were exposed to sentences interspersed with words like rude, disturb, bother, etc., they acted aggressively and lost patience when someone blocked their way out in the corridor. On the other hand they displayed patience and calmness when they were exposed to words like considerate, polite, courteous, etc. Isn’t it amazing how words can affect our behavior and actions dramatically?



Now why I am sharing this with you? - Because I want to highlight the importance of your environment and it’s influence on your personal success. This is exactly the reason why it is stressed that if you are not happy with the way you life if being lived, if you not happy with your success levels, if you are not happy with your financial situation, take a look at the world around you. Maybe you are hanging around with the wrong people, watching the wrong movies, listening to the wrong songs, reading the wrong books, etc. If a human’s behavior can be influenced by a few words, then imagine being exposed to a lifetime of negative words.



I personally have fallen prey to the wrong environment many times. I distinctly remember when in college, I went from a failure to a topper just by changing my environment. It was an amazing transformation. So if you seek success, it is highly necessary that you find yourself an environment conducive to success – mingle with other success-oriented people, read good books, watch only good movies, listen to good songs, etc. As it’s said, "It starts with you, It end with you".



All the best and God Bless.