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As I was meditating in the morning whilst looking around at my surroundings, I thought, maybe my environment “primes“ me to act irresponsibly, or to have similar antics of a child. Around me are lumps of old toys, books, knick knacks, etc. There’s not much space to move because remnants of the past take over the present, childhood memories take over. That is all I see on a day-to-day basis.
What is Priming?
Priming, a concept introduced by psychologist Daniel Kahneman from his wildly renowned book, Thinking Fast and Slow, refers to how our exposure to one thing can influence our response to something else, even if they seem unrelated. It highlights how external cues can subtly shape our thoughts and behaviors.
In layman terms, your environment can “direct” your mind, to think a certain way without you realizing.
Examples of Priming in Your Daily Life
- If you see an image of a cheetah, you might subsequently complete the word fragment “sp_ _d” as “speed” faster than if you had not been exposed to the cheetah image. The image of the fast animal makes your brain think of related concepts.
- Hearing the sound of waves crashing on a beach might guides you to think of vacation-related words or imagery, such as palm trees, relaxation, or sandy beaches.
- Being exposed to words related to elderly people (e.g., gray hair, retirement) can prime you to walk more slowly compared to if you were exposed to neutral words. The concept of aging influences your behavior without conscious awareness.
- Reading a story about an achievement or success can aid you to perform better on subsequent tasks or challenges. The positive narrative primes your mindset for success.
These examples illustrate how priming can occur through various stimuli, such as images, sounds, or words, and how they can impact our cognitive processes and subsequent behaviors.
Priming You To Act Childish
Maybe by having these childhood toys and books around me, it triggers or rather “primes” a sense of childlike essence. Whereby I am “reminding” myself “hey Adib, you’re still a child”. This leads me to act irresponsibly or even have low self-esteem when “adulting”.
Not believing in myself has been a consistent cognitive thought that I need to remove from my mind. We always take steps to change our inner thoughts, but maybe, just maybe a change of environment could help with that.
Changing your environment could change the way you think.
Prime Yourself for Success
There are many factors to change the “priming” factor. It could be :
- your messy room, making you work inefficient~ cleaning it up or moving things around can trigger a sense of peace
- a water bottle on the floor ~ putting it in front of you reminds you to drink
- having applications on your phone that promote overconsumption & overspending ~ get rid of those apps, and curate a more minimal list of options for your homepage or folders.
- Having a motivational phone wallpaper of a nice reminder for the day could also act as a cue to better yourself. You can checkout my 4K Wallpaper Packs here. I’ll be updating more wallpapers soon. Feel free to leave a tip, much appreciated 🙂
Priming could make or break you. What you could do now, is just to look around your environment and see what you can change in the next 2 minutes, just to see what changes in your productivity and in making good daily habits.
What a thought.
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