Designing the Room, Not the Candle

June 17, 2025

It was a random Monday morning in March. The clock said 5am. The AC temperature was 25°C. Windows were covered with dark curtains and no light was coming in. I was sitting on the side of my bed, staring at the wall in front of me.

What was I thinking about?

I was not thinking, but battling with myself in my head. The battle was with one side of me telling me to get up and go to the gym like I so ambitiously had planned to do the night before, and the other side was telling me to do the opposite–sleep and enjoy the perfect coziness that was created in my room, and that working out would not be worth the pain and struggle.

Ultimately, I both won and lost the battle. The side of me telling me to go back to sleep won, and the gym side lost.

Sounds relatable?
Well, this is how most of us go through when making difficult choices, on a daily basis.

 Should I eat that junk or not?
Should I scroll on Instagram or read that book?
Should I go out or sit and watch Netflix?

The list is too long to comprehend.

Fast-forward to last week. Same time, same temperature, same dark curtains. But this Monday was different.

My phone buzzed at 5 AM—not with an alarm, but with my friend’s voice: “Hey, meet me at the gym in 20. We’re doing chest and biceps today.”

I was up, dressed, and out the door without a single mental negotiation. No internal debate. No willpower required.

But I got up without a second thought, packed up and hit a 1.5hr intense session at the gym.

What changed?

I have realised, very painfully and after long, that the only thing that changed was my environment.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, probably because I’ve spent so many years believing that self-improvement was about becoming more disciplined, more motivated, more willing to suffer for my goals. But that’s not what happened here at all.

I’ve noticed this pattern in myself and others: our environment—especially who we’re around—shapes how we handle the things we struggle with more than we realize.

Willpower is best utilized after you’ve already built momentum. Once you’ve been going to the gym for weeks and it’s routine, you don’t need much willpower to keep going. But when you’re starting something new? That’s when the environment matters most.

For example, Learning comes naturally to me—books, podcasts, constantly feeding my curiosity. I don’t need external push for this because it aligns with who I already am. On the other hand, fitness is my Kryptonite. Having a friend there transformed it from a daily struggle into something that just… happened.

Ever since I started working out with him, I don’t have those mental battles anymore because together, we created an environment where showing up did not require much individual willpower. It just required mutual accountability, shared goals, and simply the power of not wanting to let each other down.

Looking back, I can trace every major positive change in my life to a shift in environment:

Eating healthier became effortless when I removed junk food from my kitchen

Reading more happened naturally when I moved my phone away from my bed

Working harder came more naturally to me when I joined a college full of ambitious peers & mentors

Each major change followed the same pattern: instead of mindlessly fighting my tendencies, I redesigned my surroundings to work with them.

Virgil Abloh, the visionary behind Off-White and Louis Vuitton’s first African American artistic director, once said:

“I can either spend my time designing the candle or I can spend my time designing the room that it sits in.”

Although he meant it in a very design specific way, I think it sits true for all aspects of life.

You can either spend your time forcing yourself to do the thing, fighting against your current self and using all your willpower, all in the name of the glorified “struggle”, or you can simply change your environment to the one where doing that thing is almost natural.

I think the choice is very simple.

Shardul Gupta

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