TO understand its core value…
How does my house contribute to my wellbeing?
Your house is your immediate environment. You are surrounded by it. Whether you realise it or not, it affects you physically and mentally. It can fill you with positive or negative energies. It can drain you or charge you up. Consider what physical affects it has on you. This will include the abundance or lack of light. The temperature inside – is it too hot, too cold? What materials are you surrounded with; do they soothe or aggravates your hay fever, asthma. What shapes do you move through daily; are they causing you hip pain, back pain? How much physical strain is you house putting you under. How much stress is it causing you?
How does my house enhance my performance?
Perhaps you had a chance to experience working from home lately. How was it for you? Good or not so great? Are you able to concentrate well in your space. What is your productivity like? Did you ask yourself, is my house saving me time or costing me time? How demanding is it of my attention? Is it sucking the energy out of me or is it supporting me? Think about what makes you productive and what less so. Adjust your immediate environment to support you, to reinforce good habits but also to help you overcome the bad ones.
If you want to be productive you need the environment you live in to be supportive. It is hard to fix the world outside, but you can certainly fix your house or the place you live in. The better the space you live in, the more enjoyment you will get from each activity and more time you will have to do enjoyable, enriching things that bring you peace and happiness.
How does my house support mine and my family’s ambitions?
Each project begins with a vision, but vision is not an output of a single individual. What is your collective ambition? There are several ways how space you live in can help you achieve your family goals. Firstly, it is important that you are able to clearly identify what your ambitions are and articulate these within your design brief. If you are not clear and are not able to identify your needs, it is very possible that your home will actually slow you down in achieving anything in life. Think about what are the obstacles you are trying to overcome and what are the problems you are facing. Individually but also jointly. Each and every person living in the space will have a different list, different perspective and personal experience from the way they use existing space. Communication is the key to a successful completion of a project. You will have individual priorities and joint aims. Listing them all and discussing them will give you full awareness. This awareness is incredibly empowering. You will learn more about yourself and about each other in this process.
How does our house positively and negatively affect our behaviours?
Surprisingly, space you live in plays a huge part in your behaviours. It is an immediate environment that you are surrounded by. It influences you physically and mentally. It can fill you with positive or negative energies. It can charge you or drain you. It can motivate or demotivate. It can reinforce your habits or help you facilitate a change. It has an enormous impact on your wellbeing.
If you live alone then this will be somewhat hard question to answer. It will require some degree of self reflection to identify and address your positive and negative behaviours in your living space. You may want to invite some good friends for a game of truths.
If you live with a partner and/or children, this should be quite fun. One warning though, try to be considerate, respectful and constructive in your criticisms. We don’t want anyones feelings being hurt.
How is my house serving me?
Pause and look around, who is serving who at the moment? If the answer is you are serving your house more than it serves you, then you may have a problem…
…. or share it with people who may need it, because SHARING is CARING…