I have made plenty of content focused on productivity and goal getting. If you haven’t already watched it, last Wednesday’s video was all about my goals for the upcoming year. This past year (2020) my resolution was to become a little more sustainable. This was also the first year I stuck to my goal and really overachieved on it. So how did I do it? How did I accomplish my goals? Keep reading to learn more.
The first step to sticking with your goals is planning goals that are specific. At the same time they need to have some small amount of flexibility. If you haven’t already planned a resolution for yourself, or you have a little extra room for improvement, I strongly suggest making sustainability a part of your new year's resolution. Even at the point I am at on my sustainability journey, my goal is to yet again reduce waste (go check out my last video), emit less CO2, and grow as a person, especially on YouTube. But really my goals are much more specific than that.
By reducing waste, I am going to take specific actions like limiting the amount of stuff I order online, making my own foods and recipes instead of buying processed, packaged food, and more. To emit less carbon, I am going to grow my own food, continue to transport in an electric vehicle (which we got this year), and find ways to reduce water consumption and energy usage.
The point is, this is more specific than saying, “I am going to be more sustainable this year.” I also would like to emphasize that I didn’t make these goals so specific that I am stressing over them and would put myself in a situation where I can’t drive to a store because “that would produce too many greenhouse gasses.” I never want to have to beat myself up over the small things.
Speaking of small things, I think it is important to start small. This is why this past year I chose to make lifestyle changes one at a time--one change per month. (Occassionally, I tried more than one.) Changing one behavior at a time helps so much. Sometimes that means undoing the bad, a long standing behavior, before starting a new better behavior. I will have an article on breaking bad habits (littering, recycling instead of researching, not being careful around your consumption, etc.) in the near future. One more thing that can really help is having support from others around you. Introducing the people around you gradually to new ideas worked best for me. I got a lot of support from some people, while others didn’t understand how my goals were achievable. For those who don’t understand, I advise you to lead by example. Take others along and show them the new ways to be sustainable, even as you learn. (An important note: Always be aware of greenwashing and make sure you fact check what you say.)
My last piece of advice is my favorite one. I started to talk about this in my last article, but I would like to emphasize it once more. Start now. Especially with a goal that could help our planet so significantly, waiting any longer is too late. (Even starting today is too late. But don’t lose all hope.) Start today! We have two more days until new years. Don’t wait until the First because the date is beyond irrelevant. In fact, don’t even wait until tomorrow to start living a more sustainable life (or sticking to your new year’s resolution, whatever that might be). Don’t eat a highly packaged meal for dinner, walk to a local shop this afternoon instead of driving, do whatever you can right now. Sustainability is meant to be sustainable. Your goals need to be sustainable. In essence, choose sustainable sustainability goals.
I will see you on Friday the First for our first video of the year. Hope you have a great new year. Until then, peace.