How to Learn New Habits That Help Climate Change

—

by

James Walters
in
How to Learn New Habits That Help Climate Change

Here We Look at; How I Learn New Habits; The Minimalists; How Changing Your Story Can Change Your Life; and, Work Smarter: Live Better. This Is Part of Our Series on Helping Climate Change by Growing, Eating, and Living Sustainably.

If you already know that it’s important to create new habits to help climate change, here are the things that inspired and help me:

  1. The Minimalists podcast
  2. How Changing Your Story Can Change Your Life by Lori Gottlieb
  3. Work Smarter: Live Better by Cyril Peupion*
  4. Switching from Disposable Water Bottles and Coffee Cups to Reusable
  5. Reusable water bottles from Chilly’s*
  6. Reusable coffee cups from Circular and Co*

If you want some more facts before making any decisions, let’s get into the details:

When I came up with the #VoteWithOurMoney campaign with 6 Steps to Help Stop Climate Change, the Sustainability Roadmap with 40+ Solutions to Climate Change, and the Company Directory to Help Others Grow, Eat, and Live Sustainably, my idea was to make it as easy as possible for others to make change in their lives.

The ideas in the campaign, the solutions in the roadmap, and the companies in the directory are the things that I do in my day to day life, and the companies that I buy from.

I came up with them because I’d found it very difficult to know how I could help climate change. It took a lot of research and time finding the right products and companies to buy from so that my buying decisions were also helping climate change.

But to want to make those changes, to make the changes stick, to create a new lifestyle, I had to want to change, I had to create new habits.

I had to get out of my comfort zone. I had to stop doing the things I’d always done. I had to go From Buying Whatever I Wanted, Whenever I Wanted to Consuming Less. I had to start making conscious buying decisions. I had to do new things.

So what is it that inspired me to want to change?

I’ve always been searching for different ways of doing things.

I watch a LOT of documentaries. I listen to lots of podcasts. I read a lot of books. There are a few that stand out.

The Minimalists Inspired Me

After I watched Minimalism on Netflix, I started listening to The Minimalists podcast during lockdown.

Wow. Each episode was like a private therapy session. The things they talked about really resonated with me.

Living a modern life of consumerism, advertising, clutter, pressure, stress, more work, always on, information overload.

It really made me question what I was doing with my life.

I had a job that paid well, but I was miserable.

The Minimalists opened my eyes to the fact that I already had all the things I needed to be happy—wife, son, family, house, friends—and that I didn’t need to keep chasing the next new thing. Instead, I could live a more meaningful life with less.

So that’s one of my inspirations for wanting to change. How did I get comfortable with making changes?

How Changing Your Story Can Change Your Life

I find it easy to change because I know that change, even if it feels difficult or uncomfortable in the first place, can lead to a better life.

There’s an amazing video that sums up why people find it difficult to change, but why change is good. The video is called How Changing Your Story Can Change Your Life by Lori Gottlieb.

The Video Goes Something like This:

  1. We live in our own story
  2. We feel trapped, stuck in our emotional jail cells
  3. Freedom comes with responsibility, which means we might have to change
  4. A person says they want to change
  5. But what they really mean is they want others in the story to change
  6. Why wouldn’t we want ourselves, the hero of the story, to change?
  7. Is it because change, even positive change, requires loss?
  8. Loss of the familiar
  9. Even if the familiar is unpleasant or unreasonable
  10. There’s something oddly comforting about knowing where the story is going
  11. To write a new chapter is to venture into the unknown
  12. Once we edit our story the next chapter becomes easier to write
  13. Others can’t make your life choices for you
  14. You’re the only one that can write your story
  15. Think of your story then think of the supporting characters
  16. The people helping you to uphold the current version of your story
  17. Do they give you ‘idiots compassion’ and just agree with whatever you say
  18. Where nothing changes because nobody is challenging the status quo
  19. We need others to deliver compassionate truth bombs
  20. They help us to see what’s been left out of the story
  21. What would happen if you look at your own story
  22. And write it from another person’s point of view
  23. We all have the capability to write our own story
  24. We get to shape the story, we get to be the hero
  25. It’s worth the effort to go through a revision
  26. Because there’s nothing more important to the quality of our lives
  27. In the stories we tell ourselves about them

I’ve always been happy confronting problems, finding better ways to do things to improve my life and the life of others.

So that’s a good example of why I feel it’s important to change, and why I’m comfortable with change.

How did I go about creating new habits? Making myself stick to the things I ended up changing?

Work Smarter: Live Better Helps Me Create New Habits

This stands out as one of the most inspiring books I’ve ever read. A book that profoundly changed my life.

Work Smarter: Live Better by Cyril Peupion* is a book with practical ways to change your work habits and transform your life. Quite a bold statement, but in my case, true.

A lot of the book contains practical and efficient ways to organise your life. Things like:

  1. Workflow management, don’t let information slow your performance
  2. Efficient behaviours, the work habits of ‘doers’
  3. Outlook as an efficiency tool
  4. The simple steps to effectiveness
  5. Be clear on your goals and high-impact activities
  6. Planning weekly, acting daily
  7. Reviewing and changing

They gave me the essential foundations and building blocks to be efficient and effective. But then there was more. More about purpose and meaning.

The Book Opens with This Quote in the Introduction:

For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today was the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something … almost everything. All external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.

— Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Inc, 2005

And that’s the tone that’s carried through the whole book. Questioning everything that we do. After all, life can be short so why not have purpose and meaning in the things that we can control.

As the book says:

So it’s Work Smarter: Live Better* that helped to give me a framework to create new habits, and inspired me to change my life.

Find Work Smarter: Live Better Here on Amazon*

Why do we need a book to teach us new habits?

Because it’s difficult to create new habits. Creating habits requires commitment, which is why it’s so important to start with wanting to change. Wanting to do something different, even if you don’t know what that is yet, hence why I listed The Minimalists and Lori Gottlieb’s video before Work Smarter: Live Better*.

The book states that creating a new habit requires consciously thinking about it and practising it for 21 days.

As somebody that often tries new things, 21 days feels about right.

One example is avoiding plastic pollution by Switching from Disposable Water Bottles and Coffee Cups to Reusable.

The first step was buying the reusables. Here are some options:

Find Reusable water bottles in the Chilly’s store on Amazon*

Find the Circular and Co Reusable Coffee Cup Here on Amazon*

Circular and Co Reusable Coffee Cup

However, buying the reusable items was only part of helping to reduce plastic pollution.

The other part was remembering to take the water bottle and coffee cup with me whenever I went out of the house, otherwise I’d just be making the problem worse.

By consciously thinking about this, by taking them sometimes, by forgetting them others, eventually I got into the habit of remembering to take the water bottle and coffee cup whenever I went out of the house. New habit created.

I feel this is at the heart of helping to stop climate change, and living a more meaningful life. It’s about creating a new lifestyle, a lifestyle where I make conscious decisions about what I buy, what I do, and my impact on people and planet.

Here Is What You Can Do

Want to Continue Your Journey?

Where Next?

There is so much inspiring information to give you ideas of how to help climate change by growing, eating, and living sustainably, you can:

  1. Read Our Articles
  2. Sign-Up to Our Free Email Newsletter
  3. Get Started and Vote with Your Money
  4. Try the Sustainability Roadmap
  5. Use the Company Directory
  6. Support Nafford Junction

Help Us Inspire Others

If you are passionate about helping climate change, please consider supporting Nafford Junction, you can:

  1. Become a Patron to Give Regular Contributions
  2. Buy Me a Coffee to Make a One-Off Contribution
  3. Create for Us and Publish Thought Provoking Content
  4. Become an Inspiring Leader and Advertise with Us
  5. Go to NaffordJunction.co.uk/support

Sources Used to Create This

  1. Minimalism on Netflix
  2. The Minimalists podcast
  3. How Changing Your Story Can Change Your Life by Lori Gottlieb
  4. Read Work Smarter: Live Better by Cyril Peupion*
  5. Find Reusable water bottles in the Chilly’s store on Amazon*
  6. Find the Circular and Co reusable coffee cup here on Amazon*
  7. Switching from Disposable Water Bottles and Coffee Cups to Reusable

Production Notes

This was produced by me, James Walters, as a personal project to help stop climate change by inspiring others to grow, eat, and live sustainably.

Any advice given is the opinion of those involved and does not constitute medical, financial, or legal advice.

* We include links we think you will find useful. If you buy through those links, we may earn a small commission. It’s one way to support our work and to inspire as many people as possible.