How to Set Sustainable, Eco-Friendly Habits

Published

on

16th Jan 2024

Once or twice, we all have felt excited about a new change we want to implement. We write down every goal we want to accomplish and focus on it. But we’re all creatures of habits who often tend to set very bold goals for ourselves, so more often than not, these new goals tend not to be very sustainable. Setting sustainable, eco-friendly goals is a lot like setting fitness-related goals; if you’re not used to going to the gym and suddenly go every day, you’ll likely get injured and burned out. The result: You will not be setting foot in the gym again very soon. We don’t want that.

Introducing eco-friendly habits and practices into your daily life is the building block for a new, more sustainable life. It all starts with having a set mind ready to take on new habits and knowing why you’re introducing them into your life. Then, over time, every small step you take in this new direction will add to a significant change that won’t feel challenging or scary anymore.

Keeping in mind how hard it is to create new habits and stick to them, we’ve listed some advice from us backed up by science on how to form new healthy habits.

Know your why.

The most important thing when setting new habits is to know your why. Take a moment and reflect on your current habits, why you’d like to change them, and what you’d like to change them. Knowing why you’re taking on these new goals and challenging yourself with new habits will make staying motivated much easier. Decide what person you’d like to become and work on it daily. I like to write down in my journal why I decided to change a habit and set new goals; this way, I can read it whenever I feel unmotivated.

Tiny steps.

Small habits make a big difference. Be careful not to overestimate the importance of adding minor improvements to your daily life. Taking a reusable to-go coffee cup with you to your favourite coffee shop might seem like it makes no impact on our planet. But if you are used to drinking coffee on the go 2 days per week, that’s 104 single-use-to-go coffee cups that won’t go to the trash in a year, thanks to you. Don’t get overwhelmed or feel guilty about not being able to achieve complete sustainability. It’s perfectly fine to be imperfect.

Do it every day.

A study published in the European Journal of Social Psychology showed that a task had to be done for 18 to 254 days until it became a habit. The importance of taking tiny steps is highlighted here. Habits take a long time to create. By putting your new goal into practice every day, you’re more likely to transform it into a habit.

Make it easy.

New goals take time to transform into habits, but you can achieve them more smoothly by making them simple. Help yourself stop procrastinating and make a new habit easy for you by adopting the two-minute rule. The Two-Minute rule, introduced by David Allen in his book “Getting Things Done”, states: “If an action will take less than two minutes, it should be done at the moment it’s defined”. He argues that nearly any habit can be scaled down into a two-minute version, making your habits as easy as possible to start. You can easily carry a reusable shopping bag in your purse or car or compost your food scraps into a proper compost bin.

Make it attractive: set a reward.

By making your habits as enjoyable as possible, you’re more likely to stick with them. You can motivate yourself by doing something you enjoy immediately before or after a challenging habit or pair an action you need to do with an action you want to do. Need to remember to take reusables with you when on the go? Take your reusable coffee mug or tumbler to your favourite coffee shop and reward yourself with your favourite drink.