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By now just about everyone realizes that we need to make some serious changes to the lifestyles of the developed world if we want the human race to be able to continue living on this planet much longer. Some people suggest that we need to make cut backs of up to 90% of our current environmental impact. Even if you don’t buy into that number (I don’t know that I do), you know that polar bears are drowning . Wars are being fought over oil and may soon be fought over water. Drought is afflicting Australia, the Southeast United States, and huge swaths of Africa, causing crop failures and contributing to the growing world food crisis. Even tourist activities, such as snowmobiling in my home state of Michigan, are being affected by climate change.

No one can single handedly “save the world” but it IS possible for one individual to create a positive impact and change the direction their own life is headed in. As I’ve written, inertia is a powerful force that keeps us from changing even when we know we should. One way to overcome inertia is to “put out” a big effort to get your own personal freight train moving in a different direction. I’ve come up with a few challenges designed to help you overcome your inertia and start to make positive environmental impacts. And the best part is, you only have to do one of them for seven days.

Seven Day Challenge

1. Go veggie. Switching to a vegetarian diet can decrease your carbon footprint more than buying a hybrid car (and it’s a lot cheaper)! By my math, this means that eating veggie for a week is almost as good as carpooling for a week. I’ve been a vegetarian for about 10 years and I promise that switching to a meat free diet will not cause your muscles to wither from lack of protein. Just be sure to eat some whole grains, legumes, and a couple of servings of eggs or dairy during the wee. If you’re already veggie or mostly veggie, take a shot at being vegan for a week and further reduce your carbon footprint. If you just can’t stand the thought of being meat free, at least cut back on your meat consumption and find a source of grass fed meat.
2. Turn out the lights. The No Impact Man lived for nearly a year with NO electricity. He actually had the power turned off to his apartment. You may want to keep your refrigerator and stove plugged in, but try living for a week without TV, lights, computers (you use them enough at the office) and all your other gadgets. Rediscover the fun of reading by candle light and hanging out at the park.
3. Walk, bus, or bicycle. Park your car and figure out other ways of getting where you need to go. If you live in an urban area with public transportation, this should be fairly simple. People in rural areas may have a very hard time with this (I know, I grew up in one), but even you can figure out ways to carpool, delay trips, or bicycle longer distances. But wait, “I use biofuels,” you say. Well, you might be contributing to the global food crisis. If you use pump Ethanol or biodiesel, you’re contributing to the problem, which makes me sad because I use commercially made B20. So unless you’re running your car on waste vegetable oil , you don’t get a pass on this one.
4. Eat a 100 mile diet. On average, each item on an American’s dinner plate has traveled 1500 miles to get there. That’s pretty crazy considering that most areas of the country produce a rich variety of food that is more than sufficient to keep us healthy for most of the year. If you need help finding places to buy local food in your area, check out Local Harvest.
5. Create no trash. In a lifetime, the average American will throw away 600 times his or her adult weight in garbage (University of Oregon). Try going an entire week without purchasing anything that comes in disposable packing. It’s pretty tough, but by purchasing bulk food items in your own containers (local co-ops usually allow this), avoiding take out food, and carrying a handkerchief to use for hand and nose wiping, you can do it. Or you could just…
6. Buy nothing. You can TOTALLY live for one week without buying anything. After all, in Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping, author Judith Levine tried to go an entire year without buying anything except food and necessary personal care products. I bet you can even go for a week without buying food if you have any kind of pantry or refrigerator at all. You’ll really cut down on your garbage production, you’ll save money, and you’ll help the environment. Plus, it’s a great exercise in creative thinking to figure out how to make do with what you have or borrow what you need.
7. Get (politically) active. Individual changes are a great start to create positive environmental impact, but the real bang for your buck comes through systems change. In democratic countries, systems change is usually best achieved by making your voice heard in the political system. If this is the route you’d like to go, find an advocacy organization that works toward goals that you want to achieve and sign up. Make a donation if you can. For extra credit, write a snail mail letter to your elected officials (or even go see them or their staff) and explain your concerns. My friend Andy’s blog Elephants on Bicycles is a great example of a regular guy getting involved with his local system and advocating for change.

What I’m Doing

Now, I can’t just preach that you radically alter your lifestyle for seven days without sharing what I’m doing to decrease my own environmental impact and help the world in my own small way. I’m in the middle of my own 30 DAY challenge right now. Since April 10 and until May 9, I’ve pledged to live for 30 days on $30 of food. I’m doing this to raise money for an organization called Blandford Nature Center & Mixed Greens. Their work includes teaching young, mostly urban and suburban students about gardening, nutrition, and the environment.

I’m the first to admit that $30 for 30 days is not an original idea. I blatantly copied it from Evan of Hungry for a Month. However, I made several changes to his design to emphasize local food, community building, and the environment, which all relate to what Blandford & Mixed Greens do. I’ve written about the background a “rules” of the project on Rice, Beans & Mixed Greens. In a nutshell the rules are:

1. I can purchase $30 of food in 30 days. The only food I’m carrying over from my pantry are a few dried spices, for which I’m charging myself $0.45 for the month.
2. I can barter (i.e. trade labor) for LOCAL food, which means food grown within 100 miles of my workplace.
3. I can’t eat or drink any free food at my office or anything that anyone gives me (this is a tough one!).
4. At the end of the month I’m donating the remainder of my usual monthly food budget - $220 - to Blandford & Mixed Greens.

Right now I’m on day 13 of the challenge and I’m doing fine physically, but I’m doing FANTASTIC emotionally and in terms of my satisfaction with where the project has gone. I’ve been on the front page of the local paper, done an interview on the Mitch Albom radio show during afternoon drive time, and gotten more support and encouragement from friends, family, and complete strangers than I ever imagined.

Of course, I have to ask you for a donation now. If you’d like to contribute you can do so online through my ChipIn! page. You can also send a snail mail check to:
Blandford Nature Center & Mixed Greens
1715 Hillburn Ave NW
Grand Rapids, MI 49504

Happy Earth Day everyone!

Photo by Steve Jurvetson

Do you have parts of your life that you want to change? Do you know exactly what you need to do to change them? Do you go to bed every night knowing you did nada to make that change happen?

I’ve been there. I’ve watched others get there. I even developed a model to explain what happens and why. And the best part is, this model can help you go from a good idea to a lasting life change.

From Data to Knowledge to Action

Most of the mental “stuff” of the world starts out as raw data. These are things like our personal observations, scientific research, financial reports, political speeches and lots of other collections of “bits.” Most of it is meaningless noise that our brains naturally filter out. For example, if you live in an urban area, you probably see thousands of advertisements every day . Yet, at the end of the day you may remember one or two.

For data to become knowledge (What I Know) it has to go through some processing and contextualization. The good news is that there are many sources that do this for us automatically. The nightly news, doctors, the Federal Reserve and even this blog are all examples. The bad news is that you have to decide if you trust what those sources have to say. Even so, let’s assume that most data aggregation and reporting sources are 75% reliable. That means that the majority of your data to knowledge transformation work is already done for you.

For knowledge to become action (What I Do) well, YOU actually have to DO something. This could mean performing an action once, or it could mean establishing a life long habit. No one can do this for you.

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Have you ever gone shopping just because you’re bored? Do you have a closet full of perfectly good clothes and “nothing to wear?” You may be caught in consumerism. The good news is that there is a logical explanation - and a way to change. The best news is, it won’t cost you a dime

Humans Crave Change
In the change management field there are volumes written about resistance to change. You would think that humans are hard-wired to dig our heels in and refuse all types of change in all circumstances. This is far from the truth.

The human brain actually seeks novelty. It stimulates all kinds of happy-making chemicals in our brain (things like dopamine and endorphins). We will do a lot of things to boost our levels of these chemicals. Some of them are pretty crazy (such as jumping out of perfectly good airplanes). Others seems normal on the surface, like buying a new pair of jeans, even though you already have 4 or 5 pairs. Over the course of a human life, this translates into a lot of potentially interesting experiences and piles and piles of new stuff.

It goes almost without saying that most of the media that we consume is designed to encourage us to consume more and more products and stimulate all those brain chemicals. According to the marketing group Yankelovich, the average person (I refuse to call people “consumers”) in the United States in 2005 was exposed to 3,500 to 5000 marketing messages per day. This is up from 500 to 2000 in the 1970s. This is great news for marketers, but it may be making junkies of us all.

Consumerism obviously has a lot of potentially negative consequences for personal finances. One of my favorite personal finance blogs, The Simple Dollar, talks about this subject extensively. That’s not my focus here. Check the resources at the end of this post to read more about this subject.

Focus on What You’ve Got

My point in writing about consumerism is because I believe that it induces a mindset of lack, rather than of abundance.  The entire basis of advertisements and marketing is to get you to want what you don’t have. This is particularly damaging to people in developed countries because most of us have more than enough resources available to us to live a materially comfortable life. At the very least, most of us are doing okay on the lowest level of Maslow’s hierarchy. With sufficient food, shelter, clothing, and even safety, there isn’t a whole lot more that we have to have to free up enough psychological attention to ascend the additional levels of the pyramid such as Love and Self Esteem.

Now, I’m just as guilty of focusing on getting stuff as most people. I have a long list of vacations I want to take, restaurants I want to try, wine I want to drink, and shiny gadgets I want to own. It’s only recently that I’ve begun to realize that taking up mindspace with thoughts like that can distract me from what I really want, which is to add value to the world while growing as a person. If I pay attention to my surroundings, I realize that the obstacles preventing me from doing this have nothing to do with possessions and credit card charges. I have all the material possessions I need to create the life I want!

This is an incredibly freeing thought, and it’s the first step I’ve taken down the road to creating an abundance mindset. For those unfamiliar with this concept, the abundance mindset refers to knowing that you have every thing you need available to you in some form or another. Some of the explanations I’ve read get a little New Age-y for my liking, but it all boils down to having the inner confidence to know that through creativity, work and an expectation that your needs will be met, you can achieve whatever you desire.

It is a huge advantage in life to have an abundance mindset because it keeps you focused on finding ways to use what is available to you to solve any problems you may have. For example, I used to get a little freaked out every time something went wrong with my car. I do a LOT of driving and not having a car available is a big disruption. With an abundance mindset, I can realize all of the resources available to me to take care of anything that might go wrong. I can borrow a car from someone, telecommute until my car gets fixed, search the Internet for quick repairs to keep the car moving until I can get it properly serviced, etc. There are many solutions available, so I just don’t have to worry about it anymore.

Buy Nothing Today

So, how can you practice abundance thinking in your daily life?

Just… don’t… buy… it

As I urged in Saturday’s SmallChange, try to go 24 hours straight without buying anything - no groceries, no coffee, no gasoline. Nothing. If this sounds like an insurmountable challenge, here are a few tips to getting through the day.

• Practice creative meal combinations. Unless you literally have no food in your home, you can get through a day without buying groceries. Even if you have to eat pancakes and green beans for dinner, you’ll be okay.
• Entertain yourself with things you’ve already got. How many unread books, unbeaten video games, and unwatched DVD’s do you have floating around? Dig in the drawers and closets to see what you can turn up.
• Invite friends over. Finish up the odds and ends of your beverage cabinet instead of stocking up on more mixers.
• If your gas tank is on “E” think of other ways to get through the day without filling up or paying bus fare. Can you put off errands? Could you trade a ride for another service? Is your old bicycle still working?

The common theme running through all of these suggestions is to focus on what you have, rather than what you lack. If you practice this skill enough, you will become more creative and probably more aware of everything that is available to you. You might even stop whining so much and live a happier life!

Additional Resources

• There are many posts on The Simple Dollar about the negative effects of consumerism. Two of my favorites are Why You Have to Keep Up With the Jonses and The Backlash Against Frugality.
• For another perspective being satisfied with what you have check out How to Find Happiness Without Buying It at Dumb Little Man.
• If you think 24 hours is a long time to go without spending money, check out (from the library) Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping by Judith Levine. She and her significant other went an entire year without making any unessential purchases.
• An Utterz user named Paisano recorded a reaction to my SmallChange post where I introduced this topic. He gives a good account of the financial benefits of having spending-free days.

Postscript: My thanks to Lexi Sundell at Energies of Creation for including me in the Carnival of Creative Growth. Check out some of the other brain-stretching posts and support this carnival.

Closet photo by spacey. Mall photo by Vincitrice.

Is there anything in your work or personal life that has changed recently? Are you having trouble letting go of the “way things used to be?” Can you find anything positive about the new situation? If so, keep reading and I’ll teach you how to move forward more quickly and with fewer negative emotions than you have right now.

Paradigm: A set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitutes a way of viewing reality for the community that shares them …

Human beings have to create shortcuts to process all the information that comes at us every day. If we didn’t our brains would quickly become overwhelmed and we couldn’t function. Individually and as a society, we are constantly creating paradigms, which are essentially shortcut ways of understanding something. Problems arise when external conditions change, but our internal understanding stays the same.

This is a pretty abstract concept. Why is it important? Because clinging to old paradigms is a source of:

• Resistance to change
• Getting “stuck” in your work or personal life
• A lot of unhappy longing for the past

Here is an example to help you understand.

There are two main routes to get to my gym. Route 1 goes through town, has a few traffic lights, and generally moves along at the speed limit or a bit faster. Route 2 is along a secondary highway, has one or two traffic lights, and has a higher speed limit on average. You would think Route 2 would be reliably faster, and a couple of years ago you would be correct, but now conditions have changed.

Two summers ago, Route 2 was repaved. It used to be a 4 lane road, with 2 lanes traveling in each direction. During the repaving, the lanes were changed. Now there is 1 lane in each direction, a turning lane the whole length of the road, and bicycle lanes on both sides. This is great for bicyclists. Unfortunately, it seems that many of my communities more… let’s just call them town elders… live along that road. They tend to drive huge dinosaur burners and travel VERY SLOWLY, as in 35 MPH on a 50 MPH road. With the new lane configuration, there is no opportunity to pass these drivers.

It’s aggravating.

I stopped driving Route 2 a long time ago, unless I’ve got time to spare. My SO has not, and he inevitably gets stuck behind a slow moving vehicle and gets frustrated. Swearing ensues.

I finally realized that SO is clinging to an old paradigm. He keeps saying things like, “People used to drive 60 MPH on this road.” This is true, but it isn’t true anymore. The sooner he gets over this, the happier he’ll be!

How could he go about this?

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A couple of weeks ago, Leo at Zen Habits ran an Ask Me Anything You Want post that yielded tons of great questions and answers. His reply to Question #60 (he answered over 100 questions in all!) really caught my attention because it has to do with personal change:

60. JEMi asked: “Would you say when you started Zen Habits it contributed to a personal change (since you are focusing on self improvement) and if so, how have you kept up the positive “momentum” so to speak - in your own life as well as what’s reflected on the charming ZenHabits :)”

Great question! Definitely, starting this blog has changed my life in so many ways. I thank all of you for that.

One way is that it made me realize that I can do something I love and make a living at it. That’s been tremendous for me. Another is that I’ve found the power of encouragement from all of you, and that feeds me to keep going and to improve.

I’ve used these lessons in many ways since then, fueling my drive to be able to quit my day job, to pursue a book deal, to use my sister as a workout partner where we encourage each other to continue our running and healthy eating and to continually improve.

I didn’t get a chance to ask, Leo (I was late to the party), but I have a strong suspicion that he had no idea that starting a blog would be such a powerful force for change in his own life. Over the course of two years Leo has gained a huge following and garnered enough attention to be able to quit his day job and become a full-time writer. This is a huge and very rapid transformation.

How did Leo do it? Read along for my theory:

Public Accountability
Leo is an A-list blogger, but even before he grew his blog to the large audience he now enjoys, he was publicly writing about his personal changes, both on his own blog and through numerous guest posts. Even though Leo lives in Guam and not too many readers of his blog will ever have the chance to catch him sneaking a cigarette or some chicken fingers, I’m sure that internally he created a lot of pressure on himself to continue his positive changes. At the very least, I’m sure his friends and family read his blog!

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