ITS OVER!! Or is it?

WE'VE BEEN LET FREE! Winter break started and the dogs have been let out. There weren't any 'Personal Impact Project' police which meant I had to somehow and some way keep my self from eating meat - uh oh.

Let me tell you, this girl right here messed up real bad. The way that Homer disappears is how I left my project to crumble on its own. In my previous blog post, I've talked about coming from a culture that uses a lot of meat in their dishes. Let me just list out all the food I've eaten: breakfast sausage, BBQ ribs, chicken curry (did you know you can add bamboo in it?!), baked pork, honey ham, and a Filipino dish called igado (picture below). 

As I always do, I'll show you my google spreadsheet of what I've eaten starting from Friday before the break and to whatever date, in all honesty, I've lost track. BIG OOF! Like what is tofu soup with a slice of ham. There was a day... a day when I was good, which was the 28th. I remember that day because I had work that day and I wasn't at home where the war zone between myself and my personal habit project was at. 

TRUST THE PROCESS

Now, you've seen me struggle with this project from the beginning but I'm also here to influence Y'all on your eating habits. Building habits are hard but you gotta RIDE THE WAVE. You just need to have these factors to continue on with your habit: willpower, knowledge and skills, social motivation, social ability, structural motivation, structural ability (Robertson, 2014) 

It's true though, you do need a lot of will power to keep up with a habit and you have to surround yourself with a group of people that will keep you accountable. You got to keep yourself motivated to keep up with your habit. You gotta ask those challenging questions about how will you as a person affect the world, even if you are just this one person. If you don't have your little habit crew, make one. Get your friends on board with you and work together to change your habits. That's what I am planning to do with my best friends (even though it's going to be hard). 

Moving along to the general public and not just my friends could be the move for 2019. When it comes to eating less meat to reduce CO2 production, being positive about the topic should be the main priority. We see vegans explain the reasons why they are a vegan, someone of us, folks either understand why or some can just overreact and try to run away from the topic. 

Like why are you running? Is it because of those depressing posters at University of Washington link light rail station or at Capitol Hill that says, "Why love one... but eat the other?"  Or maybe the ones that say statistics saying, "39 million cattle and calves are killed for food in the U.S." In all honesty, we humans hate the feeling of being uncomfortable. Why put such depressing posters up to make the topic better? We don't want to feel pressured into making a world a better place. Even though we should make the world a better place by not creating ubiquitous fast food restaurants in minority areas. As stated, "Humans are programmed to avoid what is uncomfortable, so why put sustainability-related messaging in the downer category?" (Arena).

My project is coming to an end, will I still continue my habit?

Big shock, I will continue with my habit and continuing my journey with lessening my intake of meat. If I stay consistent then I too can help my peers with their habit and their continuation with habits that will help sustain the Earth. I'd probably change my goals a bit to be easier on my end when it comes to my habit, maybe trying to eat oats in the morning, then a simple lunch such as tuna sandwich, and dinner can be a small portion of my choice on meat.


I've been cautious about my environmental behavior for a long time, way before I learned what sustainability even meant. This process did help me form a new environmental behavior but maybe this habit can branch off into a different environmental habit.

This is a school project... definitely, everything felt rushed. I feel like when you are trying to engage a group of people, you can't be working on something this quick. It's about challenging yourself, reflecting and looking at the end in mind. It's more than just reducing your horrible environmental impact it's about your own mind, body, heart, and soul. That's one thing I would change, sit down and actually think about the underlying factors of why you are changing your habits, I wish I could've done that and not just randomly picking a topic to do as a project.

When diving into this Personal Impact Project, I had to for sure investigate and learn more about other behavioral changes related to conservation and sustainability. Going back to my first blog post, Americans eat beef the most in one year. I've touched upon the topic of how cows produce a lot of CO2, which then correlates to the air/ water quality.

To wrap it all up, I will continue with my environmental habit.

Citations

1) Robertson, Colin. “6 Factors That Influence Our Behavior.” Willpowered Evolution, Willpowered Evolution, 1 Dec. 2014,
www.willpowered.co/learn/factors-of-behavior-influence.

2) Arena, Christine. “6 Ways To Make Brand Sustainability Resonate With Consumers.” Fast Company, Fast Company, 22 Aug. 2013, www.fastcompany.com/3015902/6-ways-to-make-brand-sustainability-resonate-with-consumers.