Change is a (long) journey
I've been thinking about how changing (my) habits is a lifelong process. So I wonder whether it would be more helpful to frame a plant-based diet as a "north start" to journey towards gradually, rather than as a binary "go vegan." Perhaps in the latter the journey is implied, but if so the wording could be improved. Telling someone to suddenly go vegan is kind of analogous to telling someone who has never run before to run a marathon tomorrow. While it is so, so possible (and enjoyable) to go vegan, it is a change that requires practice, experimentation, intention, research, and daily effort.
The analogy isn't perfect: a goal to run a marathon generally just involves the one person, whereas factory farming is a system that creates frankly unfathomable suffering for animals, humans, and the environment globally. Without trying to make equivalent the two examples, I do think the important question is: how does a person need to be supported to actually make lifelong changes that stick for them?
When we ask this broader question--and I'm sure there are those that have asked it--we can seek wisdom from all of the other areas where there are more research (and success) around widespread behaviour change. As one example, recently Faunalytics published a study deriving insights from how people quit smoking, in hopes of applying this to vegan advocacy.
In my own life I'm coming around to realizing that change--even change that deeply resonates with my values and interests--is a long and gradual process that is not linear. This realization has felt frustrating sometimes. When I'm well-slept, what I feel excited about is that this is a mindset shift that I can apply to any area of my life where I see a misalignment between my intentions, desires and actions. There are several of these areas right now, including: caffeine intake, making progress on goals, veganism, nutrition, social media intake, and probably a few other ones. Here are some ideas around gradual behaviour change that I've noticed consistently across the aforementioned areas.
- Finding a why that is meaningful (or better, exciting), and finding a way to regularly remind myself of that why (like very regularly, weekly or daily)
- Defining what success is. Success can be a quantifiable outcome (e.g., end up living caffeine to 3 cups of coffee per day), or can be a process outcome not tied to a particular metric (e.g., instead of a weight goal, the goal is to drink water before every meal, eat away from screens, and eat nutrient-dense, whole-food meals for 2 meals each day)
- When defining success, above, make sure it is actually realistic. For many of us, fully transitioning to veganism (if even our goal) may take several months or a year of consistent effort. For most of us, going from no running to developing a safe, enjoyable, sustainable running practice takes several months. Including rest days every week!
- Get some key information, but avoid analysis paralysis: By now I've listened to a few podcasts and read many articles around caffeine addiction. I know what I want to do, and I know roughly why. That's enough for me--there's no secret hack, it's just actions each day that are simply but not easy.
- Establish a beginning baseline through non-judgemental awareness: I drank five cups of coffee today, starting immediately after I woke up.
- Try to accept that change that this is about a lifelong lifestyle change that you can maintain and adapt to--it's not a temporary fix.
- Try to accept that change will take a long time. For example, for me to decrease my coffee consumption from five cups to three cups will take at least a few weeks, and then the real work will begin: maintaining this once the novelty of a new habit has worn off, and through weeks that are really hard and triggering.
- Proactively develop alternatives to rely on when triggered, and learn more about what triggers you: decaf coffee, tea, a short walk, a glass of water. For me with screen time, coffee, and with food, I tend to instinctively reach for these things when I encounter emotions I don't want to experience. Right now I'm in the acknowledgement phase that I'm now consciously aware of how often I do this, and I haven't really changed the resulting behaviour yet. But I am finding myself stopping more frequently to notice, "hey, what just happened there semi-consciously in that split second that made me feel very driven to grab a snack?"
- Surround yourself with a supportive environment: This includes the physical objects you have in your home or office, and the people you surround yourself with.
- Track progress to see progress: We've all heard it by now: what gets measured gets managed. I think another very important benefit to tracking metrics is that it feels great to log an action you took in line with your goal. Honestly, at this point with this blog, I feel like the main benefit is not the practice with writing, it's that every day I get to hit "publish" and prove to myself that I can do something consistently that I committed to do.
- Related to the above, celebrate daily wins: Lifestyle changes need to be broken down into bite-sized pieces that can be checked off daily. Rather than "cut caffeine," it's "drink 3 cups a day." Better yet, break down goals further so that it's not a binary "yes" or "no," but rather there are various aspects of the goal that may or may not be completed on a given day, and that's okay -- partial credit is still progress. So rather than "drink 3 cups a day," it's a whole little spreadsheet with various behaviours, with that goal but also "wait 60 minutes first," and "start the day with a glass of water," and "notice a trigger," and "go for a walk or drink water when the midday slump hits," and "savour coffee away from screen for five minutes," and so on.