Mid-point Reflection

As I've reached the midpoint of my personal experiment I feel that its now a valuable time to reflect on the progress that I've made so in adopting a new habit. As such, on this on this third week, I would proudly say that I have succeeded in not eating any meat on Monday. This habit has become easier to stick to overtime as I've gotten used to planning out what I'll eat ahead of time with my parents.

If I was to end the experiment now I would most likely be able to easily continue on with this habit as the parental support and my association with Mondays and not eating meat. Additionally, my motivation to reduce carbon footprint by estimated 6.6 ponds of CO2 per meal (1) and decrease my support for industries that inhumanely raise billions of livestock every year (2) has helped to insure that I stick to my habit after the project ends. Also, the fact that my habit only involves not eating a specif food once a week helps to insure that this habit isn't something that takes an excessive amount of effort to include into my lifestyle. 

Additionally, after reading an article by James Clear on the process of forming new habits I have been able to better understand how and why I have been able to adopt this habit so quickly. According to the article the length of time that it takes to acquire new habits varies from person to person and can be influenced by a variety of factors such as the difficulty of the task, consistency of the task, and willingness to commit to adopting the new habit. However, on average the article stated that it took over two months for a habit to become automatic or 66 days to be exact.

References
1. http://css.umich.edu/factsheets/carbon-footprint-factsheet
2. https://www.aspca.org/animal-cruelty/farm-animal-welfare
3. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BKF8f_-HXrLnVvWLN72AAbwHM5eTivL0AqfLE1xsx68/edit#

Comments

  1. Natalie ToJanuary 10, 2019 at 10:04 AM

    My project is a bit similar to your's but instead I only ate meat on the weekends. In hindsight, it probably would have been easier to keep my habit if I started with a smaller change to my diet that that. Also, if you want you find out more about how food can be farmed more sustainably, you should check out the Agriculture CA.

    ReplyDelete
  2. James ChenJanuary 10, 2019 at 10:05 AM

    I really agree with the last paragraph of this post! The time for a person to adopt to behavior is not the same for everyone. From my experience of not eating meat the past few weeks, I have almost adopted to resist eating meat without a thought. I'm guessing if I continue my habit after the 30 days, I can adapt to my new behavior within 45-60 days.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Victoria JohnsonJanuary 11, 2019 at 10:02 AM

    I think its great how you used a reference from an article about forming habits and committing to new habits! Also statistics like 66 days exactly to form a habit.

    ReplyDelete
  4. FletchJanuary 15, 2019 at 10:02 AM

    I liked this blog but how are you getting your friends/family to join you? Maybe add something about that or add how you would do it at least.

    ReplyDelete
  5. mason austinJanuary 15, 2019 at 11:21 AM

    i like how you used an article and also statistics from that article to validate your point and make it easier for the reader to understand.

    ReplyDelete
  6. KamariaJanuary 16, 2019 at 8:45 PM

    Great job on sticking to your plan! I know you mentioned not having this become a substantial part of your life, but do you think you could slowly go meatless for three or two days a week? Just so you had a bigger impact?

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Calculating Impact

Image
1) Reflection on the 2nd week - Describe (IN DETAIL) how your 2nd week went with your behavior to reduce your environmental impact? - What did you do? How did you do it? How often did you do it? As I complete this second week of my environmental habit project I feel that it is necessary to further underscore the numerous ways that cutting meat from your diet will help contribute to reducing my  carbon footprint. For such data will help me commit to sticking to my environmental habit. To start, according to the University of Michigan's Center for Sustainable Systems , creating a four ounce serving of beef, pork, or poultry produces an estimated 6.61 (beef), 1.72 (pork), or 1.26 (poultry) pounds of Carbon Dioxide per serving respectively. As such by simply swapping out beef for pork or poultry alternatives one could save as many as 68.46 pounds of carbon with strictly pork or 74.9 pounds with only poultry. Additionally if one was willing to make the commitment cutting meat
Read more

The Mauling of Meatless Mondays

As this last week of my habit comes to a close I feel that it's now a good time to evaluate my success at sticking to my habit. Over the course of this project I felt that I did a good job of sticking to habit with help from my family and friends. However, there were several notable instances over the course of this project where I did cheat on meatless Mondays. Specifically, Christmas day and the following Monday were instances in which it was impossibly hard to overcome the urge to enjoy holiday meat with family. Although, despite these instances sticking to my habit wasn't too difficult as long as I pre-planned what I was going to eat. While I will return to my meat eating habits, this project has helped me to consider the many environ- mental impacts of the products I use and the habits that I indulge in. Through the opportunity to truly explore how my products are made, I have been able to fully understand the numerous and lasting  ecological effects  of my habit. The ex
Read more