I will admit that for the 4th-5th week of my new behavior, it was difficult. I was on winter break for 2 weeks and it was cold outside. There was nothing more relaxing than to take a warm shower. However, during those weeks, I managed to continue my habit because I knew that it would benefit me in the long run. As painfully tempting as it was, I did not take showers longer than 10-minutes. I did this by playing music while I showered and new that after 2 songs had played, I would need to get out because all of my songs are relatively 3-4 minutes long. This helped as a timer for how long I could be in the shower.
No one wants to create a new behavior unless it benefits them in some way. As sad as that sounds, it is actually true and you can read more about this Here (1). Think about it, for example for weight loss, you can not just say I want to lose weight and then do a few cardio exercises here and there. You have to be motivated to do it in the scenario where you want to lose weight so that you are able to do a pull-up. The point is that starting a new behavior is only possible when you have a set motivational goal in mind that benefits your everyday life.
If I was to create ad campaigns for taking shorter showers, I would use the tactic of showing the causes to our environment by taking longer showers. People are less likely to do something if they feel bad for doing it. So by warning people that we may not have enough water in 50 years, people will be more likely to change their habits. But for the people who do not care, an interest group could be created to influence the government to tax freshwater use.
I will continue this habit because when I get to the point where I am living on my own, I will have to pay the water bill. I am not going to want to take long showers because I will end up paying $100's of dollars. This has been helpful as it has motivated me to improve my habits as I look on my future. People care about how they will be in the future so this idea could help me influence people to take shorter showers. I wouldn't change anything because so far everything is working well. While I do care about my future and the sustainability of the future environment, I haven't done my behavior with the motivation to help the environment. There are some people who will do habits that will be better for the environment. However, for the rest of the people in the world, they have to be motivated for something in their own life which will help the environment on the side. People are weird like that but methods just need to be taken to work around natural human behaviors.
Tuesday, January 22, 2019
Friday, December 21, 2018
Blog post #3
I am now on my 3rd week of trying my new behavior to reduce my environmental impact. Basically, I have been taking showers every day. Every other day I take a 10-minute shower which is used for using shampoo and on the other days between, I take 5-minute showers and do not use shampoo. The reason for this is because if you put shampoo in your hair every single day, it will begin to make your head dry and create dandruff as well as other problems for your scalp. To know how much time I am in the shower for, I put on music while I shower, but I already know how long the song is which helps me time myself.
If this project ended today, I would try to continue to create the habit because I spend more time then I need to in the shower. My old habit was not good because it used to make me late to school and it also wasted a lot of my time in the mornings. I think this is what motivates me which is just the fact that I want to spend my time doing more productive things then showering.
Through this project, I have been able to do my behavior continuously. I have not gone towards my old habits but I do need to frequently remind myself "like ok, I need to get out now."
A habit that I have tried working on in the past is to go to bed at 10pm. After about a couple weeks (so around 2) It became something regular I would do. I ended up quitting this habit when I stayed with my friend for a month while my mom was traveling because he would go to bed between 11 and 12 which led to me doing the same thing.
After reading an article about how long it takes to develop a new habit, I learned that it takes a minimum of 21 days to develop a new habit but on average it takes 66 days. After hearing this, I do not know what to think of it. It makes it sound like it will be a lot harder for me to start a new habit which I am not looking forward too. However, I think something from this article that is important is that it is not impossible to start a new habit. No matter how hard it may be to start a new habit, the article proves that even if it takes a while, you can always create a new habit for yourself.
If this project ended today, I would try to continue to create the habit because I spend more time then I need to in the shower. My old habit was not good because it used to make me late to school and it also wasted a lot of my time in the mornings. I think this is what motivates me which is just the fact that I want to spend my time doing more productive things then showering.
Through this project, I have been able to do my behavior continuously. I have not gone towards my old habits but I do need to frequently remind myself "like ok, I need to get out now."
A habit that I have tried working on in the past is to go to bed at 10pm. After about a couple weeks (so around 2) It became something regular I would do. I ended up quitting this habit when I stayed with my friend for a month while my mom was traveling because he would go to bed between 11 and 12 which led to me doing the same thing.
After reading an article about how long it takes to develop a new habit, I learned that it takes a minimum of 21 days to develop a new habit but on average it takes 66 days. After hearing this, I do not know what to think of it. It makes it sound like it will be a lot harder for me to start a new habit which I am not looking forward too. However, I think something from this article that is important is that it is not impossible to start a new habit. No matter how hard it may be to start a new habit, the article proves that even if it takes a while, you can always create a new habit for yourself.
Friday, December 14, 2018
Blog post #2
I have now been taking 10-minute showers every day and it is the 2nd week. So far, this is going well and I have not showered any more than 10-minutes. It is difficult to manage my time wisely but I am slowly starting to get much better at my time management.
I use to take 20 min showers. However, now they are about 10 min and I know this because I set a timer for how long I can shower for. I used to use 42 gallons of water a day, but now I am only using up 21 gallons because I have started taking shorter showers. After taking a shower for a week, I will have saved 147 gallons of water. After 30 days which is roughly a month, I will have saved 630 gallons of water. If I continued taking showers every day for 10 minutes throughout the course of a year, I would have saved 7,665 gallons of water. This is a lot of water that could have been wasted instead of being used for someone in a different country that doesn't have the same access as me to fresh water.
At the school I attend, it has roughly 400 students. If each student did the same shower behavior as me, within 1 day, we will have saved 8,400 gallons of water. That's a lot of water. I am pretty surprised that by taking shorter showers you can save a lot more water then you realized you were using.
The information regarding if 400 students showered every day for 10 minutes is not a fact. I guarantee that some people do not even shower ever ay and some people may take even shorter or much longer showers than me. This representation was primarily used to show what it would be like if everyone was like me. However, because everyone is not me, that creates a limitation within the information I am sharing.
Perlman, Howard, and USGS. “Water Questions & AnswersHow Much Water Does the Average Person Use at Home per Day?” Adhesion and Cohesion Water Properties, USGS Water Science School, water.usgs.gov/edu/qa-home-percapita.html.
I use to take 20 min showers. However, now they are about 10 min and I know this because I set a timer for how long I can shower for. I used to use 42 gallons of water a day, but now I am only using up 21 gallons because I have started taking shorter showers. After taking a shower for a week, I will have saved 147 gallons of water. After 30 days which is roughly a month, I will have saved 630 gallons of water. If I continued taking showers every day for 10 minutes throughout the course of a year, I would have saved 7,665 gallons of water. This is a lot of water that could have been wasted instead of being used for someone in a different country that doesn't have the same access as me to fresh water.
At the school I attend, it has roughly 400 students. If each student did the same shower behavior as me, within 1 day, we will have saved 8,400 gallons of water. That's a lot of water. I am pretty surprised that by taking shorter showers you can save a lot more water then you realized you were using.
The information regarding if 400 students showered every day for 10 minutes is not a fact. I guarantee that some people do not even shower ever ay and some people may take even shorter or much longer showers than me. This representation was primarily used to show what it would be like if everyone was like me. However, because everyone is not me, that creates a limitation within the information I am sharing.
Perlman, Howard, and USGS. “Water Questions & AnswersHow Much Water Does the Average Person Use at Home per Day?” Adhesion and Cohesion Water Properties, USGS Water Science School, water.usgs.gov/edu/qa-home-percapita.html.
Blog post #1
I have been working to limit myself to only a 10-minute shower. I have limited myself by setting a timer which reminds me when to get out. This is very difficult because it has not become a habit yet so while doing this, part of me is always saying stay in the shower. I am hoping after the 2nd week I will get better at this but at the moment, I can only hope it gets easier.
The behavior I am doing is good for the environment because I am limiting the amount of water I use. Every day, people use much more water then they realize which will lead to an extreme decrease in the amount of fresh water available for people to use.
What has prevented me is the fact that it is very hard to maintain a new habit. It takes a long time to develop a new habit which I talk about more in my 3rd blog post. A big part for why it is difficult for me is because I am used to being able to have access to a lot of water. That is something I have never needed to worry about except for two times that the water at my house got shut off because the bill was not paid.
Something that needs to change is that I need to be more strict with myself. If I start falling back on any day then I will lose the habit and it will be much harder to get back on track. The best thing that I can do and anyone else that is trying to fulfill the same thing is to set a timer for how long you're allowed to shower for and stick to that. Never stop following that structure. I do not think I need other people to help me with this. It is more or so if I want to create a habit, it has to be me working towards it instead of someone helping me do it. Once that person stopped helping me, I would fall back to my old habit.
The behavior I am doing is good for the environment because I am limiting the amount of water I use. Every day, people use much more water then they realize which will lead to an extreme decrease in the amount of fresh water available for people to use.
What has prevented me is the fact that it is very hard to maintain a new habit. It takes a long time to develop a new habit which I talk about more in my 3rd blog post. A big part for why it is difficult for me is because I am used to being able to have access to a lot of water. That is something I have never needed to worry about except for two times that the water at my house got shut off because the bill was not paid.
Something that needs to change is that I need to be more strict with myself. If I start falling back on any day then I will lose the habit and it will be much harder to get back on track. The best thing that I can do and anyone else that is trying to fulfill the same thing is to set a timer for how long you're allowed to shower for and stick to that. Never stop following that structure. I do not think I need other people to help me with this. It is more or so if I want to create a habit, it has to be me working towards it instead of someone helping me do it. Once that person stopped helping me, I would fall back to my old habit.
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