Taking a Holistic Approach to Improve Your Environmental Impact
It’s scary to think about, but if we continue to consume resources at the current rate, Earth and its natural and renewable resources will be exhausted entirely faster than we can imagine.
Luckily, there is something we can do to slow the consumption rate. Improve our environmental impact.
Because there are so many things out there you can do to live more sustainably, trying to transition into such a lifestyle can be overwhelming.
Let’s make sure improving your environmental impact isn’t a paralyzing journey. Here’s how to holistically approach an environmentally friendly lifestyle without getting defeated.
Educate Yourself on What it Means to be Environmentally Friendly
If you aren’t familiar, the term environmentally friendly means not harmful to the environment. When we talk about an environmentally-friendly lifestyle, we’re referring to living in a way that supports our planet’s health, wealth, and longevity.
In addition to these definitions, take some time to learn more about being environmentally friendly. Study how people are living sustainably and why prioritizing our planet’s health is a hot topic.
When you’ve brushed up on what it means to be environmentally friendly, analyze areas of waste in your life.
Analyze Areas of Waste in Your Life
Take a thorough look at areas of waste in your life that you can reduce. Audit your energy consumption, food waste, how you use water, the types of items you’re using, where you shop, and what you’re buying.
Once you’ve analyzed waste areas in your life, create a plan for minimizing waste in those areas. It’s recommended that you choose no more than three things to work on at a time to ensure you don’t get overwhelmed.
Work on a few areas you know you can manage right now and implement practices that you’re confident you can remain consistent with.
For example, maybe you choose a room to remodel and go completely green in, commit to regular recycling and composting practices, and change all of the lightbulbs in your house to energy-efficient ones.
In addition to analyzing areas of waste in your life, practice living a balanced life.
Practice Balanced Living
If you’re serious about taking a holistic approach to improving your environmental impact, you must focus on balancing your mind, body, spirit, and environment.
Take care of your mind. Spend time nourishing and strengthening your body. Ground yourself spiritually. Then, once you’ve balanced yourself, you can work on constructing a healthy environment around you.
You can aid your efforts to practice balanced living by immersing yourself in nature.
Immerse Yourself in Nature
You might be more inclined to improve your environmental impact when you sincerely appreciate and immerse yourself in nature.
Enjoy hikes or nature walks as much as possible. Get lost in all that nature is whenever the opportunity presents itself. You’ll learn more about the circle of life and how much we need the natural and renewable resources out there to live healthily.
A holistic approach to improving your environmental impact also includes supporting socially responsible corporations.
Support Socially Responsible Corporations
You must be mindful of how corporations, not just individuals, affect the health and wealth of our planet. Much of the pollution and harmful emissions in the world result from how major corporations are run. For instance, they use equipment that requires enormous amounts of energy to run correctly.
You may not be able to shut down corporations that engage in practices harmful to our environment. Still, you can work to support only corporations that are proactive about mitigating environmental harm and running their companies with sustainable practices at the forefront.
You can also ensure you’re taking a holistic approach to improving your environmental impact by staying in the know about all things sustainable living.
Continually Educate Yourself on How to Improve Your Environmental Impact
Experts are constantly discussing trends, news, tips, tricks, and other information regarding how to live a sustainable lifestyle. However, what you implement today may not be what’s best in the future. So, commit to continual education on environmentally-friendly living.
Continually educate yourself on the following:
- Current events tied to environmental news
- New trends in how to improve one’s environmental impact
- How healthy our planet is and what experts are saying about its survival
- How to implement sustainable living practices in stages
- Individual efforts vs. collective efforts we must make to improve the health of our planet
- New terms that arise, like greenwashing
- Key players in the sustainable living movement
- Groups, events, and networks dedicated to environmentally-friendly living
Lastly, give yourself time to transition into a wholly sustainable way of living.
Give Yourself Time to Make the Transition
You aren’t going to get everything right all at once. Implementing an environmentally-friendly lifestyle takes time. So it’s best to show yourself grace and understanding during this time.
Whatever you’ve chosen to work on, be consistent in your effort. Hold yourself accountable when you fall short on your sustainability goals or fall off with an environmentally-friendly practice. Then, reevaluate how you can be more consistent and adjust your goals as needed.
Conclusion
Taking a holistic approach to improving your environmental impact is a great decision to make for your life and the life of our planet. However, to live a more environmentally friendly lifestyle, you’ll first want to educate yourself on the details of sustainable living.
Next, take a look at areas in your life where you can reduce waste. Choose a few to start with so you don’t overwhelm yourself with the many options out there for living a more environmentally-friendly life. You’ll also want to practice living a balanced life and immerse yourself in nature whenever possible.
You can take your support for sustainability to the next level by choosing to only buy from socially-responsible corporations. In addition, be sure to educate yourself on how to improve your environmental impact continually.
And finally, give yourself time to improve your environmental impact and make a complete transition into sustainable living.
Image Source: Pixabay.
