Show notes:

Meet our Online Vegan Cooking School My Brownble and learn everything you need to know to cook delicious plant based meals at home, support on going vegan and more!

Podcast episode: 4 Key Habits of Habit Formation and Maintenance

The book Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

It's our last post and episode of the year, and with these sort of time markers, no matter how present I always try to be, there's no way to not catch the end of year bug and look back or look forward.

Growing up I had a huge new year's resolution tradition with my mother. We'd sit in our living room, put on some music and write down a list of all the goals we wanted tor each the following year. We'd cut up the list into little strips of paper and stick them in a box or in our Christmas stockings to find the following year and see how we did. There was a big flaw in our tradition, in that if a goal is set and put away with Christmas ornaments in a box in the basement, never to be checked back into again until it's time for the final test, most plans dwindle. You've heard me talk about focusing on systems rather than goals before, and I believe this is the secret sauce to getting anything done, not to mention the full practice of presence and mindfulness in action, not to look ahead at what the dreamy end will look like, but to be in the here and now taking action on the tools and practices that will get us there. We have a full episode on goals and systems in our post and episode titled 4 Key Habits of Habit Formation and Maintenance for more on this topic and lots of examples, but one thing that is key when talking about those systems and the goals they'll guide you to, is that you need reminders. You need to keep them where you can see them, touch them, play with them, so that they stay in your surroundings as guiding lights and reminders of what's important to you.

One positive thing of the way we went about our New Year's tradition was the moment of sitting down in that living room, early in the morning, looking out our window as we brought pencil to lips and thought, and then scribbled another one. Because in the act itself of looking forward there is an inherent looking back, at the things that aren't serving you anymore, at the things that brought you joy and peace and how to have more of those moments next year, of that promise you keep making for yourself and it moves from year to year, untouched. That is the magic of New Year's Resolutions, it's a way of moving forward with plans and dreams and promises to yourself but with a gentle hand on the past to remind you.

This year was such a profound year for us. We made huge changes to our business by reshaping it and seeing what wasn't working and what students needed the most, and we created our Cooking Success Path and put everything under that one big hub of the school. I brought back our interviews with amazing guests I learned so much from. I slowed down with the amount of courses I was taking at school to be able to be present in everything and enjoy it, even when it meant the finish line moved a little bit further away. I've been trying to teach myself what "calm" can feel like, not easy for someone who feels very guilty "doing nothing" or "doing it slowly", but the biggest change of all happened in our personal lives.

We sold our fairly recently bought house, ours for just two years, gave away 90% of our things, got the dogs, our TV, our filming equipment, a fraction of our clothes and all of my books all packed up and we moved to the tiniest place in the city. This change has changed ME, in more profound ways than I can say, as you know if you heard our recent personal update episode a few months back, this move came with me helping our dog Obi adjust to the big city, lots of learning and lots of training, to which he has adapted in incredible ways, joining his sister who is up for anything in walking down the city streets, the parks, the river, so many times in a day, and it has brought me closer to them than I ever thought possible. I can say the same thing about Carlos. The joy of him coming home and us stepping out and having a world of adventures at our disposal, and a living space that is all about cozying up together. 

It has made me think of my uncle Aly, my best friend, who lived in even tinier apartments than this in the Village in New York City, and had a life that was so large.

It was a change that taught me especially, that at any point you can pivot, that the way you start a year can be very different to the way you end it, and that we have much more power than we imagine to shift and retrace and find a new path.

If there's anything that relates to veganism and going vegan more, I'm not sure what it could be. This choice we make for animals has so much to do with dealing with our old narratives, with daring to pivot and say "I'm going to make a change here", "I've seen things one way my whole life, I thought this was the path for me, but now I'm finding myself at a crossroads where the same thing just isn't working". 

Going vegan was my New Year's resolution over a decade ago as I vowed to try it for one month. One month became what feels like a whole lifetime, and not only that, but it was a change that brought me so much purpose. Purpose, connecting a habit, a change or a goal to something greater, is like crazy glue for a big change like this, not to mention connecting, exciting, propulsive, and at the core of who we are as human beings. This is one of the reasons I always tell our students who have reached the doors of veganism because of health reasons (a wonderful thing too), to connect with what this change can mean for animals, for our environment, for our fellow human beings. It's in my opinion the secret sauce for remaining on this path, even when it gets hard. Giving it a deeper meaning, can be so important.

If I could tele-transport myself to my old living room, filled with house plants, sprawling windows with the most beautiful view of the Ávila mountains and the valley below framing the city of Caracas, and I had a pencil in hand, this year I would write the following (and as you listen or read, think of the choice to go vegan if this is why you're here):

- Keep the slow and steady pace. This slowing down you felt, feels strange only because it's not what you've practiced. To forge a new path you have to walk down the road with the brambles until the new path is formed, and slow and steady is better than fast and quitting.

- Find more of those little moments in the day that feel like tiny prizes after a long day's work. Those 5 minutes to lay on the rug with Obi and Vega, that reading of that one chapter for fun after a whole afternoon of studying, that making of that one recipe just because you feel like trying something new, that sitting down in your walks with the dogs even if it slows you down and you've got places to be. We're so often in this rat race but it's those moments, in your cooking, in your daily habits, in your activism, that will make a hard day something you simply see as part of the process.

- Keep fostering your relationship with your animals. Just when you thought you knew them, Vega after 10 years since adopting her at 5, and Obi after 4 years since adopting him at 2 and a half, they are creatures with such immense lives you have worlds to discover still and the bond only gets greater and greater when you do.

- Don't underestimate how important connection is to you, and what an impact it made to move from an area that felt lonely and so quiet, to a place where you talk to strangers and dog walkers, and neighbors, and store clerks every day as you walk through it. Community is important in everything you do.

- For God's sake woman, put that phone away. Quality time with the three pieces of your heart happens with the phone in the next room, and the reminder that pretty much everything can wait a couple of hours. 

- Dare to be yourself and change the rules. At any point, on any day, you can pivot, you can change what you're doing, you can make decisions, you can start seeing things differently and you can change your mind. About plans, about the road ahead, about your habits, about the people in your life and the relationships you have with them.

- You had the healthiest year you've ever had, and it just happened with baby steps and just like with writers and their books, who try to touch their work every day, a daily ritual of taking care of yourself, moving your body, breathing, going to bed early, running that errand without getting in the car, keeping a fridge stocked with delicious produce and fun ingredients, by touching these often, the feeling of comfort and vitality will keep the cycle going all on its own.

- Be yourself, in everything you do. Find a way to stay true even in the midst of criticism or your perception of the opinions of others. No one else will live your life for you.

- The things that scared you the most this year (interviewing the amazing dream guests I had this year) ended up being as easy as brushing your teeth by the end of it, but more importantly, they brought you even more connection to your purpose, to others making waves, to change makers, to the most interesting people. Even these great human beings you felt so nervous to talk to sometimes felt as nervous to talk to you, which only means everyone is human.

- Be okay with going through life without the fear and the stress and just living, the most constant reminder I've ever had to repeat to myself again and again every year. It might be time to let go of the tight fitting shoes that remind you of home, and get new ones that allow you to walk comfortably.

I would love to see what those old school resolutions were like when I was a child, knowing myself they probably went along the lines of: "convince mamma to get a dog", "don't be so scared of new things", "save my allowance to buy a pet hamster or furniture for my dollhouse", "get better at maths", but now the resolutions are less specific on the thing you attain at the end, and have more to do with a feeling, a mindset, a perspective.

Before I leave you today, there is no one like the Stoic philosophers to talk about taking action and moving forward, so I'll leave you with some quotes from Stoic philosopher and Roman Emperor, Marcus Aurelius in the most wonderful collection of Stoic prompts, the book Meditations. All of these will help you on your journey to being vegan, as three of the most common roadblocks I see time and time again in my students are: not believing they can do it when they've done it another way their whole life or it being too late to change, the fear of what others will say when we make this choice, and staying on the path when a stumble occurs. Here are three meditations by Marcus Aurelius, one for each obstacle:

"Remember how long you've been putting this off, how many extensions the gods gave you, and you didn't use them. At some point you have to recognize what world it is that you belong to; what power rules it and from what source you spring; that there is a limit to the time assigned you, and if you don't use it to free yourself it will be gone and will never return."

"The tranquility that comes when you stop caring what they say. Or think, or do. Only what you do. (Is this fair? Is this the right thing to do? < ...> not to be distracted by their darkness. To run straight for the finish line, unswerving."

"To be like the rock that the waves keep crashing over.It stands unmoved and the raging of the sea falls still around it".

Marcus Aurelius - Meditations - 

I hope you're having a wonderful Holiday Season, that it was manageable if it was hard, if you've lost someone, if you're going through difficult times. I hope you get a chance to look forward and back as we bring in the new year, and that it is filled with all the blessings and good health. Having you here is one of my blessings. I will see you in 2025!