How an Easy 30 Day Challenge Made me Vegan

[William]

On June 5th of this year, I went vegan because I wanted to lose my post college gut. No skinny guy ever wants to morph into Homer Simpson. Fast forward to now, I have lost a little more than 15 pounds and I feel fantastic. I achieved my goal: eliminate my small gut. However, I didn't go vegan cold turkey.

First, I went on a 30 day salad challenge. I ate a salad for 30 days straight. During this challenge, I ate what I wanted: Ben and Jerry's ice cream, fried chicken, Number 1's Chinese food, etc. Why?

THE SALAD RULE

The Salad Rule states that In order to achieve your main goal (vegan), you must ONLY focus on ONE ASPECT (salad) of that goal.

In other words, whatever goal you have, break it down to it's smallest parts and only focus on one of those parts. This strategy makes achieving goals easier, here's why:

It is easier on your conscious. Attempting to be a vegan can be intimidating. However, eating a salad for 30 days is easy for me. You have to break down your "mountains". Whenever I am trying to achieve anything, I break down the goal into bite size pieces. This strategy also builds momentum, confidence, and makes transitioning into the next phase easier.

Here was my process to becoming vegan:

• Knowing why I wanted to become vegan
• Ate a salad for 30 days
• Day 16 cut meat out of my diet
• Day 18 cut cheese and diary out of my diet

Any goal broken down to its fundamental pieces is an easy way to achieve that goal. If you want a new job, just focus on applying to jobs every Monday and Thursday. If that's too tough, just apply every Monday. If applying is too tough, just focus on fixing your resume for 20 minutes everyday.

Whatever you break down, make sure you are consistent with it. That is very important. It is better to be consistent with small goals than to be inconsistent with big goals. For example, you are never going to be vegan if you attempt it and fail every month. That goal is clearly too big.

I didn't miss 1 day out of my 30 day salad challenge. I was consistent. My body was getting used to the salad every day. My confidence was growing and my identity was changing. Your actions reinforce your identity.

Choosing actions that you can stay consistent with is the key.

 

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