Change agency – what initiates behavioural change?

Awareness often comes before action.
Because knowing doesn’t seem to be the criteria for doing.
See, most people know that cars pollute, still the alternative of not driving just isn't a considered option. There are so many action-barriers, elements that make changing your current behaviour & choose an alternative, too difficult.

Examples are:
• It is inconvenient (Too far away, heavy etc.)
• It is unpleasant (Downgrading an experience. F.x some of the cheaper low-flow shower head turns washing your hair into a nightmare)
• Expensive
• Tasteless
• Un-trendy
• Difficult to use

So, what motivates the search for these alternatives and if they are present, when do we implement them in our lives? Do we follow heroes and trends?
In the search for the tipping point, one theory introduces the Hundredth Monkey Effect:

“The "Hundredth Monkey Effect" is the name for a supposed phenomenon in which a particular learned behaviour spread instantaneously from one group of animals, once a critical number was reached, to all related animals in the region or perhaps throughout the world. Largely due to popularisation of this story, the "Hundredth Monkey Effect" phenomenon is now thought by some to occur in human populations with respect to ideas and beliefs in general even though the original story has been discredited”
Source: Wikipedia

So, now all we need is 100 monkeys leading the way 




Change is also a perspective. Some see it as a new door they are opening in their lives, whereas others see it as a door closed behind them.
The motivation to change ones behaviour isn't about being robbed of options and opportunity. It shouldn't be about an authority telling us what we should do – or what we can’t do no more. Rather, it is about how we can turn the alternatives into something that we'd say YES to.

Furthermore change is connected to your self image. The way we perceive and think about ourselves as individuals, reflect our values. Attached to these values are thoughts on how one should act.
When your everyday actions (e.g. buying take-away coffee in a paper cup) are in strong contrast with the way you perceive yourself, changing your actions doesn’t seem that difficult. Because the alternative of not changing them will make you feel like a hypocrite. You become a walking paradox. This is where awareness and consciousness around ones actions do lead to change.

Still, is all change welcome, and should every un-sustainable practice in our everyday lives be abolished? In the quest to become The Sustainable Being - when are we giving up too much?
As an example we surround ourselves with products that has been produced all over the world, shipped all over the world – and often in very environmentally exhausting manners – but their presence also represent new opportunity, new connections.

As of now, we have just begun exploring this vast world of Sustainability and social change.