The Spodek Method: How To Discover the Joy of Sustainability
The sustainability movement is growing. People are starting to feel the effects of climate change. The population of humans is starting to grow to a point of causing other animals to go extinct, either by deforestation, or having their resources taken away, or polluted. This has caused many people to start thinking about how we live and whether the way we live is sustainable. ‘Living sustainably’ means that we live in a way that we can continue forever: using resources that the planet can replenish every single year. (Hint: if you live in a developed country, you’re probably NOT living sustainably at this point)
And if you’ve heard of anyone trying to preach living sustainably, you’ve probably felt like you were More and more people are coming around to embrace sustainability, but few people are sure how to go about it. If only a methodology existed that could show us how to start our sustainability journey…
Joshua Spodek, PhD, MBA and host of the podcast, This Sustainable Life (formerly Leadership and the Environment), developed and uses a methodology that does just this! In order to start my own branch of the This Sustainable Life podcast, Josh trained me in the methodology and showed me how to walk others through a process to start a sustainability journey.
But there’s nothing special about me that makes me able to do this. Anyone can do it! It works best if you do it as a pair, because the process of asking and answering questions can be really helpful. You can certainly do it yourself, but when you say the words out loud and try to put your own feelings into words to another person, it will help you to realize certain things about your own way of thinking and your own feelings that you may have taken for granted if you were just thinking about them yourself. It will feel a lot more exploratory and will help build and improve your relationship with that person as well.
The process is a 4-step process (with a “0-th step” just to kick off the conversation), and takes about 20-30 minutes if really done properly. If you rush through it, you may miss out on some of the best value you can get out of it! I would also recommend that you both turn off your phones and make sure neither of you are distracted. This can be a great bonding experience!
I’ll start by outlining the 4 steps, then go into a more detailed explanation of each step afterwards. If you’re interested in hearing me go through this process with people, check out my podcast, This Sustainable Life: Solve For Nature.
The Spodek Method 4 Steps (w/ 0-th Step Conversation Kickstarter)
- Step 0: “Do you care about the environment?”
- Step 1: “What does the environment mean to you?”
- Step 2: “Based on that feeling, this is totally optional, but can you think of something you could do to act on that feeling?”
- Step 3: “Let’s make it a SMART goal.”
- Step 4: “I’d love to hear how it goes. How long do you think it will take until you feel like you’ve had a meaningful experience you could talk about?”
That’s it! Just these 5 questions! But more important than the questions themselves is the how we go about asking them! Let’s go into each step in detail and find out why these questions form the basis for an effective conversation!
Step 0: “Do you care about the environment?”
The purpose of this question is to start the conversation on a positive note. I’ve never heard anyone give a “No” to this question, and pretty much anyone you ask will surely give you a “yes.” Opening the conversation with a “yes” also puts them into a positive mindset that will help them open up a bit later!
Step 1: “What does the environment mean to you?”
This is the step you want to spend the most time on! The goal of this step is to get to the bottom of their heart and find specific feelings they feel about the environment.
Almost everyone you ask will give a generic answer at first: “It’s nature” or “it’s the mountains, oceans, trees, and air around us.” Those answers are perfectly good answers, but we want something a little more personal! I find it usually helps to ask if they have any specific memories or experiences in the environment that they can think of. At that point, most people will come up with some memory they have, but will describe it at a very superficial level. Something like, “I used to go hiking a lot as a kid.”
It’s really important to keep it positive! If we want them to share their feelings and emotions, we need to be very non-judgmental and show them that they can trust us with their feelings; we never ridicule or judge. Their experiences are their own and there are no wrong answers here! It’s important to ask them clarifying questions that allow them to talk about their experiences more deeply. For example, “Wow! Where did you used to go hiking? Can you describe what it looked like? What did you do there? How did you feel when you were there? You must’ve felt very happy/peaceful/sad/angry/free!”
These kinds of questions will allow them to talk more about their experience and they will start to open up more. Be patient, sometimes it can take 15 minutes or more to get to the point where they start describing emotions. When you think you have a good understanding of their experience, try to describe it to them: “So what I’m hearing from you is that you really enjoyed the feelings of running free through the forest, and the sense of awe you got from the mountains and the valleys in that forest gave you sense of pure joy. Is that right?” They will often go even deeper at this point! Sometimes it can get a little emotional, since most people are not used to opening up with their most deeply held emotions. It’s at this point that you can go to the next step!
Step 2: “Based on that feeling, this is totally optional, but can you think of something you could do to act on that feeling?”
This is the step where we decide on a sustainability challenge. It’s possible that you both already discussed taking on the challenge already, but in the case where you haven’t, it’s usually best to tell them that this is optional: we don’t want them to feel like we’re cornering them into taking on a challenge. It’s important to note a few conditions on the challenge:
- “Not the biggest thing, not the most important thing. You don’t have to solve climate change overnight. It’s not about how big or small, but that it is meaningful to you. The point is to act on something that you care about.”
- It has to be a new behavior (something you’re not already doing), measurable, and something you do yourself, that is, it can’t be telling other people what to do.
If possible, try not to give suggestions. We want their idea to come from them: they’re doing it because it’s something that will make them feel better about themselves. If they’re having trouble, you can go back to their memory/experience/emotion and ask them about how their actions could affect them. Through this process, on Joshua Spodek’s podcast, I’ve heard challenges ranging from things as small as committing to buying a reusable travel spoon or buying a reusable water bottle, to selling their car to drive less! Some people even choose to do things like planting a tree, or try being vegetarian for a week.
Again, the size of the challenge is NOT important. What’s important is that the challenge has meaning to them.
Step 3: “Let’s make it a SMART goal.”
There are several variations of the SMART acronym, but they are all more or less the same. The one I’ll use is Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time-bound.
- Specific: How much? How long? How many?
- Measurable: Can we measure whether the task was completed or not?
- Achievable: Don’t take on a goal that is impossible! We want to set ourselves up for success.
- Realistic: Do things that are within your ability within a relatively short time frame.
- Time-bound: Set a date by when you will have it done. No procrastinating!
This part is usually pretty easy! It’s just a matter of determining how many pieces of trash they will pick up every day, or how many vegetarian meals they will eat per week, or how many hours a day they will turn off their cellphone.
Step 4: “I’d love to hear how it goes. How long do you think it will take until you feel like you’ve had a meaningful experience you could talk about?”
The point of this step is two-fold: first, we want to add some external accountability to the action: “I told Eugene I would do this by September 3rd, so I have to do it!” Next, it’s to have a follow-up conversation about their challenge! During the follow-up, we can guide the conversation to connect the feeling of the challenge with their original feelings for taking on the challenge. How did it feel knowing that your actions impacted the environment you described?
Very often we do things just to check them off the to-do list, but don’t take the time to appreciate our actions: how they made our life better, how we accomplished something we had never ever done before, or how it made relationships in our lives better. Take some time with them to examine their own feelings! This will make them much more likely to look for more sustainable things to do in the future.
Wrap-Up
So that’s it! This is a fantastic methodology to use with your closest family or friends. Not only does it allow you to help someone else start their sustainability journey, but it also helps you to grow your relationship with that person! You will delve depths of emotions that you may never have done with them and it will open up new levels of trust and respect. I highly recommend everyone take some time to do this with someone you care about! It is a fun and personal approach to sustainability that never ever brings up the doom and gloom of climate change, dying polar bears, or the awful pollution. Through this positive methodology, anyone can become a leader in sustainability.
If you’re interested in hearing me walk through this process with others, you can check out my podcast, This Sustainable Life: Solve For Nature!
If you’re interested in reading more about Joshua Spodek, you can check out his blog at www.joshuaspodek.com.