Sustainable Change Quotes

In our view, successful reform is not an event. It is a sustainable process that will build on its own successes - a virtuous cycle of change.

Change is incremental and real change, enduring change, occurs one step at a time.

At Camfed, we have focused on transforming the vicious cycle of poverty in many rural African communities into a cycle of opportunity. Alumnae of Camfed's programs go on to become role models and mentors for future generations of young students. We call this the 'virtuous circle,' and we know this is a model that works.

I think people do want change, but we want to make sure that the change will actually help people. And that's why I reject the change agenda that Donald Trump has.

You get few chances to make really transformational institutional change.

The pursuit of happiness is enshrined in the Declaration of Independence as a right of all Americans, as well as on the self-improvement shelves of every American bookstore. Yet the scientific evidence makes it seem unlikely that you can change your level of happiness in any sustainable way. It suggests that we each have a fixed range for happiness just as we do for weight. And just as dieters almost always regain the weight they lose, sad people don't become lastingly happy, and happy people don't become lastingly sad.

Healthcare continues to move outside the hospital and into our homes and everyday lives. With leading doctors and psychologists, for example, we've developed personal health programs designed around patients to catalyze sustainable behavioural change.

If your goal is to lose 10 pounds, you may wake up each day with failure in mind because the goal is hard to reach, and you are progressing only by small amounts. It takes up all your willpower. I recommend that instead of a goal, you have a system.

I'm committed to structural changes.

It's very difficult to evaluate a leader in a very short-term perspective because to be a leader you must be able to have a long-term perspective. You must be able to carry changes which take many years. And this is why you can really only see whether it has been a good leadership after some years have passed.

We have to think in a very different sense than the way we think now. We think in terms of quick fixes, that solutions will come out of a few protest demonstrations, and calling upon the government to do something. And we can keep trying to do that, and it won't work.

When someone tells me they want to start a diet, I'll suggest they start by aiming to drink half their body weight in ounces of water every day. It's much easier to add a habit than to take one away, but the water goal is a challenge. When they conquer that for the month, they've set a new standard for achievement and can add on something tougher.

The people are learning that you cannot leave decisions only to leaders. Local groups have to create the political will for change, rather than waiting for others to do things for them. That is where positive, and sustainable, change begins.

I don't think it ever works to tell people what they can't eat. They can do it for so long, and then they fall off. You have to bring them into a new relationship with food.

You can't go around building a better world for people. Only people can build a better world for people. Otherwise it's just a cage. Besides you don't build a better world by choppin' heads off and giving decent girls away to frogs.

Real, sustainable community change requires the initiative and engagement of community members.

When you meet these outstanding leaders who have been through a programme that empowers them to take positive action, to make things better for people, for animals and for the environment - when you watch them interact and they start brainstorming, you realise you can relax, because they have got it right. They understand that there's more to this life than just money.

Natural capitalism is not about making sudden changes, uprooting institutions, or fomenting upheaval for a new social order. Natural capitalism is about making small, critical choices that can tip economic and social factors in positive ways.

How do we slow down what matters the most and speed up what benefits change and progress? We don't want to impede progress, but we are seeking reconnection to ourselves, to each other, and with the world.

I want to initiate a change in society in the long term.

If you change your lifestyle, remember it's not a wind sprint, but it's a marathon you're embarked on, and you'll be able to stay there.

Even if people just change two or three things that they are able to sustain over time, it makes quite a difference eventually.

Start small - if you drink soda, stop drinking soda. You don't have to make every single change at once or overnight, you can make them slowly to adjust to figure out what works for your body, there is no formula and there is also no right or wrong.

True transformation only comes from sustainable strategies.

Witnessing the extreme poverty in remote parts of Affrica can make you feel sad and powerless until you realize how little it takes to change these people's lives fundamentally in sustainable ways.