Did you know that you could be successful at any task, project, or business venture you aspire to if you didn’t have bad habits getting in the way?
Whether it’s exercising three days out of the week or eating healthy, you can achieve any goal you have with the right mindset and self-discipline.
As you go through the ins and outs of life, you’ll find yourself creating habits that you do every day, some of those habits are good and some of them are bad but it’s the bad ones that steal your energy.
No matter how hard you try to resist them, you eventually end up succumbing to them; it’s those bad habits that your self-discipline will be of most use and help you overcome them.
Bad habits are your brain’s way of establishing a pattern or routine for you to follow. Now, this pattern your brain tells you to follow, you can either be the master of it or be the servant of it…
If you’re like most people, you become the servant of those bad habits by staying glued to your cell phone or eating fast-food every day… it’s not until you discipline yourself to break those bad habits that you will achieve success, and that applies to all aspects of your life.
Bad Habits You Need to Break ASAP!
1. Saying “Yes” When You Want to Say “No”
The art of pleasing others before yourself is a habit that’s really hard for some people to break but it’s a habit that’s very necessary for you to break.
The harder it is for you to say no, the more likely you will experience stress and burnout. The ability to say “no” is a huge self-control component that lots of people find challenging.
For those who find it difficult to say no, their way of saying no consists of phrases like “I don’t think I’ll be able to” or “I’m not too sure if I can.”
Those phrases aren’t telling people “no”… those phrases are letting people know that you’re leaving a window of hope open for a yes and as long as that window is open, they will continue to ask you for favors or your services, especially at work.
If your employer asks if you can work over and you know you can’t, you need to say “no, I can’t work over tonight”… don’t leave any possibility that you might be able to when you know you can’t.
According to the Mayo Clinic, the best way to strategize on how and when to say no is to narrow down which activities truly deserve your time and attention… narrowing it down in that way can drastically lower your stress. So, as you continue on your journey to saying no more often, just keep in mind that saying no is an act of self-control that will prevent the stressors of over-commitment.
2. Not Asking For Help
There’s absolutely no rule that says you have to do everything by yourself.
Yes the old saying goes, “if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself”… that may be true in certain situations but everyone needs help sometimes and asking for it doesn’t make you weak individual.
At work, you might have taken on a project that has aspects of it that you’re not well-versed in… but you may have a co-worker who knows all about that.
Why wouldn’t you ask that co-worker for help on that aspect of your project? Out of pride? That wouldn’t make any sense to not ask for help when you have the proper resource to help you complete your project.
On the home front, maybe you’re a stay-at-home mom who also runs an e-commerce business but as your business grows, you’re having a harder time dedicating time to your business due to keeping a close eye on your child. Well, who said you have to do that alone?
That problem can be solved by simply hiring a nanny and becoming a household employer. All you would need to do is figure your nanny tax and payroll responsibilities.
3. Excessively Using Your Phone
Excessively using your phone is a bad habit that many people have and don’t even realize that it’s a bad habit. In your mind, you think you’ve only been on your phone for five minutes but the reality is that you’ve been on your phone for 15 minutes!
Cell phone usage is one of the biggest contributors of wasted time at home and especially at the workplace.
Because our cell phones have become a huge part of our daily lives, we tend to carry it with us wherever we are, even in the bed, and that’s where cell phones do the most amount of damage to our sleep and productivity.
Your cell phone emits a blue light that impairs our melatonin production, which, in turn, impairs our sleep quality, leaving you to feel sluggish the next morning.
Plus, on top of that, you think you’re only scrolling for a few minutes but you end up scrolling for an hour, keeping you up later than you intended.
Try setting an alarm or timer to remind you when to get off your phone because it’s one thing to need a break away from your workload but it’s a totally different thing when you’re distracted from your workload.