You’ve probably heard pretty often about the good habits you supposedly need to have, but how much have you thought about the bad habits that are subtly affecting your life each day in huge ways?
These negative habits could be preventing you from reaching your greatest level of fulfillment, keeping you from finding personal peace, good relationships, and reaching career goals. These negative habits could just be small habits that are easy to get rid of, or they could be bad decisions that you have been making for most of your life.
Are you prepared to get these poor choices out of your life forever? Let’s go.
Do you begin your morning by waking up and pushing the snooze button on your alarm clock over and over again, dragging yourself out of bed at the last minute? Or maybe you wake up and waste the first half hour of your morning in bed browsing social media? Morning is the time of day when you are most able to think, free from the constant distractions or other stresses to fill your mind, this is the time of day when you can really set yourself up for success.
If you’re spending this first part of your morning trying to get twenty extra minutes of bad-quality, broken sleep, or by absent-mindedly staring at the photos some college classmate put up yesterday, then you are wasting the chance to truly accomplish great things.
Break the bad habit.
To start, get out of bed the minute your alarm goes off in the morning, and start your day the right way. Spend the next few minutes reading or journaling. List your goals for the day, or spend time visualizing your accomplishments. Go for a run, even just a mile, to wake yourself mentally and physically.
Fix your workday:
How about when you arrive at work? Do you spend most of your day watching the clock, checking it as often as possible? Do you try and make the day pass faster with as many breaks as possible, checking your phone for notifications every few minutes?
Instead of spending the whole day wishing it was over, think of what you could accomplish if you decided to pursue productivity.
Break the habit:
Instead of wasting away the hours at work, think of how you can improve your day. If you can’t stand your job, it’s most likely time to start searching for a new one. If you don’t mind what you do and want to stay where you are, that means it’s time to start working to improve your current position of even potentially move to one that you like even more. Your boss could be looking for the next person to promote, and all they might need to see is some effort from you to catch their eye.
By looking at your workday in a government job as more than just another thing you need to “survive” it can provide you with endless opportunities to improve yourself professionally and personally.
I worked as a second secretary in a small firm and I was actually busy 3-4 hours per day. The rest half of the day I spent browsing social media and trying to not look bored. One day it occurred to me that I could use this time to something useful, that’s how I ended up at TopEssayWriting.org” — Elisa Abbott, contributing writer.
After work:
What do you do when you clock out for the day? Do you go straight home and sit on the couch? Take a glass of wine and sip a little bit of it? Flip the TV on and zone out for hours? It’s so appealing to get home and do nothing but unwind. But you need a new way of thinking, because you can still find ways to relax that involve more than just mindlessly sitting around. If the only thing you’re doing every day is sitting at work and going directly home to your couch, where is your time to invest in yourself? You can’t better yourself and create a better personal life by watching television.
Break the habit:
Try something different, you could join a sports league or start going to the gym after-work. This can benefit your health and your social life. Maybe start taking a class, meet up with friends for dinner, or take lessons and learn a new instrument. These are all activities that can be relaxing while also giving you the opportunity to expand your horizons.
It’s not always simple to get rid of a bad habit, but it can be faster and easier to replace that bad habit with a better, good habit. You don’t have to change your entire life in a single day, take it slow and steady, and go at it one thing at a time. This will keep you from burning out, and the results that you see will be even more motivational!
Keep in mind that it takes at least two weeks to create a new habit, so use that period of time to make a goal. You can go those two weeks without skipping a day, and at the end, your new habit can seem just as easy to you as waking up in the morning. It just becomes another part of your daily routine. And before you know it, you’re taking strides towards a better life and an improved you. It’s as simple as that.
Next to read: Don’t Change Who You Are