10 Bad Habits to Break ASAP to Improve Your Life

Bad habits can easily creep into our routines, affecting our productivity and hindering our progress. Often times we do not even realize having a bad habit. It is only after identifying them that you can take the right steps to get rid of bad habits. In this post, I am sharing 10 bad habits that you must swap with good ones. I have also shared simple ways to help you quit bad habits to improve your life.

Let’s get started to know about bad habits to break.

Why you should quit bad habits?

Many times we do not realize having a bad habit and unknowingly sabotaging our own life.

To learn new things and get better at life unlearning is also important.

At times rather than building a new good habit, it may be more beneficial to quit a bad habit.

“Half of wisdom is learning what to unlearn”
Larry Niven

Quitting a bad habit is not easy and may need more effort than building a new habit but the rewards of a happier and calm life make it totally worth it.

10 Bad Habits to Quit to improve your life

Here are 10 bad habits you should immediately quit for a better life if you are guilty of carrying these bad habits in your life.

1. Negative self-talk

The habit of criticizing yourself or finding yourself incapable and worthy.

It can be as simple as calling yourself stupid for making a small error or telling yourself “I can’t do this”.

Negative self-talk affects your subconscious mind and may affect your psychology. It is found through a study on tennis players that players indulging in negative self-talk were more likely to lose.

Negative self-talk affects your self-confidence, makes you unhappy, and limits your thinking.

A simple way to deal with negative self-talk is to replace negative words with positive words in your conversations and to talk to yourself the way you would talk with others. We tend to be kind when talking with others but miss expressing the same kindness to ourselves.

2: Trying to be perfect

The next habit worth quitting is trying to do things with perfection. Being a perfectionist result in frequent burnout adds to your anxiety, and builds additional pressure on yourself to meet the unrealistic mark of keeping things perfect.

Perfectionism can also make you procrastinate.

P.S. If you find yourself procrastinating you may like to read Understanding Procrastination And Effective Solution To Stop Procrastinating

Studies have found perfectionism to be associated with somatic anxiety and less goal satisfaction. It also affects life satisfaction and happiness.

At times it is important for you to realize getting things done and prioritizing your peace is more important than delivering a perfect report to your boss or having a perfect, clean well-decorated home.

I will share the best way to deal with this, anytime you are stretching thin to do things a little better, tell ask yourself if what you have done is sufficient to serve the purpose, and is it more important than your peace. The answer will help.

3: Comparing yourself with others

The journey of life is so unique for everyone still we land comparing ourselves with the life of others only to feel unhappy.

Especially in today’s day and age of social media, the difference between real and reel life is blurred.

For example, your friend with a fun post on Instagram may be struggling with issues in life or you may be comparing the success of years of hard work by others with just a few months of your effort.

When you quit comparing yourself with others you feel more satisfied and focus on working on your goals.

A trick to deal with the habit of comparing yourself with other’s life is to count your blessing rather than thinking of the difficulties you have in life. This will make you feel more grateful for your life.

4: Caring about other’s opinion

Giving priority to other opinions rather than your wish and opinion is a bad habit that hampers your growth and happiness in life.

Caring about others’ well-being is an act of kindness but caring about the opinions of others is of no good to you. You will end up overthinking and whatever you do someone may be disappointed with your action or choice.

When you constantly care about others’ opinions you lose your individuality and become unhappy for not making choices that you liked but those that made others feel good.

So prioritize your choice and opinion rather than others.

5: Unhealthy lifestyle

Our happiness in life is not just linked with success and achievements but it is associated with our health and wellness. We often ignore basic things such as drinking water, eating a healthy breakfast, and sleeping well without realizing that this unhealthy lifestyle affects our health, productivity, and most importantly happiness. Studies have shown people with a healthy lifestyle are happier.

You should definitely consider quitting an unhealthy lifestyle and making simple changes to a better life. You will need to identify the unhealthy lifestyle that can be bad for you. It can be simply the habit of skipping breakfast or lunch every day, spending too much time over the phone, or not sleeping for enough hours. Just find one unhealthy habit at focus on breaking it rather than trying to change everything.

You would believe till you experience that breaking an unhealthy lifestyle habit brings a great change in your life.

6: Seeking validation from others

We all crave validation from others. It’s human nature to feel liked, loved, accepted, and appreciated. The habit of seeking validation from others is unintentional without realizing the negative effect it brings on your personality and well-being.

It is important to realize validation from others is often temporary and makes you a people pleaser. You start to lose your individuality and opinion and care more about if others would like your decision and choice. It also makes you dependent on others and impairs your decision-making ability in the long run of life.

Hence it is very important to quit the habit of seeking validation from others.

7: Dwelling on past

The next bad habit is something we are all guilty of and feel is uncontrollable, and that is to dwell in the past. It is easy to dwell in the past by thinking about things that happened a long time or reliving incidents of the past in our heads. Wondering what would have happened if you had made a different choice or what would have happened if you had reacted differently to a situation?

Truth be told, it does not bring any benefit but just distracts you from your present and goals and adds to the trouble. You might be reliving old hurts or old triumphs. Or you might be living in a time that never existed but a time that was just created in your own mind.

As Dumbledore said “It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live” ( Yup I am a huge Harry Potter fan)

A simple trick to deal with this is to identify anytime you are thinking of the past and to immediately distract your mind from something productive or at present. For example, I find myself wandering in the past while doing mundane tasks like cleaning so I listen to a podcast or audiobook while doing such tasks to keep my mind occupied and away from lurking in the past.

8: Skipping self-time

With a busy life and constant need to be productive and make the best of time, we seldom forget the importance of having self-time. Many think being productive is about working all the time whereas it is about making the best of the time. A few minutes of self-time each day helps to keep sanity and prevent burnout. However, we often feel guilty about taking breaks, and self-time is considered an optional privilege.

Breaking the bad habit of working all time and ignoring yourself is much needed for a happy life. You may find 5 step system to help you relax and unwind after a busy day helpful if you find trouble enjoying a me-time at the end of the day.

9: Always complaining

If you’re the type of person who always complains, chances are you’re not very happy. Complaining is a bad habit that can be very destructive to both yourself and those around you. It’s important to try to break this habit if you want to live a happier, more positive life.

Some simple ways to stop complaining are:

1. Be aware of your complaints. The first step to breaking any habit is to become aware of when you’re doing it. Start paying attention to how often you complain and what you’re complaining about.

2. Challenge your negative thoughts. When you catch yourself complaining, try to challenge the negative thoughts that are causing you to do so. Are they really true? Is there another way to look at the situation?

3. Find something positive to focus on

Anytime you find yourself complaining try to focus on the good and positive things around you. Being grateful will help you to stop complaining, you can also keep a gratitude journal, and read it in times you feel like complaining about life.

10: Expecting others to make you happy

A bad habit that leads to unhappiness and affects many relationships in your life is expecting others to make you happy. If you’re waiting for someone else to make you happy, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment. Happiness is an inside job. It starts with you. You’re the only one who can control your happiness.

Don’t get me wrong, other people can definitely contribute to your happiness, but they’re not responsible for it. If you’re relying on someone else to make you happy, you’re giving them a lot of power over your life.

It’s not fair to them, and it’s not healthy for you. So take responsibility for your own happiness. Make it a priority. Work on it every day. It’s worth it, I promise.

Some of the ways to stop expecting others to make you happy are by finding things that make you happy, it can be building a hobby or doing fun things that make you happy. Make a habit of spending me-time just with yourself it will help you be more intentional with your life and gradually build the habit of enjoying your own company.

Conclusion

So these are the 10 bad habits to break ASAP to improve your life. I am sure some of there we do not even realize doing, take your time, think, and reflect on yourself to find which bad habits you need to quit. It may not be easy to give up a bad habit but definitely worth the effort required to make your life happier and more meaningful.

Quitting even one of the bad habits shared in this post will bring a very positive change in your life and mindset. A good way to get rid of a bad habit is to swap a bad habit with a good habit. Here are 10 daily habits to improve your life that you can consider.

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