A change in bad habits leads to a good change in life…
Here are twenty bad habits many of us repeatedly struggle with:
- Expecting life to be easy. – Nothing starts easy; everything begins at some level of difficulty. Even waking up in the morning sometimes requires notable effort. But one beautiful thing about life is the fact that the most difficult challenges are often the most rewarding and satisfying.
- Overlooking your true path and purpose. – What really matters in life is not what we buy, but what we build; not what we have, but what we share with the world; not our capability but our character; and not our success but our true significance. Live a life that makes you proud – one that matters and makes a difference. Live a life filled with passion and love. Read A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose.
- Chasing after those who don’t want to be caught. – Do not chase people. Be you, do your own thing and work hard on your passions. The right people who belong in your life will eventually come to you, and stay.
- Not asking for help when you know you need it. – No matter how far you’ve gone down the wrong road, you can always turn back. Be STRONG enough to stand alone, SMART enough to know when you need help, and BRAVE enough to ask for it.
- Letting one dark cloud cover the entire sky. – Take a deep breath. It’s just a bad moment, or a bad day, not a bad life. Everyone has troubles. Everyone makes mistakes. The secret of happiness is to count your blessings while others are adding up their troubles.
- Holding on to things you need to let go of. – Letting go doesn’t mean giving up, but rather accepting that there are things in life that should not be. Sometimes letting go is what makes us stronger, happier and more successful in the long run.
- Spending time with people who make you unhappy. – People can be cruel, and sometimes they will be. People can hurt you and break your heart, and sometimes they will. But only YOU can allow them to continuously hurt you. Value yourself enough to choose to spend time with people who treat you the way you treat them. Know your worth. Know when you have had enough. And move on from the people who keep chipping away at your happiness.
- Not making time for those who matter most. – When we take things for granted, these things eventually get taken away. Too often we don’t realize what we have until it’s gone. Too often we are too stubborn to say, “I’m sorry, I was wrong.” Too often it seems we hurt the ones closest to us by letting insignificant issues tear us apart. Appreciate what you have, who loves you and who cares for you. You’ll never know how much they mean to you until the day they are no longer beside you.
- Denying personal responsibility. – You’re getting almost everything you’re getting right now based on the decisions you have made; and you will continue to receive the same things until you choose differently. You always have some element of control. There are always other options. The choices might not be easy, but they are available. You will not get a different result until you exercise a choice that forces you to grow by habit, by action, and by change.
- Letting everyone else make decisions for you. – Never allow someone or something that adds very little to your life, control so much of it. You’ve got to stop caring about what everyone else wants for you, and start actually living for yourself. Let go of the people and things that continuously hold you back and no longer serve you, because you only get one shot at life.
- Giving up who YOU are. – Remove yourself from any situation that requires you to give up any one of these three things: 1) Who you are. 2) What you stand for. 3) The goals you aspire to achieve. Read Quitter.
- Quitting as soon as things get slightly difficult. – An arrow can only be shot by pulling it backward; and such is life. When life is pulling you back with difficulties, it means it’s going to eventually launch you forward in a positive direction. So keep focusing, and keep aiming!
- Doing too much and pushing too hard, without pausing. – Plenty of people miss their share of happiness, not because they never find it, but because they never stop long enough to enjoy it. Sometimes we are so focused on what we want that we miss the things we need most.
- Discrediting yourself for everything you aren’t. – STOP discrediting yourself for everything you aren’t. START giving yourself credit for everything that you are.
- Running from current problems and fears. – Trust me, if everyone threw their problems in a pile for you to see, you would grab yours back. Tackle your problems and fears swiftly, don’t run away from them. The best solution is to face them head on no matter how powerful they may seem. Either you own your problems and fears, or they will ultimately own you.
- Constantly mulling over past hardships. – You’ll never see the great things ahead of you if you keep looking at the bad things behind you. To reach up for the new, you must let go of the old. You are exactly where you need to be to reach your goals. Everything you’ve been through was preparation for where you are right now and where you can be tomorrow.
- Denying your mistakes. – Remember that most honorable people of all are not those who never make mistakes, but those who admit to them when they do. And then go on to do their best to make the wrong things right.
- Expecting your significant other to be perfect. – Remember that you will never find a PERFECT partner to love you in the exact way you had envisioned, only a person who is willing to love you with all that they are. Someone who will accept you for who you can and cannot be. And although they will never be PERFECT, finding a partner like this is even BETTER. Read The Mastery of Love.
- Focusing on the negative. – Positive thinking isn’t about expecting the best thing to happen every time, it’s about accepting that whatever happens is good for this moment, and then making the best of it. So stay positive, and hold on to what’s truly important. Let your worries go. No matter how you look at it, some outcomes just don’t make sense right away. Choosing to carry on with your goals through this uncertainty is what matters.
- Never allowing things to be good enough. – We are human. We are not perfect. We are alive. We try things. We make mistakes. We stumble. We fall. We get hurt. We rise again. We try again. We keep learning. We keep growing. And we are thankful for this priceless opportunity called life.
Photo by: Luigi Caterino
