11 Toxic Habits You Need To Discard Right Now
Toxic habits are habits that pulls you down. Some habits will affect you in the long run, and some cause a lot of trauma.
We all go through different types of habits that we build, starting from childhood – like brushing our teeth is a habit, taking a bath is a daily habit, and even sleeping is a form of daily habit.
But there are a few toxic habits that we eventually pick up. These toxic habits can be either personal, related to others, or even influenced or inspired by someone else or something.
For example, movies can inspire us to drink more or smoke more or sometimes they give the impression that fighting is okay.
These habits sometimes get ingrained in our brain, which may not be good for us.The brain doesn’t understand what’s good and what’s bad. We tell the brain.
There are times when a habit becomes so subconsciously neutral. For example, the brain thinks it’s fine to smoke, it’s fine to do that bad habit again and again.
There are some habits where you know by research that this habit is bad fo you, yet you continue to do it, only because you are conditioned to do that thing again and again.
Some habits are also influenced by situations that come into our life.
1. Overthinking Everything
Life is meant to be lived, not overthought or overanalyzed. There are a few things you will learn from life no matter how much you overthink.
There are life lessons that show you a different side of the life. In the first 20 years, your definition of life will be completely different from that of next 20 years. Your definition of life keeps changing drastically every 5 years.
So, why overthink everything that you know is going to change anyway!
2. Seeking Everyone’s Approval
There will be times in life when you try to seek everyone’s approval—be it family, friends, or people around you—but trust me, when it comes to big decisions in life, if you’re seeking their approval, that is not going to help you in a good way. Because the repercussions of those decisions will completely depend on your way of handling things anyway.
There are times when your ideas or your business plans may not make sense to others because they have a different set of thinking and thought processes, but for you, it might make sense based on your own life situations.
You have countless examples like Steve Jobs, who went out of the way, thought out of the box, and created something revolutionary in this world. To create something revolutionary and out of this world, you have to stop seeking everyone’s approval.
3. Procrastinating on Purpose
People think that procrastination is fine. You can procrastinate and not do anything—but there’s a difference between taking a break from work, your job, or a business vs procrastination.
Procrastination can simply be you saying, “Why should I do that?”, don’t want to do it”.
You try to avoid things that will actually make a lot of difference. Procrastination is like delaying efforts that you are bound to put in.
If you’re supposed to apply for jobs and you’re procrastinating, the work isn’t going to go anywhere. It will always be there. 1 week from now, 1 month from now. The choice is yours.
4. Comparing Yourself to Others
Comparison is fine until school, where you are heavily competitive. There’s a difference between healthy competition and comparing ourselves to others. Initially, you might find competition very healthy, but as soon as you age, there are different aspects and factors that come into play for everyone’s life.
Some might have a good financial situation; some might not. You might have a good backup.
In that case, don’t compare your situation with someone else who has a different set of factors and a different set of struggles. Life is uneven for all.
Always compare yourself with your past self.
If I say today I did 10 push-ups, did I do 15 push-ups the next week or the next day? If I compare myself to a regular gym-goer who does 20 push-ups, that is obviously going to demotivate me, and it may spiral into depression or negative thoughts.
So instead, compare yourself today with your yesterday and see if you have made any progress. Track those habits on an app like Accompli.
5. Holding Grudges
Holding grudges against someone or something is obviously sticking to that thing or that person forever. If you hold grudges and you don’t let them go, it’s always going to eat up and take your mind space.
This mindspace can be used productively to create wonders in life.
So why not free yourself from those grudges and start fresh? Make sure that you’re focusing on yourself, and whatever happened, happened for good.
Let that fact sink in and just move on.
6. Neglecting Self-Care
Of course, there will be times when you need to care about your family, friends, or your partner, but highest ROI you will get is from working on yourself.
This includes taking care of yourself – your physical health, your mental health, your emotional health—and making sure that you have things to do in all these aspects.
For mental health, you can meditate.
For physical health, you can work out or even walk 10,000 steps a day.
For emotional health, just do whatever you like as a side hustle.
So, let’s say you’re in a job—start a side hustle and do what you’re passionate about. That will take care of your emotional health as well. One of the most toxic habit people regret.
7. Obsessing Over the Past
There’s no point in obsessing over the past because it cannot be changed. You are in present now, and the future is ahead.
So just forget about the past because you cannot change it. You can only work on your present and try to change the future that is coming up.
If you only stay in your past and don’t work on your present, then the future is going to be the same.
For 30 days, you’ll think about the past; for 60 days, you’ll think about the past.
And if you don’t change anything in your present, you’ll think about the past for the next 60 days as well.
That is not going to yield anything because no matter how much you overthink your past, it’s not going to change.
Any action you do in the present related to your past will not help the past to change.
8. Saying Yes to Everything
Life will present you with multiple opportunities, multiple times and at multiple ages. It is up to you to take the right opportunity because people don’t get success by working on multiple opportunities—they get success by working on a single opportunity that makes it big.
So in the initial years, in your early 20s, start finding multiple opportunities and start researching them.
But once you know what you like and what can potentially be a big success, then focus on that single opportunity—be it a job, business, startup, or anything in life.
9. Surrounding Yourself with Negativity
Surroundings matter a lot—your friends, family, your partner. If someone is negative about life and the future, it will obviously pass to you.
Even if things are working out for your own good.
If you’re earning well, if you’re fit, if you have a good set of friends – even though you have it all, some negative people, because of their negative situations, will try to pull you down or showcase what you don’t have.
Cut out the negative people or surroundings. Surround yourself with positive and ambitious people. This toxic has highest impact on your mental health.
10. Chasing Perfection
This is the most toxic thing. Waiting for perfection to come to you is a myth.
No one started perfect. They moved up the ladder while being imperfect when no one was watching.
Start with whatever you have knowledge of and then working toward it—start, refine, and get to perfection.
You have seen multiple businesses fail even though they were “perfect”.
No business plan is perfect. No business is perfect. People are just good at portraying situations or things as perfect.
11. Ignoring Your Goals
Everyone has goals—even you have them. If you look deeply inside, you will find all these small things you can improve on, whether it’s your health or your wealth.
If not both, you can obviously find new things to create and add to this world through your art or creativity. So everyone has goals, but they just procrastinate and don’t want to work on them.
Ignoring your goals has the highest regret, as per studies. If you ignore your goals, you’ll obviously regret it.
The zeal and energy you have in your early 20s to achieve your personal goals will be much higher than in your late 20s or even early 30s. You know that your time is running out, and in order to be successful, you’ll have to work on your goals NOW.
Trust me, I’m in my late 20s, and the energy I have—after whatever situations life has put me through—is much less, and my willingness to work on my goals has reduced.
So focus on pursuing those goals as much as you can when you have the right zeal and enthusiasm for it.
Life will throw curveballs at you at any point in time. It’s better to start focusing on your goals before life throws you into crazy situations where you become weak emotionally, mentally, and even physically.
So these were some toxic habits that you must get rid off in life. What has your experience been so far?
